{"id":665709,"date":"2026-10-26T09:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T09:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/665709\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T09:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T09:44:08","slug":"dublin-city-council-outbid-in-sale-of-martello-tower-in-sandymount-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/665709\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin City Council outbid in sale of Martello tower in Sandymount \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bid made by Dublin City Council (DCC<\/a>) below the guide price of \u20ac1.5 million to purchase Sandymount<\/a>\u2019s Martello tower in Dublin 4<\/a> was unsuccessful, with the monument instead being purchased by a private individual.<\/p>\n

The protected structure and recorded monument, which has lain vacant for more than two decades, has recently been sold.<\/p>\n

A private individual purchased the tower for more than the guide price of \u20ac1.5 million, according to a source familiar with the details of the sale.<\/p>\n

Several councillors had called for the council to buy the structure after it came on the market, with council officials also eager to acquire the tower, saying it was an \u201cimportant bit of heritage in the city\u201d.<\/p>\n

Before making the unsuccessful bid, options outlined by the council and seen by The Irish Times detailed three potential uses, including retaining it as a historical monument, which would see its 1980s three-storey extension demolished.<\/p>\n

Another option was the refurbishment of the tower and its extension for use as tea rooms, while a third possibility would have seen it retained as a historical monument with stand-alone new-build tea rooms and a \u201cpossible link to the tower\u201d.<\/p>\n

Council officials inspected the tower earlier this summer, describing it in internal correspondence as an \u201ciconic structure\u201d, though a Dublin city valuer warned the extension would require \u201ccomplete modernisation or demolition\u201d.<\/p>\n

This was something he believed the previous owner was \u201cnot prepared to take on\u201d, adding that it would cost a \u201cfortune\u201d to bring it to current building standards.<\/p>\n

The valuer also believed the guide price was \u201cexcessive\u201d, correspondence obtained through the Freedom of Information Act shows.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Very heartbreaking\u2019: The Cedar Tree, Ireland\u2019s first Lebanese restaurant, set to closeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In an update in June, the city valuer told DCC chief executive Richard Shakespeare<\/a> the council had made what it considered to be a \u201cvery fair and reasonable offer, if somewhat below the guide price\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, estate agent Colliers<\/a> advised that three bids had been made and the council\u2019s was \u201cunsuccessful\u201d.<\/p>\n

The structure was one of 28 defensive towers built between 1804 and 1805, stretching from Bray to Balbriggan, to protect against the threat of a French invasion during the Napoleonic wars.<\/p>\n

Sandymount\u2019s Martello tower became a popular cafe in the 1960s, before an extension was added two decades later, the large windows of which have been covered by shutters for years.<\/p>\n

Property developer Robert Noonan had plans for a restaurant at the site, hoping to partner with Peter Langan, the Irish restaurateur behind Langan\u2019s Brasserie, a celebrity hotspot in London. <\/p>\n

Langan died at the age of 47, weeks after suffering injuries in a fire at his UK home in 1988, and the project never came to fruition after his death.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Owner of \u20ac2.5m \u2018uninhabitable\u2019 house in Dalkey seeks its demolitionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Until recently, it was owned by Michael Doyle of the Doyle Hotels family. He sought to convert the space into a microbrewery, though he failed to secure planning permission in 1999.<\/p>\n

Green Party councillor Hazel Chu<\/a>, who was one of several councillors to call on both the State and the council to purchase the site for public use, said it was a \u201clarge missed opportunity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a piece of our heritage and a piece of our history. We really should be keeping it for public use,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When the site went on the market, Minister of State Emer Higgins<\/a> said the Office of Public Works, had \u201cno plans\u201d to buy the tower, though Chu argues the State \u201cshould have stepped in to buy it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always a \u2018we\u2019ll leave it to someone else\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something the State couldn\u2019t have afforded. It wasn\u2019t a price tag of \u20ac20 million. \u20ac1.5 million is a lot of money still, but it wasn\u2019t a large price tag for something that could be put back into use.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bid made by Dublin City Council (DCC) below the guide price of \u20ac1.5 million to purchase Sandymount\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,53959,615,13288,4506,61,60,10912],"class_list":["post-665709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-colliers","tag-dublin","tag-dublin-city-council","tag-dublin-4","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sandymount"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665709","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=665709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}