October auction date for 235-acre Kilkenny farm

Good quality land comes with farmhouse and outbuildings

The 235-acre farm near Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, is divided by a road and is being offered in two lots of different sizes.

The October auction date won’t be too long coming around for a much-anticipated 235-acre farm, located 2km outside Thomastown in Co Kilkenny.

The large holding has a lot going for it and the interest is already growing, according to the selling agent, Castlecomer-based Joseph Coogan.

“It’s in one unit, with 211.5 acres on one side of the road and the balance on the opposite side of the road.”

This natural division means the property is being offered in two lots of very different sizes and it will be interesting to see whether the farm sells as one unit or as two.

“The reaction so far has been very good,” Mr Coogan said. “It’s because of a mixture of the quality and the quantity involved in this holding. That size of farm doesn’t come up often and it would make a great stud farm, for example, or definitely a dairy farm. It’s slightly elevated too, which is good for land drainage.”

There is a house and a collection of farm buildings coming with the farm — all of which are centrally located and of usable quality, although in need of improvement.

“The house is overlooking the land,” Mr Coogan said. “If you look out of the windows upstairs, you’re looking out across your farm — something you don’t get too often, especially with more modern holdings.”

Apart from the majority of the land which is in grass, there are just over 30 acres under plantation, with a mixture of sitka spruce (mainly), hybrid larch and other broadleaf species.

“It’s a mature plantation and there aren’t any premiums on it but from there down, it’s a very good farm,” said Mr Coogan.

“The residence is a fine, traditional two-storey dwelling. From the experience of doing up these kinds of houses myself, it would require a few windows to be broken out in a few places to allow in more natural light, and if you moved the kitchen to the other side of the house, you’d be overlooking Thomastown and the lane coming up to the house from the public road.

I think that if you were to spend around €150,000 on the house in bringing it back to its original glory, you’d have superb result — the potential is there.

“Forty-five to 50 years ago, that would have been a very modern farmyard. There’s a two-span slatted unit on it, three round-roof sheds and various other agricultural buildings. If somebody looking to going into dairying bought this farm for between €10,000 and €15,000 per acre, you’d have a lovely fine property moving forward. It would probably service 200 cows.”

The location is another attraction, with Thomastown being so close to the farm on the main Graiguenamanagh road. Kilkenny City is 15km away and the nearest junction to the M9 is 20km to the north.

With a price expectation of between €10,000 and €15,000/acre, there should be a strong turnout for the auction at 3pm on Friday October 21 at the Auction Room, Ballycomey House, Castlecomer.