After years of eyeing up the former Jameson townhouse at the corner of Bow Street and May Lane at Smithfield in Dublin, the Bar Council of Ireland had finally got hold of it.

A week or so before the redbrick Victorian pile was due to be sold by tender through Hamilton Osbourne King, the council's estate agent, Sean Davin, nipped in and bought it from Irish Distillers for an all-in cost of over #4 million (€5.08).

The acquisition means that the Bar Council now owns every property in the block with the exception of the Franciscan Church.

Apart from almost 10,000 sq ft of space in the Jameson building, the well-heeled legal eagles will obviously look at the possibility of developing an office block (perhaps as much as 40,000 sq ft) on an adjoining site of almost half an acre. In recent years they have invested over #50 m (€63.49m) in two other new office blocks in the same area.