{"id":624063,"date":"2026-09-14T05:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T05:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624063\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T05:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T05:20:13","slug":"us-business-people-buy-properties-in-ireland-because-they-love-everything-about-it-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624063\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018US business people buy properties in Ireland because they love everything about it\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Westmeath-born businessman Desmond Keogh is the first Irishman to become president of the Irish Georgian Society<\/a> in the United States<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Now based in Florida<\/a>, he took up the office in April. Keogh grew up on the 120-hectare (300-acre) Ballinakill Farm on Lough Derravaragh, Co Westmeath<\/a>, and is passionate about Irish country houses. He bought Oakley Park House, outside Kells, in 2023. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had been searching for a house in Ireland for three years. I wanted somewhere about half an hour from my mother\u2019s and a reasonable distance from Dublin Airport,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

We are sitting in the drawingroom of the late Georgian country house that his wife, Cristina, an interior designer, has transformed into a comfortable, airy space, decorated with historical paintings, urns, Georgian furniture and a large elk head facing the fireplace. <\/p>\n

\"DesmondDesmond and Cristina Keogh at the entrance to Oakley Park House. Photograph: Barry Cronin \"DesmondDesmond and Cristina Keogh in Oakley Park House. Photograph: Barry Cronin <\/p>\n

\u201cI like moving. I like houses. It\u2019s my comfort zone. It\u2019s really fun,\u201d she says. The couple have five children, aged 11 to 26. <\/p>\n

In the diningroom across the corridor, the Keoghs have installed a large, oval-shaped dining table with chairs upholstered in French fabric and practical, modern, American side cabinets. The kitchen at the back of the house has modern, fitted cabinets, the original Aga cooker and a sizeable table to accommodate visiting family and friends. <\/p>\n

\u201cI like mixing everything up, being practical with a bit of character. I don\u2019t want the house to look like a museum. I want people to come and use it, and for it to be exciting, comfortable, with nothing too precious,\u201d she says. The five bedrooms upstairs have yet to be given a makeover.<\/p>\n

Keogh has an eight-phase restoration plan for the late Georgian country house estate. \u201cWe did emergency work on the roof and the valleys. The exterior wasn\u2019t in bad shape,\u201d he says, as he shows us where he has uncovered the dilapidated basement, completely abandoned by previous owners who also knocked down a much larger older house to the rear of Oakley Park House. <\/p>\n

Keogh\u2019s long-term plans include work on the main house and the basement, restoring the steward\u2019s and coachman\u2019s houses and other buildings in the extensive farmyard, replanting and repairing the walled garden and another sunken garden on the estate. <\/p>\n

\"DesmondDesmond Keogh at Oakley Park House. Photograph: Barry Cronin House tours<\/p>\n

He regularly returns to Ireland to join the Irish Georgian Society spring and autumn tours of country houses across the 32 counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe bring 14 to 16 people on these tours from America. We stay at the private houses, have lunch and dinner with the owners,\u201d he says. Keeping numbers low is key to giving the visitors an up-close-and-personal sense of life in the 18th- and 19th-century country properties. <\/p>\n

Keogh expresses astonishment at the number of Irish country houses that remain intact, considering that almost 300 were burned down between 1919 and 1923 and many more were demolished or allowed to go to ruin in the mid-20th century. <\/p>\n

Although interested in architecture and drawing from a young age, he first got involved with the Irish Georgian Society in the US in the 1990s. \u201cNow we have events at the Beach Club in Palm Beach [Florida], where I am a member, and dinners in New York, Boston and Chicago in the autumn,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0A Wicklow mansion rescued from ruin by seven people: \u2018I felt sorry for the house\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

During his four-year tenure as president, he would like to expand the presence of Irish Georgian Society scholarship programmes to other US cities with strong Irish-American connections, such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas and San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking for universities with good architecture and history of art programmes, so that we can bring Irish students there, build relationships and open chapters of the Irish Georgian Society in these cities,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\"DesmondDesmond and Cristina Keogh in Oakley Park House. Photograph: Barry Cronin Connections<\/p>\n

A member of the US Republican Party since he \u201clanded\u201d in the US, Keogh has many connections and on his recent visit to Ireland, popped in to see the current US ambassador, Edward Walsh. <\/p>\n

