The Canadian embassy in Dublin has apparently had a stream of agents offering to sell its new ambassador Pat Binns - currently renting an apartment in the Four Seasons hotel - a new home, now that it's put Strathmore, its residence on nine acres overlooking the sea in Killiney, Co Dublin up for sale for €17 million.
The embassy is thinking of renting or buying a 372-465sq m (4,000-5,000sq ft) house (half the size of the Killiney residence), ideally detached and on up to an acre, in Dublin 2, 4 or 6.
But while Canadians are quiet people, not easily riled, anger at the plan to sell the residence is growing in Ireland and Canada, where a former foreign affairs minister and a string of ambassadors have objected to the sale. Tycoon Galen Weston, a regular visitor to the house when he lived here with Irish wife Hilary, has said: "I'll be very sad to see it go. It's absolutely spectacular," while conceding that the house is expensive to maintain.
Over here, Canadian Brenda Rawn, who lives on Sorrento Terrace in nearby Dalkey with her husband Neil Jordan, wants them to stop the sale. "It's ridiculous that just as cultural and entrepreneurial relations between Ireland and Canada - including film co-productions - are growing, they want to get rid of it. The house lends itself beautifully to being a centre for cultural exchanges." She's e-mailed Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper to let him know how she feels - as has Maeve Binchy and Jennifer Johnston's Canadian publisher, Kim McArthur who says "Strathmore has hosted so many important international political and cultural dignitaries and new artists over the years that I find it hard to credit that our new ambassador will be trying to host gatherings, network and present Canada to the world from a condo."
Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper ran an editorial comparing Harper's Conservative government to an impoverished country squire downsizing to cheaper digs. It said that the Dublin residence has "shone as the visible sign of Canada's stature for half a century" and describes its sale as a false economy.
But can the Canadian government be turned? It has also put its High Commission HQ on Grosvenor Square in London up for sale for £300 million (€432 million), as well as houses and apartments it owns in New York, France and Sweden.
