Whitbread PLC has entered the 1 bln eur bid battle for Jurys Inns, the Irish hotel chain put up for auction last year, reports the Sunday Times.
The newspaper says other contenders for the business include private-equity firm Permira and property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz.
Whitbread, owner of the Premier Travel Inn hotel chain, would have no problem [...]

The National Museum of Ireland has bought a letter written by Pádraic Pearse just before his execution.
Dated 2 May 1916, the letter is addressed to the then Commanding Officer of British Forces in Ireland, General John Maxwell.
The director of the National Museum, Dr Pat Wallace, said the letter had been bought for the museum by [...]

ALMOST 85,000 euro is being sought for five paintings of Donegal which will be offered for sale at auction at the end of the month.
The oil paintings will be auctioned at Whyte’s Sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on Monday April 30.
One painting of Marble Hill Strand, by Frank McKelvey, has been valued at [...]

NEIGHBOURING farmers were never in the shake-up for a 52-acre farm near Kinsale, Co Cork which was sold at auction recently.
The agents, Twomey Crowley Auctioneers from Bandon, had put a guide price of €1.5m on the farm but they failed to realise it at auction.
The holding was initially offered for sale in two lots. A [...]

FARMERS hungry for extra land have driven the conacre market to close weeks before normal.
With the Single Farm Payment deadline of May 4 still three weeks away, it appears much of the land available for letting has already been snapped up.
Farmers with unused entitlements have to activate them this year or lose them to the [...]