Blackwater angling estate upriver of James Dyson's €35m Ballynatray a catch at just €12m
The Fortwilliam Estate in Waterford's Lismore is on 390 acres with 2.5 miles of double bank salmon angling on the Blackwater. Agents Michael H Daniels and Knight Franak guide at €12 million
A PRIME Munster River Blackwater sporting and salmon fishing property, the Fortwilliam Estate near Lismore on almost 400 acres has come for sale for €12 million.
At the guide, it's just a fraction of the €35-€40 million paid by one of Britain’s richest men, inventor and multi-billionaire James Dyson, who bought the Ballynatray Estate near Youghal on a larger 850 acres earlier this year.
The Fortwilliam Estate comprises a 1836 period home of over 10,000 sq ft, with four cottages, parkland, four kms of walks, 2.5 miles of double bank fishing rights, and top land, suitable for a stud farm, tillage or other agricultural uses.
Used by its family owners as a fishing and accommodation business plus farm, Fortwilliam is offered this week in two lots, totalling €12m via agents Michael H Daniels and Knight Frank.
With the current allure on the Blackwater, it will have an international appeal and cachet, as well as to the likes of home-grown billionaires and major stud farm owners, with an unseemly legal row continuing on the c €22.5m sale of Co Tipperary’s Barne Estate on 750 acre.
Might this be a suitable, substantial substitute to swoop on?
Meanwhile, on more melodic dramatic stakes, the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival brings an elite audience to Lismore two miles downriver of the Fortwilliam Estatee, with tonight’s 8pm performance aptly titled ‘Of Emperors, Kings and Queen,’ with the festival based in and around the Duke of Devonshire’s Lismore Castle.
Fortwilliam’s private family owner is of Welsh origin, whose own knighted father was an industrialist and brewery owner, while downriver Ballynatray’s new owner James Dyson is said to own more land than King Charles, at some 35,000 acres across vast estates in the UK, France and, now, Ireland.
Said to be worth up to €20bn, Ballynatray’s new master James Dyson has already started considerable additional works on his costly Irish Blackwater buy: it’s the country’s largest private residential purchase ever (bar Sean Dunne’s D4 Walford purchase at €58m in 2005 for redevelopment), as exclusively reported by the Irish Examiner earlier this year.
Local sources say helicopter visits by the Dysons at weekends are frequent and that work crews are in and out – with all contractors and professional crews subject to non-disclosure agreements - as the period estate on the Waterford-Cork border gets a 21st century upgrade.
One local speculation is that it was bought for one of Dyson’s adult children: he and his wife Deirdre have two sons and a daughter.
Other well-known River Blackwater property owners along the 105 mile long river noted for salmon angling include entertainer Michael Flatley at Castlehyde, which he has tried to sell for up to €30 million, and the Forte family of hotel renown.
Now, the chance to buy into an uber-elite stretch of gilded river banks, with ghillie fishing at the Blackwater’s 19th century Fortwilliam with equally gilded interiors at €120 for two persons for two hours angling, has come to the open market.
The Fortwilliam Estate last sold for €7-8 million in 2012 to the current owners, in a deal done by 2024’s joint agent Michael H Daniels, and he says apart from its salmon fishery appeal that “it's very possible that it would appeal as a stud farm, as it's a large tranche of top quality limestone grass land which is equally suited for tillage crops, and straw.”
With Knight Frank in London and KF’s Guy Craigie in Dublin, Mr Daniels guides the Fortwilliam Estate on 289 acres at €10m (Lot 1), with a further €2m for an additional 101 acres (Lot 2), or c €20k an acre for good farmland.
Mr Daniels sold the Kerry fishery the Owenmore under the Connor Pass to the State within in the past year, for c €2m to form part of a new National Park, and also sold Cork Harbour’s water-fronting Cuskinny Estate in lots, for a total of c €4m.
The riverside 1830s home at Fortwilliam near Glencairn Lismore was designed by the Pain Brothers, responsible for Adare Castle (now owned by JP McManus), Dromoland Castle and Strancally, also on the Blackwater River, and previous owners include the Gumbletons who commissioned its design, British MP Henry Drummond Wolfe, and US socialite Mrs Murray Mitchell who ran a donkey sanctuary on the lands.
Coincidentally the current owners have ponies grazing at Fortwilliam from the My Lovely Horse Rescue Charity: might they soon be rubbing flanks with thoroughbreds?
DETAILS: michaelhdaniels.com. knightfrank.com
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