A businessman behind the development of the former Doonbeg Golf Club wrote a gushing letter to his “outrageous friend” Jeffrey Epstein in which he told of his surprise that Donald Trump could run it so well.
Gerald G Barton, an American golf real estate developer who died in 2018, featured in the latest public release of files relating to Epstein, the convicted sex offender, and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
In the 1990s Barton’s business, Landmark Land Company, held the right to tender to develop the Doonbeg course in Co Clare under an agreement with Shannon Development.
Trump at Doonbeg in 2023
DAMIEN STORAN/REUTERS
As the project stalled, Kiawah Development Partners paid €5.7 million to buy out Landmark and some local farmers, and spent nearly seven years planning and developing the course.
In an email to Epstein on May 17, 2016, Barton begins by addressing it to “my extraordinary talented, outrageous friend”. At the time Epstein was a convicted sex offender, jailed for soliciting prostitution with a minor. After detailing his financial woes at length, Barton raises Trump, then running for president.
“On a lighter note, Donald Trump recently bought our development in Ireland, Doonbeg Golf Club,” he said.
“To date, to my surprise, he is managing it reasonably well, probably because he is presently devoted to an endeavour that amuses him.”
Doonbeg, now called Trump Ireland, will host the Irish Open in September.
