The storied Battery above the Forty Foot in Sandycove has a new owner, as The Irish Times reports.

With a price tag of €3 million, the three-bedroom home created on the site of a former Dublin Bay military installation was sold this past July to an Irish buyer, a year after it was put on the market.

At the time, the move prompted a local campaign calling on Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to buy the property to “provide space and facilities” for bathers at the famed swimming spot while also “serving to protect our historical and architectural heritage”, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

But even the new owner will have to abide by the rules of the architectural conservation area in which the Battery is situated, not to mention that its boundary wall is a protected structue.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

More than 400 people have signed a petition calling on Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to buy the Battery above the Forty Foot in Sandycove.

The three-bedroom home created on the site of a former Dublin Bay military installation has been on the market since last month with a price tag of €3 million, as Irish Times Property reports.

Local campaigners have put up posters locally with a link to their petition, which suggests that DLRCoCo could purchase the property to “provide space and facilities” for bathers at the famed swimming spot, while also “serving to protect our historical and architectural heritage”.

The Battery with its old fortifications next to the famed Forty Foot swimming hole | Credit: Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty Dalkey

Built from Dalkey granite, the Battery has a military history that extends from the early 1800s until the Emergency during the Second World War. It passed from State hands into private ownership in 1955, when it was subsequently transformed into a characterful family home.

The campaign says: “We have a wonderful opportunity to return the Battery to public ownership and for the council to acquire the space it needs to develop vital facilities, meet its own objectives for creating suitable outdoor amenities that promote community health and wellbeing and to preserve and protect our architectural and historical heritage and our environment.”

One of the posters taped up locally with a link to the petition | Credit: Afloat.ie

Despite the Forty Foot’s enduring popularity for bathers, campaigners point out that it “lacks many basic facilities” such as a dedicated lifeguard station with first aid, toilets and showers, drinking water and a “warm safe space” for cold-water swimmers.

For more on the campaign, see the petition on Change.org.