Meta chief executive paid roughly €20m for gothic-style mansion built in 1830 and its surroundings
It stretches the definition of pied-à-terre but Mark Zuckerberg now has a pad in Ireland: Strancally castle.
The Meta chief executive and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have bought the gothic-style mansion and its 178-hectare (440-acre) estate in county Waterford to use as a base during visits to Ireland.
“Mark and his family are excited to continue caring for this historic home and look forward to spending time in Ireland, where Meta maintains its international headquarters,” a spokesperson said on Thursday.
The price paid in the off-market deal is not known but the Irish Times, which first reported the sale, estimated a value between €20m (£17m) and €30m: approximately 10% of the cost of his 387ft superyacht.
That is an exaggeration. While I can’t comment on housing the economy is built on being a tax haven but isn’t just that. There is a lot of employment in IT and Biotech and there are a lot of facilities actually based in Ireland, not just some office jobs for handling the tax evasion (that too of course).
The problem to me doesn’t seem that long term unemployed aren’t left to starve and die but a wrong housing policy and not even a joke of urban planning. It is what is happening when exploding real estate value is considerey a boon rather than a huge issue.
Those IT jobs are being culled now. There were news of Rapid7 closing down their Dublin office few weeks ago.
Intel has still decent presence, but without investment into infrastructure, where does that leave us? Not everyone can (nor should) work in IT or biotech.
How do you compete with mainland Europe when you got to ship things likely through UK and then to mainland while having one of the highest tax rates and wages in EU? Ireland hasn’t got any benefits in manufacturing. There’s only so much Irish beef and salmon you can sell to fuel the economy.
As far as I know logistic lines have adapted post Brexit and are avoiding the UK nowaday, stuff doesn’t have to leave the Single Market on the way to other parts of it. Ireland may be on the edge of the continent bit I wouldn’t call it remote. It is as close to the “Blue Banana” as Central Europe for example.
Correct me if I am wrong but the IT cuts are not limited to Ireland but happening globally in the sector, partially due to over expansion during covid and thecurrent AI bubble.