![\"Blackwater](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/5223235_3_articleinline_Tony_20Gallagher_20_2_1_.jpg\" "\\"Blackwater")
Blackwater cruise boat operator Tony Gallagher<\/p>\nThere must be something in the water of the Blackwater.<\/p>\n
The river, which meanders 169km through Cork, Kerry, and Waterford, has become a hub for multi-millionaires snapping up posh Irish homes of late.<\/p>\n
Inventor and businessman James Dyson splashed out about \u20ac32 million for Ballynatray House near the Cork-Waterford border in 2024, and now he has a new neighbour in Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, who bought Strancally Castle nearby for a similar sum. Both have the Blackwater lapping alongside them.<\/p>\n
All of this must be good for business for Tony Gallagher, who runs Blackwater Cruises based in Youghal Harbour from May to September.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going out on the Maeve \u00d3g on the Blackwater at 11.am,\u201d says Tony, who has been cruising the river for 26 years now. \u201cI have a spare seat if you want to come aboard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aye aye, cap\u2019n!<\/p>\n
\u201cI can show you Dyson\u2019s place if you wish,\u201d says Tony, reading my mind. \u201cHe paid \u20ac32 million for it and has put another \u20ac20 million into it.<\/p>\n
\u201cUp river is Zuckerburg\u2019s place,\u201d adds Tony, who delights visitors to Youghal from near and far aboard his boat with amusing anecdotes and his great knowledge of history.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am going up river this afternoon, but it\u2019s a chartered boat, so you\u2019ll have to come another day to try and view Mark Zuckerburg\u2019s acquisition of a 440-acre castle estate, Strancally Castle in Knockanore\u201d says Tony.<\/p>\n
Is there much hype about having the seventh richest person in the world, according to Forbes, with a net worth of around \u20ac162 billion, pitching up home here?<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed, there is a lot of interest in the Castle,\u201d says Tony. \u201cI am practising saying the name \u2018Zuckerburg\u2019 morning, noon, and night!\u201d<\/p>\n
This morning, Tony is accompanied by his faithful companion and first mate, Scuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was abandoned in a building site and a Polish man found her,\u201d says Tony. \u201cWhen he returned to Poland, I took Scuba in and looked after her. She is my regular mate and crew member. We have our morning coffee together and we cruise the river together!\u201d<\/p>\n
Maeve \u00d3g is moored and awaiting visitors from Fermanagh. With all this talk of superstars in the locality, I tell them my own stories.<\/p>\n
Johnny Depp used my neighbour\u2019s bathroom when he was filming Divine Rapture in Ballycotton in 1995. He had been and gone back to the film set before I knew it.<\/p>\n
And when Gabriel Byrne married Hannah Beth King in Ballymaloe House in 2014, the Irish heartthrob passed my kitchen window riding a bicycle on his way to a local seamstress to get his bride-to-be\u2019s dress altered. I was unaware of this until the seamstress told me the next day.<\/p>\n
Captain Tony is au fait with all the famous and infamous comings and goings along the Blackwater.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Ed Sheeran played in Cork, he stayed at Dyson\u2019s house,\u201d says Tony, previously a fisherman in Helvick, Co. Waterford.<\/p>\n
\u201cEd was brought to Lombard\u2019s Bar on the Tallow road for a pint.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen Ed dropped in, there was no talk, until an elderly man sitting in the corner eventually piped up and said. \u2018Are you one of the Murphys from Knockanore!\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Approaching a view from the river of Ballyinatray House, Tony fills us in on more local lore.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe area surrounding the estate was the backdrop to the Stanley Kubrick film Barry Lyndon in 1975. The famous dual scene was filmed there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dyson estate and the associated farm complex look magnificent. There are 350 windows in the Georgian-style house, which is another acquisition for Dyson, who has homes in London, France and Singapore, and whose personal and family fortunes amount to \u20ac20 billion. He also owns farms and estates in the English shires.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like Downton Abbey,\u201d says Michael from Fermanagh.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s more.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Dyson has a 300ft yacht in the Caribbean,\u201d says Tony. \u201cI have a photo of it here,\u201d he says, passing around the picture of the luxury craft resembling the Christina Onassis yacht. \u201cWe are passing the boathouse now,\u201d says Tony, pointing to the building where a family of four could easily live in comfort.<\/p>\n
A leisure craft is parked beside the rib.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see that there is construction going on in the grounds where all the diggers are beside the boathouse,\u201d says Tony. \u201cThat is going to be a helipad.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Dyson has kindly given permission for the air ambulance service to land there if an emergency arises. That is very nice of him. He did the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blackwater cruise boat operator Tony Gallagher<\/p>\n
Tony adds: \u201cThere is a protocol on the river. Where one boat lets the other boat pass, Mr Dyson always observes the protocol.\u201d<\/p>\n
Half an hour from Youghal, we reach Strancally Castle, where Zuckerburg and his partner, Priscilla Chan, have installed a hi-tech pool, engineered by Cork-based Cumnor.<\/p>\n
A blurb on the firm\u2019s online portfolio describes the project as a \u2018striking below-ground leisure facility, seamlessly integrated with a historic setting. It delivered a 25m indoor-outdoor swimming pool with a rising floor that transforms into a terrace alongside spa, gym, and lounge space\u201d<\/p>\n
Talking to locals, they say that the amount of forestry planted on the grounds makes the castle almost invisible.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cEven by helicopter, it would be really difficult to get a view of Strancally Castle\u201d, says Youghal fisherman Roger McGrath. \u201cA lot of people would love to get a sconce at it!\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Tony is cruising upriver later and he can point people in the general direction of Strancally Castle, a three-storey over-basement gothic building on the 440-acre site on the Waterford estate covering thousands of acres.<\/p>\n
\u201cTourists are always interested,\u201d says Tony.<\/p>\n
Mary in the Youghal Tourist office concurs with Tony.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, lots of people are curious about two world-famous billionaires buying property along the Blackwater,\u201d she said. \u201cYoughal tourism was great this year, especially with all the fine weather we had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nothing lasts forever though<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s back-to-school time!\u201d<\/p>\n
What does former Cork County Mayor, Mary Linehen Foley, from Youghal, make of two world-famous multi-millionaires dwelling almost on her doorstep?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is great for the area and we welcome them,\u201d says Mary.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it just shows how lucky we are to live in this part of the world when people like James Dyson and Mark Zuckerburg are looking to live here.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoughal was already firmly on the map. Now, more than ever, it is a sought-after destination for people at both home and abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fermanagh visitors and I bid farewell to Tony and to his trusted crew member, Scuba. We are heading home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There must be something in the water of the Blackwater. The river, which meanders 169km through Cork, Kerry,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[264321,72,43164,61,60],"class_list":["post-622573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-blackwater","tag-business","tag-east-cork","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622573","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=622573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}