Bunhill: Ruddock off to Dublin

ALAN RUDDOCK, my colleague at the Sunday Times, is off to Dublin to edit the expanded Irish edition of the newspaper. There he will join his Irish wife, but not for them the modest lifestyle of a lowly hack. Ruddock has purchased Rathmore House, a splendid Georgian pile, from the widow of Baron Reybon, a Danish aristocrat. The estate comes with 55 acres of prime land in County Carlow and a mile of fishing along the River Slaney.

No doubt he wishes to keep his wife Jackie in the style to which she is accustomed as the daughter of one of Ireland's richest men - Howard Kilroy, governor of the Bank of Ireland and president of Jefferson Smurfit, the country's largest industrial company.