The Earl of Meath is getting ready to move to the family seat near Bray now that he has found a buyer for his vast sporting estate high in the Wicklow mountains. A wealthy Irish family based abroad has paid somewhat less than the £10 million (€12.7m) asking price for Ballinacor House, a large Georgian pile on 4,152 acres near Rathdrum. The move from the Wicklow mountains to Bray will not mean less lawn to mow for the 60-year-old Earl (aka Jack Brabazon) because Kilruddery, the Bray estate left to him on his father's death three years ago, has no less than 800 acres.

The Earl developed Ballinacor as one of the very best sporting estates in Europe, regularly attracting sportsmen from the United States, Italy and Scandinavia as well as Britain and Ireland. The 25 driven pheasant shoots each year proved a good money spinner, not to mention the duck and woodcock shooting, the Sika deer-stalking and the trout fishing. Though Ballinacor is one of the largest estates in the country, about half the land is in heather and mountain ranges. The sale proved quite a coup for Ganly Walters, whose directors spend much of the winter in the sticks.