THIS Is Where You Can Reach Me Now is the title of a U2 song. And it might soon be reality for the chart-topping band’s bassist: Adam Clayton who is planning to build his retirement mansion in Kinsale.
The 66-year-old musician celebrated U2’s 50th anniversary in Dublin alongside band mates Bono, The Edge, and Larry Mullen Jr.
But in recent years he seems to have found what he’s been looking for... a derelict farm with outbuildings on 3.83 hectares of land at Ringfinnan, just south west of Kinsale and close to the River Bandon. The planning files describe the site near Duggan Bridge as “an ideal place to create his retirement home”.
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If Cork County Council gives the go ahead, the derelict two-storey farmhouse and a number of outbuildings will be demolished to make way for a 795sqm pension paradise for the bassist, who famously dated supermodel Naomi Campbell.
The expansive seven-bedroom home would be kitted out with a gym, a health spa, a games room, several kitchen and dining areas, and an underground car park.
An access road to the property is proposed from the L7302.
The plans, submitted by planning agent Coakley O’Neill Town Planning Ltd. on Clayton’s behalf, also include 50 solar panels and five wind turbines.
“The site is located within a High Value Landscape Area and there are views both into and out of the site; the site is well integrated into the landscape,” said the Archaeological and Architectural Heritage Assessment, submitted with the application.
It also mentions a housebook from 1849, which gives clues about the buildings that were on the site just after the Famine in the mid-19th century: a number of houses, piggeries and
stables.
The assessment also said: “The cluster of buildings is reminiscent of a clachan style settlement, a type of small nuclear rural community with shared spaces and an egalitarian sharing of resources.”
The site earmarked for the mansion is next to the 9/11 Garden of Remembrance, commemorating 343 New York firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11.
Council planners have received no letters of objection to the plans and are due to make a decision by October 21.
