Co Mayo from €378,000: A country house hotel on one of the country's main salmon rivers is being redeveloped with a hotel, 46 houses and a fly fishing academy. Michael Finlan reports.

Most of the salmon that swarm from the Atlantic into the Moy in County Mayo every year to head upstream for their timeless spawning ritual have to swim along a two-mile stretch of riverbank belonging to a castle hidden in woodland just south of Ballina.

The castle is Mount Falcon, a proud big-shouldered building topped by a sky-reaching steeple looking over the most populous salmon river in Europe.

Mount Falcon's impassive features have hardly changed since it was erected stone by carefully carved stone more than a century ago. Designed by James Franklin Fuller, it took four years to build and was completed in 1876 to become the home of landlord Utred Knox and his bride Nina Knox-Gore.

The bride was related to the Gore-Booths of Lisadell House and, indeed, she has connections with a present-day world figure, Al Gore, who almost became US president.

It's said that her father told her suitor there'd be no wedding unless he built a castle for his adored daughter, and so Mount Falcon arose amid 2,200 acres of undulating meadows and woods on the west bank of the Moy, a marriage endowment to die for.

Retired British army Major Robert Aldridge and his wife, Constance, bought it 1932, and latterly it had been run as one of Ireland's great country house hotels, with its bountiful salmon fishing and game shooting attracting celebrities from all over.

Constance Aldridge, who died recently, was the endearing materfamilias who presided over the legendary hospitality that delighted visitors to the great house. This hearty tradition is set to continue on an even grander scale now that four brothers with family roots in the Kiltimagh area have taken over Mount Falcon.

The Maloney brothers - Alan, Barry, Mike and Shane - are launched on a scheme costing €23 million that will see a transformation of Mount Falcon without any compromise of its original homely charms and character.

It is being turned into a much larger hotel while still retaining the salmon fishing rights on both banks of a two-mile stretch on the Moy and game shooting in the surrounding woods and fields. Across the 100 acres that now make up the Mount Falcon demesne, 46 houses will be spread in courtyard, woodland and lake settings.

The houses will come fully furnished and prices will range from €378,000 for a 124 sq m (1,330 sq ft) three-bedroom terraced house, to €466,000 for a 142 sq m (1,526 sq ft) terraced four-bed to €480,000 for a 126 sq m (1,356 sq ft) three-bed detached house.

The sales and letting transactions for Mount Falcon are being handled by Nuala Feeney at Feeney West, Sherry FitzGerald's office in Ballina, Co Mayo and by Sherry FitzGerald's Galway office.

The development team for the project includes builders J J Rhatigan & Co, structural engineers and architects David O'Malley and Associates and designers Kaye Rice Partnership.

The mighty Moy salmon will remain at the heart of the development. Fishing entitlements on the Moy will be part of a package offered to homebuyers; a fly fishing academy beside a four-acre lake stocked with rainbow trout will provide lessons in the angling arts.

The aim is to make Mount Falcon the angling hub of the north-west, with a helicopter landing pad to accommodate fishermen flying in to cast their lines on the Moy along the castle stretch and all the way down to the famous Ridge Pool in Ballina.

There will also be top-class golf facilities, with 12 courses, including three championship links, within 30 miles of the castle. Homebuyers on the estate will be given membership of golf links at Enniscrone, 10 miles away amid sand dunes surrounding a magnificent beach.

More golfing opportunities will open up in the future with completion of the golf course on Bartragh Island in the Moy estuary planned by Nick Faldo, a regular visitor to Mount Falcon where he caught his first salmon on a fly. (Tiger Woods is another golfing great who has fished the castle waters).

In view of its provenance in a romantic marital deal, it is appropriate that Mount Falcon should aim at becoming the most desirable location for weddings in the north-west. Wedding parties of all types will be catered for.

Facilities for conferences, corporate get-togethers, training sessions and board meetings will also be provided and it is anticipated that Mount Falcon will become a location for national and international conventions.

During renovation, care will be taken to maintain the integrity and character of the original castle where guests can stay in six apartments with marble fireplaces and views across the countryside. A restaurant and bar will occupy much of the ground floor while below, there will be a temperature-controlled wine cellar.

Two corridors will connect a new annex, whose exterior will blend with the castle and which will have 26 bedrooms, a high-tech conference facility, and a holistic health and well-being centre with treatment rooms and swimming pool.

A legal dispute over the development was settled earlier this year.

The Mount Falcon project is the fulfilment of a dream for the Maloney brothers and their father, John, who led a peripatetic life abroad as a United Nations procurement officer and who has settled back on a farm in his native Kiltimagh at the age of 76.

The four brothers were all born in Jerusalem but sent back from travels abroad for their education in Newbridge College in Co Kildare.

Perhaps the best known brother is Barry Maloney, a founder of Benchmark Capital Partners (Europe), who was chief executive of Esat Digifone during its astronomical growth and who continues the connection as non-executive chairman of O2 Ireland.

Mike Maloney, a former army officer, was an executive with Digital Corporation, managing director of Gateway Ireland and currently is executive chairman of Eurocommerce.

Alan Maloney, who first spotted Mount Falcon in a newspaper photograph and realised its potential, initiated the move to buy it for €3.5 million two years ago. He is now general manager of the project after 12 years in financial services.

The youngest brother, Shane, has been managing the salmon fishery since the purchase. American Bruce Dunlevie, a seasoned veteran of venture capital, is also a partner.

All of them share a passion for fishing and shooting and country living in general, and hope that kindred souls will stay at the hotel and move into the new houses.

For the Maloneys, Mount Falcon has haunting resonances of other days when their grandmother travelled past the castle gates in a horse and cart carrying foodstuffs from the Kiltimagh farm to the quay in Ballina where she bartered the produce for a chest of tea from the boats to be shared with her neighbours.

Alan Maloney, who has moved into the castle with his partner, Josephine Sheehan, after selling their cottage in Kildare, still feels a surge of emotion at the smell of smoke from a turf fire as he walks across the boglands of Mayo.