{"id":590819,"date":"2026-08-20T19:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/590819\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T19:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:18:18","slug":"mark-zuckerberg-buys-440-acre-strancally-castle-estate-in-ireland-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/590819\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Zuckerberg buys 440-acre Strancally castle estate in Ireland | Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

It stretches the definition of pied-\u00e0-terre but Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> now has a pad in Ireland<\/a>: Strancally castle.<\/p>\n

The Meta<\/a> chief executive and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have bought the gothic-style mansion and its 178-hectare (440-acre) estate in county Waterford to use as a base during visits to Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark and his family are excited to continue caring for this historic home and look forward to spending time in Ireland<\/a>, where Meta maintains its international headquarters,\u201d a spokesperson said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The price paid in the off-market deal is not known but the Irish Times, which first reported the sale<\/a>, estimated a value between \u20ac20m (\u00a317m) and \u20ac30m: approximately 10% of the cost of his 387ft superyacht<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, will stay at Strancally when visiting Ireland. Photograph: Alessandro Garofalo\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The castle was built in 1830 for John Keily, a former Conservative MP, and designed on a lavish scale by the architects James and George Richard Pain, with a \u201cbrisk walk of four and a half minutes\u201d needed to go from the dining room to the kitchen, according to the book The Houses of Ireland.<\/p>\n

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Michael Alen-Buckley, a co-founder of the London-based investment firm RAB Capital, and his wife, Giancarla, a scion of the family behind the Rocco Forte Hotels group, bought the estate and renovated it in the early 2000s. \u201cWe leave our home of 25 years fondly and are grateful for the opportunity we have been given to save and restore Strancally castle,\u201d the couple said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are delighted that Mark and his family intend to build on our stewardship by continuing to invest in maintaining and enhancing the property and grounds as their home in a sustainable manner. We wish them and their family much happiness in this unique and blessed place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The estimated value of Strancally Castle is approximately 10% of the cost of Zuckerberg\u2019s 387ft superyacht. Photograph: Patrick Kenealy\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The website of the National Built Heritage Service, an Irish state agency that protects architectural heritage, pays a barbed compliment<\/a> to the castle. \u201cThe construction in sandstone and limestone ashlar augments the dour tone of the composition while providing evidence of high quality stone masonry and craftsmanship,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

The Blackwater valley contains other historic estates, including Ballynatray House, which the entrepreneur James Dyson bought in 2024. Further north, John Collison, a co-founder of the technology platform Stripe, bought Abbey Leix, an estate in County Laois, in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It stretches the definition of pied-\u00e0-terre but Mark Zuckerberg now has a pad in Ireland: Strancally castle. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-590819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}