Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull have been forced to postpone to a later date the sale of contents from Bantry House in west Cork. The much anticipated sale was to have taken place on October 21. Today in a statement Lyon and Turnbull said the company had been forced to postpone the sale due due to delays in obtaining a licence from the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA).
Gavin Strang, Director of Lyon & Turnbull said “We have unfortunately had to postpone the sale because we have not yet been able to obtain a licence from the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA) which will allow us to hold an auction in Ireland. This licence was introduced in 2012 and under new legal requirements auctioneers, as well as estate agents, lettings agents and management companies, now need an operating licence issued by the PSRA.
He continued “We began the process in July with the PSRA. Providing them with the extensive information they require from us has taken longer than anticipated. We have waited as long as we can, but as the deadline for printing the catalogue is now upon us, the difficult decision to postpone the sale has had to be made.”
The postponement has echoes of a debacle involved the world renowned country singer Garth Brooks in Ireland this summer. Brooks ended up cancelling a series of comeback shows at Croke Park in Dublin in July after a bureaucratic wrangle with Dublin City Council. The cancellation is believed to have cost untold millions of euro worth of lost revenue to the city of Dublin and Irish tourism.
A portrait of George III in coronation robes from Bantry House.
The drawing room at Bantry House.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for August 18 and June 19, 2014)