Prayers answered in sale of site on Model Farm Road

THE purchaser of a 4.6 acre house development site next to Hilton on the Model Farm Road in Cork city’s suburbs has been confirmed as up-and-coming Munster builder Donal Relihan, of DNR Homes.

While confirming the purchaser’s identity of the land sold by the Church of Ireland’s Carrigrohane parish, agents Peter O’Meara and James O’Donovan of Savills Cork declined to comment on the exact selling price, which is understood to have been around €3.5 million. The land had discretely gone to market in the summer at a guide of €2.8/2.9m.

News of a low-profile sale emerged last month, when the Church of Ireland’s Canon Ian Jonas confirmed they had acquired a former military building, the Gun Store, at the Gunpowder Mills in Ballincollig, as a church and parish centre, for about €1.2m after an Allsops/Bid IX auction offer and which will be converted to more pacifist uses over the next year, as a result of the church’s land sale windfall.