Go big or no home: Conor McGregor’s plans for Kildare house are repelled by county council

“Go big or go home” is one of Conor McGregor’s favourite maxims. But the cage fighter’s plans for an enormous new home in Straffan, Co Kildare, seem to be a little too brash for the local council. McGregor applied to Kildare County Council for planning permission in May to demolish a 600sq m property that he had bought from Albert Reynolds’s son, Albert jnr, in 2019 and replace it with a sprawling mansion running to 3,000sq m. (That’s more than 30,000sq ft in old money.)

Last week the local authority’s planners paused the project, telling the Dubliner that the design and scale of the proposed property did not comply with the local development plan, particularly given it is in a “sensitive landscape character area of the river Liffey”.

It isn’t quite a knockout blow, though. McGregor has been asked to submit a “comprehensive design statement” justifying the size of his proposed new home, which is to include six bedrooms, a sunken basement with car parking, a bar, gym and games area, and two swimming pools, one indoor and one outdoor for those rare occasions when the sun shines.

Pete Taylor’s latest legal fight

Another man who knows the fight game is Pete Taylor, who coached his daughter Katie to an Olympic gold medal in 2012 before the pair became estranged for a period. Taylor has been through a tough time since. He was shot and wounded in an attack at the Bray gym he ran in 2018, during which another man, Bobby Messett, was murdered. He subsequently lost control of the gym, failing in a court bid to prevent Wicklow County Council taking over the facility.

Taylor may be back in court soon in relation to another gym. He and his wife, Karen Brown, filed High Court actions against West Wood Club Company Ltd last week, with both alleging breach of contract against the firm that runs the West Wood chain of gyms. None of the parties responded to queries last week about the dispute.

Irish tech entrepreneur splashes out on Dalkey seafront home

When you have just sold a so-called unicorn company, it’s time to treat yourself. Last December Barry Napier sold his controlling stake in Cubic Telecom, a company he founded, to Japanese lender Softbank for €473 million, netting the Wicklow resident and his fellow shareholders a multimillion euro windfall. The deal valued the company at about $1 billion, the going rate for unicorn status.

Napier has just spent some of his lolly on a seafront home in Dalkey, south Co Dublin. The tech entrepreneur, whose outfit provides software to car companies, recently paid €7.5 million for a house on Coliemore Road with private access to the shoreline. Do unicorns swim?

Refined Reggie gets the artists’ tax exemption

You may have heard of Reggie from the Blackrock Road in Cork through social media. The inveterate snob, who describes himself as a captain of Cork industry with a €6.4 million mansion and his own yacht, wrote his first book last year, Reggie’s Guide to Social Climbing. It helps readers navigate fraught social situations such as how to pronounce turbot in company and what to say if you’re caught shopping in Lidl.

Reggie is now also officially an artist. His creator, Pat Fitzpatrick, pops up on the latest list of those who received the artists’ tax exemption for the first half of the year for the book.

Peter Casey withdraws refugee accommodation application

Peter Casey has withdrawn a planning application seeking to turn a building in Buncrana, Co Donegal, into refugee accommodation. The businessman and former presidential candidate, who recently failed to be elected to the European Parliament in the Midlands-North West constituency, wanted to extend the small office building and transform it into a complex of 18 apartments. The building in Inishowen was damaged by fire in May shortly after Casey announced his plans to use it to accommodate up to 50 Ukrainian refugees, with a number of locals also objecting due to the development’s size and height.

Armenian genocide? Too soon to say

The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has refused a request by Green Party TD Patrick Costello to plant a tree to mark the anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Costello wrote to Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl in February, seeking support to plant the tree for the 109th anniversary of the massacres during the first World War.

“Ireland’s general practice is to recognise genocide only where this has been established by a judgment of an international court or where there is international consensus on the matter,” Ó Fearghaíl responded. “At present there is no international consensus on whether the events of 1915 amount to genocide.”

Gardaí practise their karate chops

White is the new blue at the Garda College in Templemore. The force has tendered for a supplier to provide it with unbranded karate outfits for Garda recruits, at an estimated cost of €112,500 over three years. The tender notes that the Co Tipperary college will need up to 720 suits, comprising trousers, a jacket and belt, every year over the next three years. Recruits will wear their martial arts gear while undertaking self-defence training under the tutelage of the force’s resident Mr Miyagis.

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