On December 1, 2023 construction tycoon Maurice Regan WhatsApped the hereditary owner of the 750-acre Barne Estate in Co Tipperary with a one-word message. “Congratulations,” he wrote. “Relief and congratulations,” Richard Thomson-Moore, the message’s recipient, texted back. According to court filings, Regan, the businessman founder of New York building firm JT Magen, had at the time just executed a conditional contract to buy Barne, an imposing 17th-century chateau-style house set on rich tillage lands, for €22.25 million. The offer was nearly €9 million above the €13.5m guide price set by estate agents Savills and €7 million more than the next…

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