{"id":354232,"date":"2026-03-19T11:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/354232\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T11:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:27:11","slug":"ryanair-founders-pet-project-a-restored-18th-century-village-back-on-the-market-for-e20m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/354232\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryanair founder\u2019s pet project, a restored 18th century village, back on the market for \u20ac20m"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The village at Lyons, near Celbridge, which includes cottages, a clock tower and a chapel, covers 20 acres. It was part of the larger 600-acre estate that was bought by Mr Ryan in 1996. He spent an estimated \u20ac100m restoring it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The village currently operates as a spa resort and wedding venue. The sale is being arranged by Lisney Sotheby\u2019s International Realty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Lyons was originally a milling village that was built beside the Grand Canal. In 1962, the estate was bought by University College Dublin\u2019s veterinary faculty, which used the farmland for student education, but the cut-stone buildings in the village were unused.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The flour mill was destroyed by fire in 1904.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThe village at that point was in a state of complete disrepair,\u201d said David Byrne, managing director of Lisney Sotheby\u2019s International Realty. \u201cIt became Tony Ryan\u2019s life\u2019s passion to restore the village.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cWe\u2019re selling the private estate village to an individual,\u201d he added. \u201cIt can be a flagship leisure destination, a creative retreat \u2013 or for someone looking for a long-term heritage investment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_medium indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0\" style=\"color:var(--color-black-base)\">The village was last sold in 2016, for a reported \u20ac6m<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">He said it is expected that the purchaser will be an international one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The estate includes 12 cottages and apartments, most with two bedrooms, and four lodges with five or more bedrooms, giving a total of 47 bedrooms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">There is a dining hall that seats 120 people, an event space, bar, club room and coffee shop. There is also a garden room, a spa, a Victorian-style conservatory and landscaped gardens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThe village at Lyons sits beside Lyons Hill, an early medieval royal site that was the home of the Kings of Leinster from about 760AD,\u201d the Lisney Sotheby sales notice says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cOriginally developed in the 18th and 19th centuries as a thriving canal-side milling village, the buildings that form today\u2019s 20-acre estate evolved into a village in the 1820s, which had the Jolly Angler Inn, a police barracks, a lock yard, a Church of Ireland school and a towering four-storey watermill.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The restored former milling village of Lyons, near Celbridge, Co Kildare\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/c1c4d214-8f14-41a6-8399-3ed3fb19ed05.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">The restored former milling village of Lyons, near Celbridge, Co Kildare<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThe flour mill was run by Joseph P Shackleton, a relative of the famous Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The auctioneers say opportunities to buy a complete historic village \u201care almost unheard of\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Tony Ryan left the Lyons Demesne to his wife after his death in 2007, and it was valued at \u20ac60m when it came up for sale in 2009.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Finding a buyer during the financial crash proved impossible, and the asking price was cut to \u20ac25m in 2012. It was taken off the market by the Ryan family two years later, and remains in the ownership of Tony\u2019s son, Shane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The village was offered for sale in 2014 by Declan Ryan, Tony\u2019s son, through Colliers International. It was bought in 2016 by financier Barry O\u2019Callaghan, owner of the Cliff House Hotel in Waterford, for a reported \u20ac6m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Writing about the restoration of the village in his book Aer Dogs, journalist Tom Lyons said \u201cno expense\u201d was spared by Tony Ryan, who \u201cinstalled a 400-year-old fireplace from France, and a model of a plane he owned was hung over a fine wooden bar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cRyan also restored a tiny parish church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was to become his final resting place after he died.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The village at Lyons, near Celbridge, which includes cottages, a clock tower and a chapel, covers 20 acres.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,5243,8649,1899],"class_list":["post-354232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-burns","tag-property-mortgages","tag-ryanair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}