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FINE GAEL DEPUTY leader James Reilly is selling his huge palatial country pile for €2.75 million.
Reilly and his wife Dorothy, a former RTÉ makeup artist, have owned the mansion, built in 1777, since 2001. The couple sleep in “the King’s Bed’, a royal sleigh bed carved out of oak for for King George IV’s visit to Ireland in 1821.
When he bought the property in 2001, Reilly said, in an interview with The Irish Times:
I jumped into the bed, punched the air and said ‘Feck you, Your Majesty; Paddy is back’.
Back then, Reilly was a north Dublin GP then, and has since ascended to, and descended from, the Cabinet table as Minister for Health.
He is now a Senator, having been handpicked by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to take a seat in the Seanad after losing his Dublin Fingal seat earlier this year.
He remains Fine Gael deputy leader, despite Frances Fitzgerald acting as Tánaiste – a fact that has caused tensions within the party.
Thirteen bedrooms
On the market for over a year now, Loughton House is described by the estate agents as:
One of Ireland’s finest historic Georgian residences and gardens in a wonderful countryside setting surrounded by excellent quality rolling parkland, arable land, spectacular woodland and streams.
The whole lot comprises 157 acres, and buyers can choose between buying the whole lot, or just buying the house and 87 acres.
The four-storey house has 13 bedrooms, and comes complete with a tea room, drawing room, library, dining room, sitting room, ‘stone rooms’, two pantries, a staff hall, a games room, a wine cellar, laundry rooms, two dressing rooms and “various store rooms”.
Norman castle
The 15,000 square-foot house sits on 82 acres outside the village of Moneygall in Co Offaly, one of many places counted as an ancestral homeland by Barack Obama.
It also comes with three lodges, seven stables, tennis courts, an orchard, coach houses and the ruins of a Norman castle.
The estate is for sale by private treaty through estate agents Ganly Walters, with an asking price of €2.75 million for the house and lands.
Buyers can also bid for the house with 87 acres, or a separate lot of 70 acres.
Vinegar Hill
Loughton House was built in 1777. Former owners included the 1st Baron Bloomfield, who helped to fight the Irish rebels at Vinegar Hill during the 1798 United Irishman rebellion.
His son, the second Lord Bloomfield, also owned the property and served as a British ambassador to Russia in the 19th century.
In the hallway, a wooden oak trunk – now used for logs – is stencilled with the name of “Lieut Col J.W. Atkinson, Royal King’s County Regiment”.
Anger management
Reilly said that he has undertaken restoration work at weekends, including shovelling “tons of earth from the basement” and planting 8,000 trees.
The Senator says he has also converted an old coach house into a reception room capable of hosting 100 people. He also said he will miss chopping logs, which he describes as useful for “anger management”.
There is an airstrip on the estate, built by the previous owner a retired British army major named Guy Atkinson. A vine on the estate is still producing grapes 150 years after being gifted by Britain’s Queen-Empress Victoria to the second Lord Bloomfield as a wedding present.
Fifteen years ago, Reilly and his wife bought some of the contents – assembled by previous owners over 200 years – and have since added to the collection.
Letters on display in the library include one from Rudyard Kipling dated 1 August 1916.
Sheppard’s Irish Auction House will auction art, antiques, antiquarian books and collectibles from Loughton House in an on-site auction in September.
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Ah Journal, why would you go trying to wind people up on a sunny Friday afternoon?
They forgot to say it’s next door to the Obama plaza. Handy for a burger.
I think Shane Ross should firmly put the Hickey family “back in their box”
Comment of the week !!!
I don’t get it.
No sympathy for them. Just a shame another country has to sort it out for us
Nice to see how our rulers live
Yes..its vital that our “elites” live in the comfort and style that they warrant and deserve….this is a meritocracy after all.
Little bit of jealousy there, Gunnarsahn?
I’m saving up for a one pantry bed sit in Cabra
I note that he bought the property while he was a GP, not a politician. Does that make a difference?
A bumbling buffoon….yet extraordinarily wealthy…Edna Kenny owes him for something.
It’s next door to the Obama plaza. Handy for a burger for the new owners.
maybe its obama plaza to which james reilly owes his portly figure
i figured he would have to be seeing 40 patients a day for over 10 years exclusively for this gaff… what a trooper! what sacrifice, and just for a summer house.
Only an Irish GP could afford such a second property. And people wonder why our health service is broken. GP’s in the NHS are paid a realistic wage without putting undue strain on the health service.
For non medics wondering why the HSE will never improve – ask yourself why would a Turkey vote for Christmas. And this greedy bearded Turkey had the reigns of the system for sometime.
Not entirely but that and his extortionate nursing home fees didn’t hurt
Oh now Pat Hickey’s family are demanding Ministers time and attention. He was pretty rude and dismissive of them all through his career because they couldn’t do anything for him
Yeah…id say he would only love to be able to answer all those calls about tickets that he ignored now……
Pat Hickeys family weren’t too concerned for his health when he was 5starring it all the way to Rio…
7k for his flight to Rio i heard….
King James a friend of the rich and couldn’t give a fiddlers about the rest
Think he knows the property tax will be taking a serious hike soon so better get rid of it quick
Can’t afford it on a senator’s meager wage?
Nice place wrong location!
Are you just trying to annoy readers by posting this?
He looks like a fella more suited to that Norman castle!
Just wondering after looking at the wailing headlines about Padraight Bocht (Hickey) are the journal going to start a campaign called ” Bring Back Pat” , when that has been achieved no doubt Tubridy and D’arcy can fight for the pleasure of having this esteemed gentleman on their show. The Journal has not much luck bringing the supporter of The Muslim Brotherhood one Halawi Back to the bosom of his family. Maybe they will have better luck with Pat
Looks good value for €2.75 million.
I’d be down to the planning office straight away.
Where did he get the money to buy a place like that??
He is owner of four homes, including a stately 13-bedroom mansion with its own disused airstrip, two farms, a shopping centre, two medical practices, various parcels of land and a collection of classic cars.
Mr Reilly made his money as a medical entrepreneur who ran two GP practices in north Dublin, and as landlord of the Lusk Town Centre and various other properties.
He gets tax relief on his country pile.
James is doing OK.
Does he aspire toward aristocracy or just obscene wealth? And now hes a washed up politician with an eminently forgettable track record….
Has Dr Reilly’s name been removed from Stubbs Gazette yet?
This article is over one year old and may explain why he & his wife are putting up Laughton House for sale:-
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/james-reillys-nursing-home-debts-are-cleared-31369848.html
Great value chain notated to what you would get in Dublin for that, could make a great hotel / wedding venue
Looks outstanding value for that asking price. The land alone must be worth serious money.
The usual jealous clowns make clownish comments.
clown bingo!
I thought the ira burned all those stately homes. jerry where are you?
Who is jerry. Patrick.
Huge _and_ palatial, that’s better, right?
have your say