Background
Mansfield was born on 9 April 1939 and was raised in Brittas, County Dublin.
Mansfield was born on 9 April 1939 and was raised in Brittas, County Dublin.
Mansfield had been involved in high-profile disputes over planning permission for his developments. By 2011, Mansfield"s companies" debts could not be serviced, and his commercial properties passed to the National Asset Management Agency. He left school, initially buying a lorry and working in the haulage business, then later renting or selling lorries to contractors.
He made his fortune selling machinery left over from the Falklands war.
lieutenant was from this industry that Mansfield expanded his business empire to include the Mansfield Group and HSS Limited.
Mansfield"s assets grew in the 1980s, according to a 2003 report in the Sunday Business Post, when he sold 100,000 tonnes of machinery, including some 1,100 earth-movers, which had been left over from the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina, for an estimated STG100 million. The Irish Times estimated the profit at £19 million in the United States and a further £7 million in the United Kingdom. Mansfield realised that land was going up in value in Ireland in the early 1990s, and he successfully secured several thousand acres in and near Saggart, County Dublin, as well as other small pockets of land throughout Dublin.
As property demand rose, so did the land value, and he successfully turned over his land assets. He carried on dealing in his machinery trade, which once again added to his wealth, amounting to a reputed €200 million, as of a 21 February 2010 report in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times.
In 2000 Mansfield purchased the Weston aerodrome, a €13 million airfield to the south west of Dublin.
He expanded the airfield to include a flight training facility but without full planning permission. In 1999 he bought Palmerstown House, an estate near Johnstown, County Kildare, from Anne Moen Bullitt for International Rectifier £10million (€127million). Mansfield had the main part of his empire, the Citywest Hotel complex, placed into receivership in 2010.
The Bank of Scotland (Ireland) took steps to recover €170m loaned to two companies.
On 20 April 2011, NAMA seized the last of the major assets in Mansfield"s property empire. Apart from Weston airport, also seized were six of his apartment blocks at Citywest in Saggart and at Palmerstown House Estate, which includes a championship golf course.
Mansfield suffered from Multiple System Atrophy (Modern Sciences and Arts), a rare condition that causes symptoms similar to Parkinson"s disease.