An uninhabited island is being put for sale by its owner with a €1.1 million price tag.
Duvillaun Mor, off the coast of Mayo, is a 177-acre island which has been uninhabited for more than 100 years.
Owner Robin Deasy said he was confident of selling the island by the summer for at least the €1.1 million guide price.
"If you buy a semi-detached house in Dublin, a two-up, two-down will cost you €500,000. With the island, you're getting 177 acres, wildlife, privacy, beaches, coves, fresh water and fields.
You're getting the whole thing for peanuts, relatively speaking."
The prospective buyers so far include a Dublin couple, a community services group and investors from Britain and the USA.
However, Mr Deasy said he would only sell the island to someone who would respect its unique wildlife, which includes 400 geese, 20 grey seals and two colonies of black beaked gulls.
"You have to be someone who appreciates that and if you're somebody who can't live five miles away from Lidl or a pub, you're in trouble," he said.
The island is two miles off the coast of Mayo and has spectacular views of Achill Sound, Blacksod Bay and the Iniskeagh Islands.
Mr Deasy, a grain farmer in Portumna, County Galway, is hoping to buy a large farm in Australia with the proceeds of the sale.
In the wake of the Asian tsunami, he has had to reassure prospective buyers that the island, which is up to 200ft above sea level in places, could survive such an event.
"Two of them have mentioned it without my prompting," he said. Duvillaun Mor is designated as a special area of conservation which should preclude any buyer from developing a hotel on it.
"I'd be absolutely appalled at the idea of a hotel. I think the island will be sold to some guy who's looking for privacy but also to share the island with all the wildlife," said Mr Deasy.
The last people to live on Duvillaun Mor were three Galway families who moved after the Famine to farm there. However, they were evicted around 100 years ago by the landlord and now only the ruins of their stone cottages remain.
The island also boasts an early Christian six-foot tomb stone with hieroglyphic inscriptions and is reputed to have been one of the places where the mythological Children of Lir spent their 900 years in exile after being transformed into swans by their jealous stepmother.