Mark Zuckerberg has added a distinctly old-world address to his sprawling property portfolio. To add to the 11-home compound in Palo Alto, the Hawaiian estate, Lake Tahoe and Washington D.C properties, and the “Billionaire Bunker” mansion in Florida, the Meta chief executive and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have now bought a gothic-style castle with a 440-acre estate in Co. Waterford, Ireland.
The off-market purchase of Strancally castle was reportedly completed several weeks ago and although the exact price has not been disclosed, the Irish Times estimates the Zuckerbergs could have spent between €20m (£17m) and €30m – a bargain for a man who owns a $300m superyacht. The historic mansion will be the couple's base in Ireland, roughly 100 or so miles from where Meta has its international headquarters in Dublin.
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Strancally castle's setting in rural Ireland couldn't be more different to Silicon Valley, sitting in the Blackwater Valley, surrounded by mature wood- and farmland. But the couple won't be far from their tech-world friends. Ballynatray House, which James Dyson bought in 2024 is also in the Valley while John Collison, co-founder of Stripe, lives a little further north in Abbey Leix, Co. Laois. While the estate was sprawled over 5000 acres, the Zuckerbergs will still have almost 500 acres to play with.
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Strancally castle itself – a castellated country house made of sandstone and limestone – was built around 1827 for John Kiely, a former Conservative MP and designed by the brothers James and George Richard Pain, influential figures in the development of Gothic Revival architecture in Ireland. The house has exceedingly grand proportions with three-storeys and an old story that suggests it takes almost five minutes just to walk from the kitchen to the dining room. The house is described in Brian De Breffney and Rosemary Ffolliott’s book The Houses of Ireland as ‘strong and forbidding’ with ‘fine features’ such as ‘a delicate stair in light oak, skilfully cantilevered’ and a ‘black Kilkenny marble mantelpiece’ in the aforementioned dining room.
The Zuckerbergs reportedly bought the house from Giancarla “Gianni” Forte of the Forte hotelier dynasty and her husband Michael Alen-Buckley who had been living there with their children since 2003 and had embarked on extensive renovations and restorations to the property. The couple spoke warmly in a statement about the Zuckerberg's purchase, wishing them well as the estate's newest custodians.