He was also friendly with the late US businessman Fred Krehbiel, who bought and restored the five-star Ballyfin Demesne hotel in Co Laois. The hotel is now run by his sons, Jay and Liam Krehbiel. Tommy Quick, president of the Ireland Funds charitable network, is another Palm Beach resident with whom Keogh associates. <\/p>\n

Keogh says American business people buy properties in Ireland because \u201cthey love everything about Ireland\u201d. \u201cThey also feel that they get incredible value and enjoy fixing them up and putting money into restoring them.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Irish Georgian Society in the US counts several wealthy business people among its members, including the late Wall Street financier Beth Dater Jennings, whose donations to restoration projects in Ireland have been significant. <\/p>\n

These included a donation of \u20ac1.5 million towards the mid-2010s restoration of the City Assembly House, the Irish Georgian Society headquarters in on South William Street in Dublin 2, and, more recently, support for restoration works on the Sirius Arts Centre, the former yacht club building in Cobh, Co Cork. <\/p>\n

The Irish Georgian Society in the US is currently considering which new projects to fund. \u201cI\u2019ve looked at five projects, from Tipperary to Cork to Waterford, that I\u2019ll bring back to the board,\u201d says Keogh. <\/p>\n

Keen to promote the Irish Georgian Society at home and in the US, he says, \u201cpeople think the Irish Georgian Society is elite and stuffy but it\u2019s a really fun and interesting organisation to be in. It\u2019s not expensive to join and you don\u2019t have to own a Georgian house to enjoy the parties and tours.\u201d <\/p>\n

Professional success<\/p>\n

His own back story is an example of how some Irish people successfully built their lives from scratch in the US. While studying at Multyfarnham Agricultural College in the 1980s, Keogh spent two summers in the US playing Gaelic football. While there, an encounter with an American businessman who invited him to his winter home in Palm Beach changed the trajectory of his life. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just loved the architecture and the climate. I thought, when I finish college, I\u2019m going to go back there and have a business there,\u201d he recalls. And, so he did.<\/p>\n

Working first for a Maryland businessman who imported stone and tiles from Europe for the neoclassical mansions of south Florida, Keogh fell on his feet. \u201cI had \u00a3300, no green card, no credit card but I started working for Stuart Cronin and I stayed with him and his Roscommon-born wife and eight months later, I bought my first house,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Designing and selling glass tables with a marble base as a side business, he then began restoring marble for wealthy homeowners in south Florida and beyond. This led to his current businesses, Haifa Limestone and Haifa General Contracting, which deal with high-end clients throughout the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cI import stone to the US from 21 different countries. We do all the architectural drawings, the global sourcing, the fabrication, the installation and the finishing work, so the buck stops with us,\u201d he says. He named his business Haifa, after the Israeli city, because he had a lot of Jewish clients.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0From the archive: Dublin needs a Georgian house museum worthy of its rich heritageOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

When he is in Ireland, Keogh loves nothing more than joining the Meath hunt and he also hunts with the Palm Beach hounds in Florida. \u201cI grew up with horses and I now host the Meath hunt in the first week in January,\u201d he says, proudly. <\/p>\n

He is also avidly researching the history of Oakley Park House, keen to explore every angle that presents itself. <\/p>\n

He recounts how when he was under contract to purchase the property in 2023, he began looking into the Bomford family, the original owners of the property. And he was chuffed to find one of the last surviving family members, Jim Bomford, retired in Longwood, Florida. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe had the [American] civil war medals, gun and sword of his great, great-grandfather Augustus Bomford, who was disinherited from Oakley Park because he fell in love with a Catholic girl and went to New York in 1861,\u201d Keogh says. <\/p>\n

As the 84-year-old retiree didn\u2019t have any children, he gave the military memorabilia to Keogh, who now has them displayed in the front hall of Oakley Park House. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Westmeath-born businessman Desmond Keogh is the first Irishman to become president of the Irish Georgian Society in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2195,61,60,265098,72709,15949,43,4310,16621,115,59],"class_list":["post-624063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-florida","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-georgian-society","tag-kells","tag-meath","tag-news","tag-property","tag-republican-party","tag-united-states","tag-westmeath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624063","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=624063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}