Dermot Gleeson, the former AIB chairman and attorney general, has sold his semi-detached property at 8 Shrewsbury Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, for a figure believed to be in excess off €5 million.
Mr Gleeson, who was chairman of AIB from 2003 to 2009, has relocated to a new home in the south Dublin suburbs, according to The Irish Times.
Mr Gleeson is one of a long line of boom-era high flyers who have sold, or are trying to sell, their homes on Shrewsbury Road since the downturn.
The adjoining house, 6 Shrewsbury Road, was the family home of financier Derek Quinlan, who sold it early last year for an estimated €7 million following the collapse of his empire.
Number 8, an Edwardian semi, fetched substantially less than its neighbour because its value was affected by plummeting house prices. Although identical in style, Edel Morgan of The Irish Times reports that the Quinlan house was expensively refurbished and remodelled and has a swimming pool in the rear garden. At the height of the boom a semi such as 8 Shrewsbury Road would have expected to make between €12 million and €15 million, depending on the condition and level of finish.
Mr Gleeson was one of Ireland’s leading barristers in the 1980s and 1990s. From 1994 to 1997 he served as attorney general under the rainbow coalition. In 2003 he was appointed chairman of AIB, until he stepped down six years later.
Among the houses recently sold on Shrewsbury Road was Woodside, the offices of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, for about €8 million.
Thorndene, owned by businessman Niall O’Farrell, is still for sale through Colliers, and is also looking for €8 million.
Walford, bought by developer Seán Dunne in 2005 for €58 million, went on the market for a substantially reduced price of €15 million in September. There has been huge secrecy surrounding the sale of the property, and a sale has not been confirmed.
