‘HOLY’ House of Prayer boss Christina Gallagher has bought another
fabulous mansion on a super-rich private estate. The money-mad guru has snapped up an amazing house, which has its own cinema and snooker room.
The six-bedroom property – five of the bedrooms have en-suite bathrooms and walk-in wardrobes – is on a private estate built by former billionaire Jim Mansfield, near Citywest, Dublin.
The astonishing house, which is at the end of a cul de sac in the
gated development Coldwater Lakes, Saggart, offers complete privacy.
There is not even a pedestrian access to the estate.
The house was up
for sale for a cool €2million when Gallagher grabbed it for her
astonishing portfolio.
She is believed to have got it for a ‘bargain’
€1.1million.
Charlatan
Gallagher, founder of the House of Prayer on Achill Island, Co. Mayo,
is a self-proclaimed visionary who claims she receives regular messages
from Jesus and the Virgin Mary.
But the Sunday World exposed her five years ago as a charlatan who
had taken millions of euro from her devoted and mostly elderly
followers.
The secrecy-obsessed 59-year-old granny, who has built a cult-like
following around herself, has already begun to turn her latest home into
a Fort Knox-like structure.
She has spent €100,000 erecting fencing and
cameras to keep out prying eyes, despite the fact the public can’t see
the house.
She did the same when she moved into her former home, a fabulous
€4million mansion next to pop stars Ronan Keating and Westlife’s Byrne
on the private Abington estate in Malahide in 2006.
An astonishing €2million mansion on the Welsh-English border, which
was bought without a mortgage and which was uncovered by the Sunday World in 2011, also had top-notch security.
The property had seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a seven-person
hot-tub and its own, lake, indoor swimming pool, snooker room, sauna,
bar and gym.
It has since been sold.
Another luxury property outside
Newport, Co. Mayo, had massive security walls and cameras built around
it.
Huge
Other properties Gallagher has bought for her family include a huge
€lmillion mansion near her native Knockmore, Co. Mayo, for daughter Mary
and another house for son Brendan nearby.
Despite her millionaire lifestyle, the prayer leader, who retained
half the marital home after separating from husband Paddy, audaciously
tells followers she has no interest in material things and would happily
live in a tent.
The Sunday World revealed those claims to be a complete lie in a series of shocking exposés.
The latest mansion is the eighth luxury property owned or bought by
the millionaire mystic that we have uncovered.
And she doesn’t even have
a job.
Every house she buys is instantly upgraded with the best marble floors, antique furniture and chandeliers.
When followers raised eyebrows at her decision to put a Jacuzzi in
the House of Prayer in Achill, they were told: “Nothing is too good for
Our Lady.”
The new house on Coldwater Lakes is described as a 9,000 sq ft
“stunning property” with a double attached garage and a separate
detached garage.
Located on the Christy O’Connor jnr-designed Lakes Golf
Course, it has two large acre-sized gardens on either side, which
Gallagher is busy landscaping.
According to property records, the house
and grounds were bought on April 5 this year.
Gallagher first came to the Sunday World’s attention back in 2008
when we discovered she was driving a €120,000 BMW while encouraging her
elderly Catholic followers to hand over their life savings to her
“mission”.
We uncovered a memo to American followers – where she has built five
Houses of Prayer in remote areas – in which it was explained she wanted
“cash only”.
And the money was to be sent directly to her home so she
could “thank people personally”.
Following our revelations about her wealthy lifestyle, three former
followers took legal action to get back the €250,000 they had handed
over.
Rather than face a public court case, Gallagher returned their
money.
Damnation
Two of them revealed how they were “brainwashed” into handing over
the cash.
They were threatened with eternal damnation if they had money
and did not give it to “Our Lady’s cause”.
But the self-styled “humble housewife” has refused to give one word
of explanation about her sumptuous lifestyle, which began after she set
up the House of Prayer in July 1993.
The Sunday World recently called at the Coldwater mansion where we saw a huge landscaping operation underway.
The electric gate to the house was closed and when we rang the intercom, a woman answered and said: “No Christina lives here.”
She claimed Jim Mansfield owned the house and that she was renting it. Asked her name, she said: “None of your business.”
She then disconnected our reporter before he could ask why she was
doing such a massive landscaping job if she was only renting the house
and why she was erecting extensive fencing.