Coolmain Castle, once Disney family retreat, hits the market in West Cork at over €7.5m

This fairytale estate, owned by the Disney family since 1989, includes 56 acres and stunning coastal views

Coolmain Castle has been used as an Irish hideaway home by generations of the Disney family after Roy E Disney (nephew of Walt) purchased it from US Hollywood ‘silver screen’ photographer Bob Willoughby 36 years ago.

The chance to buy a real Disney castle and 56 acres of Disney land thrown in has just come to the international property market in coastal West Cork.

It’s yours for a far from Mickey Mouse sum, as it’s expected to fetch over €7.5m. Make a wish upon a star?

Disney castles are global cultural icons, with the first of six varied fantasy ones around the world built in California in 1955. Here’s a seventh – Coolmain Castle – one that was built far, far earlier, and is a dwarf by comparison.

It dates back to the late 1700s, on a golden stretch west of Irish property hotspot Kinsale on the Wild Atlantic Way to West Cork, and has been in private Disney family hands since 1989, with local sources saying “it was their Shangri-La.” 

Set beside the sea at Courtmacsherry Bay, Coolmain Castle evolved from a Georgian-era country home, with a turreted tower built as an ocean lookout in the 1800s as an imaginative add-on worthy of any Disney fantasy.

Coolmain has enormous allure with up to nine bedrooms, tennis pavilion, lily pond, walled garden, courtyard with staff/guest house and stables, seaside setting and cove access.

Coolmain Castle has been used as an Irish hideaway home by generations of the Disney family after Roy E. Disney (nephew of Walt) purchased it from US Hollywood ‘silver screen’ photographer Bob Willoughby 36 years ago.

No expense was spared in 1990s upgrades (Roy Disney died in 2009, with Forbes estimating his wealth at €1.2bn), adding the odd touch of Disney sparkle – such as a spiral staircase hidden behind a fake ‘bookcase’ door leading up to the stone watchtower.

Here, on high, there are views to charm any princesses and princes of property – or ‘Donald Duckers’ fleeing the current mayhem in the US and looking to put funds into land, stone, and a sleeping beauty.

Even without the sheen of the Disney name, Coolmain Castle has enormous allure: an immaculate home, ‘manageable’ with up to nine bedrooms, a tennis pavilion, lily pond, walled garden, courtyard with staff/guest house and stables, seaside setting, and cove access.

It’s within a short drive of Kinsale, Clonakilty, Cork city and airport – and a five-minute helicopter hop to the Old Head of Kinsale, if a 2025 US Augusta Masters winner wants to take a shot at it.

Roy Disney, nephew of Walt Disney, pictured here in Crosshaven on board his 86 foot maxi yacht Pyewacket, died in 2009 with Forbes estimating his wealth at €1.2bn.  Picture Denis Minihane.

On the back of recent high-end sales and a spate of circa €5m purchases around Kinsale and West Cork, selling agents Andy Donoghue of West Cork’s Hodnett Forde, and David Ashmore of Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty, expect very wide international interest. They don’t rule out an Irish buyer either, given Cork’s track record in castle sales and celebrity owners.

With suitably animated bidding, the Disney family’s Munster holiday home may well set a Cork property price record – but is unlikely to reach the dizzying heights of the €30m paid by billionaire James Dyson for the Ballynatray Estate, with period Blackwater River house and 800 acres on the Cork border in Waterford. James Dyson’s private jet was in Cork Airport this week… hmm?

Exclusive tour report and images of Coolmain Castle in the Irish Examiner Property & Home.