Land prices hit a new high in Kilkenny this week when €31,600/ac was paid for 53.14ac of grazing ground at Windgap in the southwest of the county.

The farm was purchased at public auction for €1.68m by a local dairy farmer, who has been renting it for a number of years.

The holding is non-residential, is all in grass and has no farm buildings. It has just 150m of road frontage and was described as a purely agricultural holding with no development potential.

Commenting on the sale price, Callan-based auctioneer Michael Barry said it reflected the continuing demand for land in intensive dairy areas.

The farm was initially offered in two lots but most of the interest was in the entire holding.

The auction opened at €800,000 and was sold following 34 separate bids which added a further €880,000.

The sale became a battle between two bidders, the eventual purchaser and a professional who was acting on behalf of another party.

The sale price of €31,000/acre is well above the guide for the property which was set at €18,000-20,000/acre.

“It was a great price,” admitted Barry.

“It came down to two really strong bidders at the end of it,” he added.

The Callan-based auctioneer said the vendors were delighted with the sale price and with the fact that the current tenant bought the property.

He described the buyer as a “very progressive dairy farmer” who had invested heavily in upgrading the lands while he had the farm rented.

Barry maintained that it was too early to say if sale prices of this magnitude were “the new norm” or whether the Windgap sale was an outlier.

“This is a very intensive dairy area and there were a lot of neighbours that bound the farm,” he explained.

However, he said he has a lot of dairy farmer clients interested in purchasing or leasing land long-term at the moment.

“There are a lot of lads that either need land because they’re in derogation or because they want to stay out of it.”