Norton to set up camp in €1.6m west Cork mansion

COMIC TV presenter Graham Norton is giving himself a €1.6 million Christmas present — a period seaside pile in his native West Cork.

The Channel Four funny man can make a joke out of anything, but has proven to be deadly serious when it comes to property.

Norton is in the process of acquiring Ahakista House, on the shores of Dunmanus Bay close to the site of the 1985 Air India disaster memorial.

The Georgian house is on five acres of grounds, with a private beach, has five bedrooms plus a self-contained guest apartment and there's a unique public house made of corrugated iron almost on the doorstep if he or his friends want to sneak out for a pint.

There's also a long-established Japanese restaurant close-by if he gets a sushi craving.

As the man who made camp fashionable once more, Graham Norton has become hugely wealthy through his Channel Four contracts.

His US exposure adds to his multi-million euro annual income (he turned down a 7 million deal to switch to the BBC a while ago).

Norton has a nose for property: he paid €3 million last year for a three-tiered Manhattan townhouse, bought a South African sea-front apartment at Camps Bay in Cape Town, and also wheels and deals in Britain.

He is quoted as saying: "There's no point in buying stocks and shares, you can't show them off, so I've been buying homes."

He bought a Cork city apartment three years ago, never moved in or even spent a night, and is currently selling it for €350,000 netting him €100,000 or so in profit.

A native of Bandon in West Cork, his latest acquisition will be about an hour's drive from his mother Rhoda Walker's home and can be reached from London in hours.

He and his mother visited Ahakista House together, Norton has had it surveyed and sources say legal contracts may be concluded on the purchase shortly.

Selling agent Charles McCarthy in Skibbereen declined to comment on the sale, which has been the source of recent local speculation.