More Than €1 Billion Sold, and “Only Beginning”: Ireland’s Religious Orders Cash In on Their Land

• Irish Catholic orders and dioceses have sold more than €1 billion of land since 1999
• A Dublin seminary site sold for €95 million in 2019
• New zoning requests could open more sites for apartments
• Ageing orders and falling vocations are driving the sales

Catholic religious orders and dioceses in Ireland have sold more than €1 billion worth of land since 1999, and a property consultant says the process has barely started, The Irish Times reported in June 2022.

The newspaper traced a long run of big-ticket sales. The Archdiocese of Dublin sold the Holy Cross College site for €95 million in 2019, the same year the Jesuits sold Milltown Park in Dublin for €65 million. The Redemptorists sold their Marianella seminary in Rathgar for €42 million in 2015. Between 1999 and 2009, 16 congregations realised more than €600 million from property, led by the Sisters of Mercy at €170 million, the Oblate Fathers at €105 million and the Christian Brothers at €80.23 million.

More land is lining up. The report said the Vincentian order was seeking residential zoning on surplus lands at Castleknock College, where land could be worth €8 million to €10 million a hectare. The Christian Brothers asked for zoning on seven hectares at a retreat centre in Swords, potentially worth more than €22 million, and the Carmelites sought residential zoning on 2.6 hectares at Terenure College, a site estimated to be worth €32 million with room for 400 apartments.

The reasons are demographic. Religious orders are ageing, vocations have fallen away, and orders need money to care for elderly members and meet other obligations. “The Catholic Church is only beginning to get going on this,” one property consultant told the newspaper.

The sales have turned former seminaries, colleges and convent grounds into some of the most valuable development land in Dublin, and have made religious orders important, if quiet, players in Ireland’s housing market. What becomes of the land, whether luxury homes or affordable housing, depends heavily on who buys it and what the planners allow.

Jamaica has its own religious orders and denominations holding large estates, some granted generations ago. As congregations age and costs rise, similar decisions will come. The Irish experience suggests that church bodies should know the value and zoning of their land well before selling, and think about whether a sale serves the wider community, including families priced out of the housing market, not only the balance sheet.

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