Pop icon hoped to find suitable Irish bolthole

MICHAEL JACKSON toured around Cork as late as 2007 hoping to find an idyllic hideaway where his children could have as normal an upbringing as possible.

For two weekends the ‘King of Pop’ and his children visited a host of the county’s top premises hoping to find a suitable bolthole. They did so with the help of local auctioneer Dominic Daly.

“I met him by appointment – it was quite low-key and we showed him a few specific properties (in Co Cork). He wanted properties where he would have total privacy. The price range was fairly open-ended because at that time he was being backed by a sheikh from Bahrain. He was with me for two weekends.

“The first shock I got was that when I met him he put his hand out and shook my hand.

“I had been told before that he did not like touching people. He had a good strong handshake. It was not limp or anything. He said to the children ‘this is Dominic, say hello to him, he is a nice man’.

While Mr Daly admitted they toured a few castles, he could not be specific. “I still have to go down the road of confidentiality,” he said.

What he would admit was that the bizarre entourage stopped into a small pub where he bought Jackson a pint of Murphys. While the pop star sipped the pint and asked about the difference between it and Guinness, he did not finish the whole drink.

During his time in Cork in 2007, Jackson and his family spent two weeks at the Ballinacurra House in Kinsale.

Owner Des McGahan talked of how the pop star’s management demanded that almost all the staff be sent away for the duration of his stay and how they had to transform a ballroom into a temporary schooling room for the children.

At one point his asked Mr McGahan’s wife Lisa, who was having to cook for the entourage as the cook was one of those sent away, to get shirts and blue ties for the children for their schooling.

“He liked it here and he liked the discretion and privacy we offered him and ended up staying two weeks with us,” Mr McGahan told local radio. “I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. We respected his wishes. There was also indications from his manager that if this got out there could be some litigation in store.

“We did manage to keep it under wraps.”

Jackson also told an Irish friend he wanted to be happy like him when he was older.

Jackson befriended veteran puppeteer Eugene Lambert after playing a concert in Dublin in 1992 and visited him again during his recent stays in the country.

The two immediately clicked when 81-year-old Lambert said his late son trained with Jackson’s hero, the French mime artist Marcel Marceau.

After spending hours talking to each other about children’s books at Lambert’s home overlooking Dublin Bay, the star telephoned later that night to thank him.

“He said he hoped he’d be as happy at his work when he reaches my age,” said Lambert, who was 64 at the time. “I thought of that when I heard of his death.”

“I found him a charming man, a really lovely person. I know the stories and all that behind him but I didn’t find him like that.”

The star visited again on his birthday in August 2007, with his three children. They were staying in a castle at the Luggala estate in Co Wicklow, owned by Guinness heir Garech Browne, at the time.