Coolmore estate is a cool place to live

THERE are contradictory, pre- and end-of Celtic era touches to Kilkenny’s Coolmore estate, on 242 acres.

The period home, by the River Nore, has a fantasy sculpture garden, like a cross between a pre-Celts Newgrange and Stonehenge, with its rock outcrops and standing stones in its grounds. Then, close-by, is another large, circular, also heavenly-oriented outline — a paved helicopter pad, created from tens of thousands of slender, brick paviors, a silent swirling symbol of the deceased Celtic Tiger era.

It is just one of the ironies prompted by the knowledge that the period estate is only up for sale as its owner, developer and philanthropist, Niall Mellon, is financially straitened, with his property development book in NAMA. His Niall Mellon Township Trust has built tens of thousands of houses for South Africa’s most destitute, with a further 750 Irish volunteers out building there right now.