He was once Ireland's richest man and chief media baron, but now Sir Anthony O'Reilly's furniture is to be sold at public auction – in a country pub — to help repay his multi-million euro bank debts.
The furniture was removed from the 80-year-old businessman's former home, Castlemartin House – a 26,000sq ft mansion on a 750-acre stud farm in Co Kildare – and put into storage. The house itself has already been sold on the instructions of AIB Bank. Last year, Sir Anthony was declared bankrupt by the Supreme Court of The Bahamas where he is resident for tax purposes.
The Co Kilkenny-based auctioneering firm Mealy’s Fine Art told The Irish Times that it had been asked to sell “the contents of Castlemartin including furniture, antiques and items of decorative art” which will go under the hammer next month. The auctioneers said they were “acting on the instructions of the trustee in bankruptcy appointed by the Bahamian Court”.
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A “trustee in bankruptcy’ is similar to a receiver and is responsible for administering the financial affairs of the bankrupt person and distributing assets to creditors.
The auction is the latest chapter in the ongoing disposal of the assets of Sir Anthony, a former billionaire, who once owned the Irish Independent and Sunday Independent newspapers and the crystal and china company Waterford Wedgwood. His business empire unravelled following Ireland's economic crash in 2008.
Tax exile
In High Court proceedings in Dublin in 2014, Mr Justice Peter Kelly revealed that Sir Anthony, and companies personally controlled by him, owed various Irish and international banks an estimated €195m.
Sir Anthony was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2001. He is one of Ireland's most prominent tax exiles – based on his residency in a beachside villa called Lissadell near Nassau, the capital of The Bahamas. He, and his wife Lady Chryss [nee Goulandris] O'Reilly also have a chateau at Deauville in France.
In addition to the sale of Castlemartin for€26.5 million, Sir Anthony has also sold his Dublin townhouse at Fitzwilliam Square for €3.2 million and his west Cork house Shorecliffe in Glandore for €1.5 million as part of efforts to repay his debts.
Mealy’s said the auction of the Castlemartin contents would take place on October 4th in a temporary saleroom in The Long Man of Kilfane – a rural pub near Thomastown, Co Kilkenny. The venue was chosen because the auctioneer had already planned an auction there of the contents of nearby Kilfane House for another client. A catalogue for the auction will be published shortly.
Mealy's said their auction does not include Sir Anthony's art collection which is believed to be the most valuable private collection ever assembled in Ireland. Earlier this year some minor paintings and sculptures from the collection were sold, discreetly, by an unnamed vendor at auction in England and realised approximately €440,000. But the whereabouts of much of the O'Reilly collection is unknown.
It includes a painting by French impressionist Claude Monet which Sir Anthony bought for $24.2 million 15 years ago and several major paintings by Jack B Yeats which were shipped out of Ireland during the past decade.
