The Fitzpatrick Bunratty Hotel in Co Clare has been sold by Mr Paul Fitzpatrick to Ennis businessmen Mr Noel Connellan and Mr Seán Lyne.
The price paid for the hotel is understood to be be in excess of €13 million.
The hotel, which was acquired by the Fitzpatrick group in 1975, has been developed to include 115 rooms, a bar, restaurant, leisure centre and a 1,000-seat conference centre.
The new owners, Mr Connellan and Mr Lyne, plan to develop a resort facility at the hotel at a cost of €10 million. The hotel comes with planning permission to develop 39 holiday homes on its 18-acre site. The development is to be in keeping with the Bunratty Village theme.
Mr Fitzpatrick is the major shareholder in two Dublin "design hotels", the Morgan Hotel, Temple Bar, and the newly-acquired Beacon Hotel, in Sandyford.
He recently purchased the USIT building in Dublin, adjacent to the Morgan, and is extending that hotel to bring the total number of rooms to 105 and extended-stay suites to 15.
Mr Fitzpatrick is one of three operators within the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group. His brother John is the main shareholder in the group's New York and Chicago hotels, while his sister Eithne is the main shareholder in the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel in Killiney, Dublin.
All the hotels are marketed under the Fitzpatrick Hotel banner.
Mr Connellan, a property developer and financier based in the Ennis area, and Mr Lyne, a member of the Lyne family that owns a number of hotels in the West of Ireland, made the purchase by way of their company, Pugadar Ltd.
