Second major land offer on Kerry's Connor Pass adds to mountain national park momentum
Source to Sea: the Owenmore River fishery meets the sea at Brandon Bay on the Dingle Peninsula
AN entire Co Kerry fishery, the Owenmore River by Mount Brandon and the Connor Pass on the Dingle Peninsula has come for sale with a €1.5m price guide: it adjoins a larger 1,400-acre land offer on the famed Kerry mountain pass, also currently for sale with a €10m price tag.
Listed this week with agent Michael H Daniels is the “source to sea” Owenmore Fishery, with river, 480 acres (which includes 180 acres of water in nine lakes and which drains 17 square miles at Mount Brandon and the Connor Pass), all emptying into the Atlantic by beaches at Brandon Bay and Cloghane village, amid some of Ireland’s most rugged landscapes.
The gently managed fishery has Atlantic salmon, sea trout, brown trout and char, and has been overseen for a private owner by a fishery manager who has maintained a fly-only, catch-and-release policy since last being sold by tender in 2005.
The sale of the 450-acre fishery with the five miles (8km) of the Owenmore River next to 1,400 acres of higher-up mountain land (mostly rough grazing with 400 acres of forestry being sold for a US-based owner seeking €10m) may increase calls for the State to develop the first new Irish national park of the 21st century.
Now, close on 2,000 acres combined for separate vendors is set to change hands. A significant amount of the land is already deemed a special area of conservation (SAC), thus restricting or eliminating other uses.
Selling agent for the Owenmore River is Michael H Daniels, who describes it as a unique offer, “set against the background of a shrinking landscape, with a fully controlled ‘source-to-sea’ fishery in a wild, unspoilt area of rugged beauty”.
He says when his client bought the property about 16 years ago “his motive from day one was to try and restore and preserve this unique wild fishery.”
He says he was encouraged to do a breeding-and-release system on many occasions, but resisted it to keep the system pure and self-sustaining,” noting the fly-only, catch-and-release policy since with a nominal day ticket price to make bag returns for their records.
“The river has not been monetised at all but clearly there is very considerable scope to do so,” he states.
Noting its contribution to biodiversity, Mr Daniels says there should be “a wide appeal in the market, not just to the Irish and international fishing and shooting sector, but from philanthropic interests wishing to protect and possibly rewild, to national and multinational corporations that may view this as an opportunity to continue safeguarding the 450 acres and nine pristine lakes thereby enhancing their green credentials”.
Aligning it to the obvious wider picture now that 1,400 acres up the mountain pass is also for sale, Mr Daniels adds that “should the OPW or Inland Fisheries wish to further safeguard the river system and this wonderful landscape for future generations, the holding represents a chance to take the lands and river into State control, with or without the obvious marriage potential of another substantial parcel of land adjoining, with which it shares a long boundary along the Owenmore River”.
Since the Connor Pass went to the open market in late summer, being sold directly by its owner, Michael Noonan in the US asking for €10m, there have been calls for it to be bought by the State. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said there may be State interest, but not at that figure.
Estate agent Michael Daniels doesn’t disclose the fishery vendor’s identity, but local sources say it is Richard Roche, of the Roches Store retail dynasty with the Roche family buying it in 2005.
Previous owners include Edward Hallinan; British peer and Co Limerick stud farm owner, Lord Harrington (William Stanhope); and Luxemburg-based steel industrialist, Paul Metz, in the 1980s, who had a modest bungalow there, which was burned in 1980, loosely attributed to the IRA.
Today’s selling agent describes the spate Owenmore as “one of the most unspoiled fisheries in Western Europe, in a truly spectacular location on the Dingle Peninsula, comprising an entire river from source to sea”.
Seen in its entirety from the Connor Pass viewing point, the self-sustaining fishery has two corrie lakes, seven others totalling 180 acres of lake angling, 33 named pools, and a derelict cottage by Cloghane bridge near the village and the miles-long Fermoyle strand, all billed as “a wild and beautifully scenic spot, surrounded by bog and mountain and remains wholly unspoiled by development”.
