Estate on the Blackwater upriver from James Dyson goes on sale for €12m

At just a fraction of the €35m sum Dyson paid for the river-fronting Ballynatray Estate near Youghal earlier this year, Fortwilliam Estate has just been listed for sale.

The period home and guest cottages on 390 acres with salmon fishery near Lismore is one of the top River Blackwater estates on a stretch of the 100-mile long river, with grandeur bookmarked by Michael Flatley above Fermoy at Castlehyde, and closer to the sea on the Cork-Waterford border now by James Dyson’s Ballynatray.

Dyson, whose wealth is put at over €20bn and who owns over 35,000 acres in Britain, France and now Ireland, is already doing major upgrade works on Munster’s 850 acre Ballynatray Estate: his off-market purchase is recorded at €29m on the Price Register, and put at €35m to as much as €40m when the full amount of land is added in.

Locals report skilled work and professional crews (all sworn to secrecy via non-disclosure agreements) driving in and out, as well as frequent weekend helicopter visits by Ballynatray’s mega-wealthy owners. 

Their purchase is Ireland’s largest-ever residential property purchase; it’s unclear if it is for the current scions of the Dyson fortune, entrepreneurial inventor Sir James Dyson and his wife Deirdre, or for the next generation in the family, with three adult offspring, two sons and a daughter.

That huge deal has the virtue of making the asking price on the upriver Fortwilliam Estate look cheap.

Fortwilliam’s 10,000 sq ft, dated to the 1830s, was designed by architects, the Pain brothers, who did Ashford and Dromoland castles.

It also comes with four guest cottages; excellent land; woodland walks; and, 2.5 miles of valuable, double-bank salmon fishing. 

It’s offered in two lots, totalling €12m, by joint agents Knight Frank, and Munster specialist Michel H Daniels, who sold the estate to its current family owners, originally from Wales, and with a knight of the British realm in the family background, back in 2012 for between €7m and €8m.

Fortwilliam is just upriver of Lismore Castle, owned by the Duke of Devonshire, who also owns England’s Chatsworth House and 30,000 acres in England.

By coincidence, or by design, the Fortwiliam Estate gets launched the very day when Lismore’s Blackwater Valley Opera Festival has an 8pm performance titled “Of Emperors, Kings and Queens.” 

As attendees sing the praises of Lismore’s Tudor revival-style Fortwilliam, they may also now add “Tycoons” to the title.