When you’ve become a billionaire, the least you can do is look after your parents. Denis and Lily Collison, the father and mother of Stripe founders John (33) and Patrick (35) Collison, recently changed their address on company documents to a smartly refurbished house on Ailesbury Road. The brothers bought the house, renovated by developer Conor Rhatigan, several years ago, through a Delaware-based company, Fair City LLC. Although it has yet to be listed on the Property Price Register, it previously sold following its refurbishment in 2020 for €3.5 million.
Denis and Lily Collison have also been helping out their sons. They are both directors of Abbeyleix House and Farm Ltd, their son John’s stately manor in Co Laois, which is undergoing a large restoration. It’s all a long way from rural Dromineer, Co Tipperary, where the family famously had to install a satellite link to pick up decent broadband to access the internet.
Controversial sale of Dublin 8 block completed
Another multimillion sale appeared on the Property Price Register last week but the transaction was considerably more protracted. The sale of Tathony House, a redbrick block of 34 flats in Dublin 8, was bitterly opposed by its residents, leading to protests and complaints to the Residential Tenancies Board. At one such hearing, evidence on behalf of the building’s owner, Ronan McDonnell, suggested that a sale of the building with its tenants in situ could yield about €4 million but, with the residents gone, the vacant site could sell for €6 million on the open market.
The estimate proved to be accurate. The last tenants moved out in June, with the vacant building selling for €5,695,000, according to the Property Price Register. Dublin City Council, which reportedly made offers to buy the property when the tenants were still in place, said this weekend it had not bought the property.
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Caitríona Balfe’s outlandish earnings
The success of actress Caitríona Balfe has gone a little under the radar compared with some of her Irish acting contemporaries. But her part in fantasy time-travel series Outlander, which has been running for almost a decade, has earned her a tidy fortune, according to recently filed accounts for the Monaghan-born actor’s main company. Balfe’s London-based firm, Byron Benirras Ltd, recorded retained profits of €9.77 million at the end of last year. The former model also has an interest in a gin company, Forget Me Not, and an investment property worth more than €2 million.
Brittas Bay mobile homes going for eye-watering sums
One would need a fair chunk of Balfe’s millions to buy into Jack’s Hole, the Brittas Bay mobile home scheme. Jaws dropped two years ago when one of the development’s beachfront mobile homes was placed on the market for €495,000 and subsequently sold for close to its asking price. The price of a foothold in the Co Wicklow hideaway of 72 units hasn’t come down since. A more modest unit recently went sale agreed for €395,000. So no wonder its owners, a group of Dublin investors, most of whom own units in the development, are keen on expansion.
Last week they applied for planning permission to Wicklow County Council for an additional eight mobile homes, as well as a five-a-side football pitch, two pickleball courts and a padel tennis court. They also want to add a hard standing area where residents can store their boats and jet skis.
Tax Appeals Commission knows what it likes
A ruling of the Tax Appeals Commission may well be of interest to street artists around the country. Rachel Macmanus, a Co Clare-based painter and performance artist, sought the artists’ tax exemption earlier this year for a series of murals in her native county but was refused by Revenue on the basis that the murals were “decorative” rather than works of art. McManus appealed, saying the use of “decorative” would indicate her art is “of wallpaper status, with no cultural significance or historical relevance”.
“The works are not created merely to make an electrical box look pretty, or to put nice colours on a wall,” she said. All of her pieces were commissioned by the Clare Arts Office and were “site specific”.
“An example of this is the image submitted of the mural painted to commemorate Tom Steele, Irish political activist and close friend of Daniel O’Connell. The piece is located in De Valera Park, Ennis, and depicts two scenes from his life,” she said. The commission sided with Macmanus last week, awarding her the tax exemption for her earnings from the commissions and ruling that her creations were works of public art created with a “high degree of skill and care”.
Clara Lara laughs threatened by climate change
Generations of Irish children have unleashed their inner Tarzan on Clara Lara’s rope swings and barges since the Co Wicklow adventure park opened in the early 1980s. It has had its challenges over the years, not least a court case in 2001 when it was ordered to pay a young woman who received a scar in a boating accident over €10,000 in compensation at a time when it was operating without any insurance.
The park’s biggest challenge these days turns out to be climate change. In a planning application submitted to Wicklow County Council last week, the park’s owner, Joan Byrne of Rathdrum, sought permission to create a Christmas-themed village in the park during the winter months. If permission is granted, there will be log cabins, reindeer, Santa’s grotto and stalls for local designers and craftspeople.
The applications says the traditional summer season of 16 weeks between May and September is being eroded. “Due to the changes in Ireland’s climate, this weather-dependent business is challenged by wet summers similar to this summer,” the park said. The owner says fluctuating visitor numbers mean Clara Lara needs to diversify to survive, particularly given the high costs of insurance and rising employment costs.
We just hope Santa makes his entrance using the rope swing.
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