A rub of the green

Three astonishing estates in the Emerald Isle, one of which is on an island and one of which includes an island, have come to the market

- Penny Churchill

MORE than 500 years of mixed fortunes are encapsulated in three historic Irish estates that have recently come to the market. James Butler of Savills in Dublin (00 35 31 618 1300) is handling the sale of two of them: the picturesque, 448-acre Belle Isle estate overlooking Lough Erne in Co Fermanagh and the thriving, 751-acre Barne residential and farming estate in Co Tipperary’s Golden Vale, for which he quotes guide prices of £7.5 million and €13.5m (£11.6m) respectively.

Following the Flight of the Earls in September 1607, when the Gaelic Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell set sail from Donegal to seek Spanish support in their long-running conflict with the English Crown, James I declared the estates of the refugee earls forfeit and intensified the colonisation of Ulster with a new Protestant population drawn from

England and Scotland. One of many beneficiaries of this process was Paul Gore, an Elizabethan soldier of fortune, who, in 1611, in addition to the 29,000-acre Manor Gore estate in Co Donegal, was granted 1,000 acres in Co Fermanagh, including Ballymacmanus Island on Lough Erne, the home of the Macmanus clan since medieval times. Gore was created a Baronet in 1621.

In about 1718, the 4th Baronet, Sir Ralph Gore, built himself a relatively modest Georgian house as the centrepiece of an ambitious planned landscape, and renamed the island Belle Isle. His son, also Sir Ralph, built Belle Isle Castle around the original Georgian house and significantly expanded the estate.