The house's gable end overlooks the golf club where he was once a member.

Creaven, who just made a record 26.5m settlement with Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) and Britain's Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) is no longer on the golf club's membership list, though his brother Marcus is listed.

The house, which now 32-year-old Creaven completed just before his highflying world came tumbling down, is unoccupied.

The lush landscaping looks in need of care and attention. The local rumour . . .

and this is strictly rumour . . . is that the landscape gardeners who did the work were tipped 10,000 in those final weeks before CAB made its raids in November 2002.

It's a big house, beside a number of other sizeable houses. Calling it a mansion is probably gilding the lily, but it's finished in top-quality materials and said to be automated to the hilt. "Apparently he could turn on his central heating from halfway across the Atlantic, " said one local.

While work progressed on the Woodstock house, Creaven lived when in Ireland in another imposing property on the Shannon Road. In London, his base was Kensington, where he bought an apartment in plush De Vere Gardens. He had a luxury villa in Marbella, which he is surrendering as part of the settlement with CAB and the ARA.

That settlement, of which CAB will keep one third and the ARA two thirds, also includes £18m ( 26m) cash and four racehorses. Of the four . . . Moon at Midnight, La Mandragola, Latino Magic and Lafayette . . . the most valuable would be Latino Magic, which won the McDonagh Handicap at the Galway Races in 2005.

Latino Magic will be auctioned by the CAB and is worth a six-figure sum, one racing industry insider suggested.

Ownership of those horses was registered four years ago to the Cardinal syndicate, of which it later emerged that Creaven was the 95% owner while trainer RJ Osborne owned 5%. After the High Court froze Creaven's assets in 2003, CAB initially wanted to sell them. A deal was struck, however, where they were leased to the trainer's mother.

This is the first time the 'mediation' route has been used by the ARA to bargain and negotiate with an individual under suspicion of Vat fraud. It is a stunning result but there is a feeling in Ennis that there may be lots more where that came from. All this wealth from a little company called Silicon Technologies, which started up with the support of Shannon Development in the Clare Business Centre on Francis Street in Ennis.

At its peak, the company supposedly turning over 416m in 2001 through the Irish company, and 41m though a Boston office, had 12 employees in its 400sq ft Ennis premises.

Silicon Technologies announced another new office in Singapore's Hitachi Tower just weeks before Creaven was arrested in Britain in November 2002 in a joint venture called Operation Chipstick between Ireland's CAB and British and Irish Customs and Excise. It occupied its space in Ennis for 18 months after CAB raided the office that November, at the same time as raids were carried out on Creaven's home and on his accountant's office.

Creaven was accused of carousel fraud . . . trading computer components through an assortment of off-the-shelf companies, repeatedly reclaiming Vat and pocketing that Vat rather than refunding it. He was initially charged with Vat fraud of £162m ( 232m), but the eventual charges were of two charges of defrauding the public revenue of £14m ( 21m).

After his arrest in November 2002, Creaven spent eleven and a half months in London's Wandsworth prison before being granted bail. In 2004, he and two of his companies successfully challenged the November 2002 search warrants and the Supreme Court made an order for the destruction of documents seized during those raids or for them to be handed back. The following May, Creaven was acquitted of all charges.

"I'm not talking, I can't talk about anything, I'm sorry, " said Creaven's mother, Harriet, from the family home at Knocknagun in the village of Newmarket- onFergus near Ennis, in response to a telephone call last week.

Dylan has a brother Marcus and three sisters. His father Louis, the only other director of Silicon Technologies, runs an aviation instruments business in Shannon where Marcus now works as well. In latter years, Louis Creaven has become better known as a philanthropist. He has been the main fundraising force behind the Mid-Western Regional Hospital Trust in Limerick.

The family were well-off, and Dylan Creaven's interests in horses dated from an early age. The Creavens kept horses and were part of local horse show society. He was "quietish" in primary school, said one local. After he went to secondary school in St Flannan's diocesan college in Ennis, his social circle centered more around Ennis, Limerick and, later, London.

In Ennis, Creaven was part of a set of wealthy and flash young contemporaries who lived a socialite life. Pick your source and you get comments ranging from "likeable" to "cocky bastard". Tall, wellbuilt, athletic, he played rugby with Ennis rugby club for a while. Silicon Technologies was one of the sponsors of Garryowen Under-20 rugby team for a couple of seasons up to six years ago. Garryowen, a club with a certain elan, would have fitted Creaven's image, locals suggested.

Creaven liked his cars, ordering a 200,000 Mercedes just weeks before the CAB raids. He drank in local pubs . . . Brogan's, Considine's and wherever was 'in' at the time. For a while, until 2002, his brother Marcus had a pub called Oddfellows in the town.

As well as his Woodstock membership, Creaven was a member of the golf club at Dromoland Castle near Newmarket-on- Fergus, where he liked to entertain. There's talk of him insisting that he and his guests were served champagne in crystal glasses. Mind you, you wouldn't be astonished in the circumstances if there were talk of him having regular baths in ass's milk. He also put deposits down on two plots of land at the Emirates Hills Golf Club in Dubai.

Creaven was a member of the Ennis Chamber of Commerce, though sources said he didn't participate in Chamber functions. Silicon Technologies wasn't his only business interest. He also had his own pub for a while, opening a bar in Limerick called Nevada Smiths with a former Ennis barman, Noel Reidy, whose father was formerly the chief fire officer in Clare.

Creaven also co-owned a recruitment agency with Reidy. Both subsequently closed down.

Creaven is expected back soon. An Ennis barman who knows him is certain that he will be back in the next fortnight. "He'll be welcomed back here with open arms and no one will be shunning him I'll tell you, " he said. "He's a sound lad, they're all sound, his family."

Not everyone is feeling so charitable.

"Where did that 26m come from and how much has he left is what locals are wondering, " said one local businessman.

There is also lingering bemusement at the idea that Creaven, who was just 22 when Silicon Technologies started up, could have been the brains behind such a large-scale operation in the then quite new and sophisticated world of carousel fraud scams.

During last year's trial, Creaven told the court he was an "innocent source of supplies" who had been "picked on and lured". He said he was "distraught" to find himself in the dock and broke down in tears when he was acquitted. The ARA didn't buy it, continuing to pursue him and carrying out the negotiations through a neutral Queens Counsel called Edwin Glasgow.

This being Ireland, there seems to be an element of admiration in some views of Creaven's activities. "If you can get away with it, sure why not?" said a local taxi driver. "Aren't they all doing it . . . just look at Bertie."