From a Home for the Blind to 360 Apartments: Nuns Seek €40 Million for a Dublin 4 Campus

• The Religious Sisters of Charity are selling St Mary’s Campus in Dublin 4 with a €40 million guide
• The 13.47-acre site began in 1868 as a home for blind Catholics
• A masterplan suggests about 360 apartments, student and care beds, a hotel and hospital space
• Most of the land is zoned for community and social infrastructure

A 13-acre site owned by a Catholic religious order in Dublin 4 has come to market, the Irish Times reported in March 2026. The Religious Sisters of Charity are selling St Mary’s Campus in Dublin 4, close to the St Vincent’s hospitals, with a guide price of €40 million through agents Avison Young.

The 5.451-hectare, or 13.47-acre, site was founded in 1868 as a home for blind Catholics. It later operated as St Mary’s nursing home until the nursing home went into liquidation in July 2020. The existing buildings cover 10,269 square metres and include the main nineteenth-century St Mary’s building with its chapel, as well as residential blocks.

A strategic masterplan for the site sets out about 360 apartments across a range of tenures, 315 student beds mainly for medical students, a 250-bed step-down or care home, a 239-bedroom hotel and about 19,523 square metres of private hospital space. The main historic building would be kept, and other structures could be demolished subject to planning permission.

About 4.85 hectares are zoned for community and social infrastructure and 0.53 hectares for employment and enterprise, so the zoning will shape what a buyer can build. The site sits between Ballsbridge, Donnybrook, Sandymount and Blackrock.

Religious orders in Ireland built large campuses to serve the poor and sick, and those holdings have become some of the country’s most valuable land. The Dublin 4 sale shows how zoning, heritage buildings and community-use rules affect price. In Jamaica, church-founded schools, homes and hospitals often sit on similarly well-located land. How such sites are sold, and whether they still serve the public, will be an important question for congregations, buyers and city planners.

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