Robin Deasy is off to farm in England, leaving a property that has been in his family for six generations and has survived historic events, says Seán Mac Connell, Agriculture Correspondent

When Robin Deasy drops the gavel on his family home, Gurtray House, near Portumna, Co Galway, next month, he will be breaking a 200-year-long link between his mother's family and the agricultural, social, economic and cultural past.

The home has been a haven for six generations of his family and has survived the Great Wind, all the European wars, the war of independence and civil war here and the economic war.

But now economies of scale in agriculture have set Robin on a new adventure, one which will see him turn his back on Portumna to set up a new life in Lincolnshire where he has already taken over a cereal farm of 780 acres.

Robin decided to settle in Lincolnshire after much agricultural research which led him to conclude that places such as Australia were too dry and hot, Canada too dry and cold and other places, such as Eastern Europe, far too neurotic for his liking.

"Anyhow I don't like places where people drive on the wrong side of the road and don't speak English," he joked.

Cereal farming has been at the heart of the 250-acre family farm in the last 30 years under Robin's stewardship: he returned to work there as a farm labourer after agriculture college.

"There is a malting barley quota of 176 acres to the farm, 30 acres of set-aside, 16 acres of pasture, 22 acres of wood and 48 acres of bog so whoever buys this home will have turf and wood aplenty," he says.

"Don't get me wrong. I love it here but I cannot get the acreage that would make this a truly commercial farm. This an amenity farm which will not be purchased by a farmer but by a gentleman farmer who likes his fishing, hunting and shooting," he says.

"Farming here is very difficult and even though there are EU subsidies of around €40,000 annually, it would not balance the books in the end," he says. "With land costing in excess of €20,000 an acre, it's impossible."

His love and pride in the place is obvious as is his sadness at breaking the link with the home which was first established there by Ambrose Madden O Kelly who somehow managed to buy it after the family was dispossessed.

"I don't know how he got the money but he did and we believe the house was first started in the 1760s. It lost its roof on the night of the Big Wind in the 19th century and was rebuilt in 1954," he says.

"I put a new roof on it in 1984 and it is a very sound six-bedded house which is very comfortable. I think it is a very tidy property which is beautiful as well as everything else," he says.

Over the centuries the Georgian home became a sanctuary for the extended family who were involved in all the major wars and historical and commercial events in Europe and this tradition continued up to the recent past when Robin's brother, Ruaidhri, was elected deputy President of the IFA.

Their father, the late Rickard Deasy, was the flamboyant leader of the National Farmers' Association who brought the country to a standstill in the late-1960s, campaigning for farmers' rights.

"Two expert firms from Dublin valued this place last year at €5.5 million but I will not have a reserve price until I pick up the hammer to conduct the auction which I will be doing myself," he says.

"I see the future as a new adventure and my son, who is studying in Scotland, is already involved in helping me down in Lincolnshire with the farm there," he says.

Before Robin hands over to the new owners, he has arranged for his mother to come there so she can be photographed with him and his son in front of the house, exactly in the spot where his grandfather arranged a similar photograph of the three previous generations who lived there.

Robin Deasy will auction the property himself, on the premises, on June 19th.