The computer multi-millionaire and former national school teacher Pat McDonagh has emerged as the purchaser of a grand period house and one of the finest tillage farms in Co Meath. McDonagh has just paid £3.4 million for Corbalton Hall and 300 acres close to Ratoath and Dunshaughlin. It is the fifth farm bought by McDonagh since he hit the jackpot in the lucrative computer training sector. He first paid £1.8 million in 1996 for the 200-acre stud farm Skidoo in Ballyboughal, north Dublin. He subsequently acquired two Griffin farms and another one beside horse trainer Jim Dreaper in Greenogue. Corbalton Hall is one of the smallest of the houses designed by Francis Johnston, the architect responsible for Aras an Uachtarain.

No doubt, Pat will turn Corbalton into his own castle but he will have to spend up to half a million restoring it to its former glory.