Man with Limerick roots to sell famous Kerry landscape

A MAN with Limerick connections is selling over 1,400 acres of what is considered to feature some of Ireland’s most breathtaking landscapes.

The Conor Pass in County Kerry has a price tag of €10 million and is a popular scenic destination for tourists around the world.

American Mike Noonan owns the land - his family are originally from Galbally.

“Sometime when you get older you have to see what you can and can’t do and it’s time for me to move on,” Mr Noonan told Katie Hannon on RTÉ’s Liveline.

The landowner said that he decided to sell the land as he wanted to spend more time with his grandchildren and family.

Mr Noonan began buying the land of Conor Pass a little over 25 years ago. He started by buying six farms.

The Conor Pass is a unique landscape in west Kerry that is very familiar to many in Limerick who are fond of visiting or holidaying in places such as Dingle.

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What happens to the Conor Pass means a lot to locals in west Kerry with Micheál O’Dowd, owner of O’Connor’s Bar and Guesthouse near the pass calling it a perfect place for the government to create a greenway.

“If we look up and down the country where the government is trying to put in greenways, they have difficulties with farmers. They could put a greenway in here no bother,” Mr O’Dowd said.

“We’re going to put fierce pressure on the government to help us because we’re a community that is dying here. I mean it.”

When Mr O’Dowd was growing up in Cloghane, where his business is based, there were nine pubs in the area and now there are currently three.

“If it became a national park it would be a huge, huge boost to our local economy. Not alone to our own local economy but the population of the county really. People would like to go see wild parks and recreational areas like what we have here,” he added.

One of the more prominent features of the Conor Pass are the hundreds of sheep that graze on the land. All the sheep on the Conor Pass land belong to Mr Noonan.

What happens to the sheep will “depend on the sale”.

“Right now we are looking at opportunities. We’ll sell them off if the person who buys it wants to manage their own sheep on the property,” Mr Noonan told Liveline.

Mr Noonan mentioned he wants to sell the land to someone who would like to keep it together and that it would be nice if the government were to look at setting it up as a national park.