Where next for Renata Coleman? She hopes to unload her £1 million. The asking price at the time was £1 million-plus, but in those days of high interest rates and tumbling property prices, you could bet on buying property for less than the guide. Even at the reputed £925,000, some of Ms Coleman's friends thought she was mad to buy a "Victorian monstrosity". But undaunted, the bold Renata went ahead, and, with the help of antiques dealer Paul Cooke, turned it into a lavish country house geared towards corporate entertainment.

Renata won't be homeless if the castle is sold - though she will have to settle for something more modest. She still has a pied-a-terre in Dalkey, where she kept one of the cottages attached to Monte Alverno, the large Victorian property that she sold to Fonsie O'Meara for around £1 million in 1992. One of her neighbours here is racing driver Eddie Irvine, who bought Monte Alverno's summer cottage some years ago and put a helicopter pad in his patch of garden.

However, she also plans to spend more time in Hong Kong, where she minds her late husband's business interests in the novelty toy trade, and in Australia, where she has many friends in the polo playing set. She also manages to spend some time with her two children who are based in New York.