A local family have restored a 100-year-old hotel overlooking Clew Bay, Co Mayo. Theresa Judge reports
When Kathleen O'Keefe was a young girl, growing up in Mulrany, the Great Western Hotel, which overlooks the Co Mayo village, was considered far too upmarket for her family to visit. She little imagined that one day she would own it, and have to explain to a journalist why she and her husband felt it was worth investing €17 million in. "When we were young we never came up here. In the 1960s it was a very posh establishment," she says, laughing.
When the hotel reopened its doors in February, after 15 years of closure and worsening dilapidation, it was by any standards pretty posh again. Given the elegant design of the historic building and its setting, perched on a hill facing south across Clew Bay towards Croagh Patrick, those charged with returning it to glory had something of a head start.
Since it first opened, more than 100 years ago, the railway hotel has been part of the history of Mulrany, and, as its gradual demise represented the end of one era, its reopening is a symbol of the tentative arrival of a new one.
O'Keefe, an accountant and mother of six children who is in her early 40s, describes how she and her husband, Tom, finally decided to make the leap of faith required to buy the hotel after hearing Dr Jerry Cowley, the local Independent TD, complain on radio about the lack of development in the area.
"He was giving the example of the hotel and saying that all that's there now are the birds flying in and out of the broken windows. I just thought it was so pathetic, and I felt that if it wasn't done now it would never be done," she says.
Before the hotel reopened, the largest employer in the area was the care centre for elderly people opened in the village by Dr Cowley, partly to facilitate the return of Irish emigrants. The only other significant development the village had seen in recent years was a scheme of holiday homes, which it could be argued fail to do justice to the beauty of their setting.
The Great Western now employs more than 50 full-time staff, and this may rise to 70. It should bring increased business to local pubs, B&Bs and the holiday-home scheme, too. It is also changing the social life of the area. In the past many people from the area of west Co Mayo from Achill into Newport would have travelled the considerable distance to Westport for weddings and other large functions.
The reopened Great Western has facilities to rival those of Westport's four-star hotels. Local pupils are also benefiting, as the village school is allowed to use the gleaming new leisure centre for swimming classes.
It may not have quite the same air of exclusivity as in the old days, though: now hardly a local wouldn't consider themselves posh enough to enter the spacious bar, with its high ceilings, contemporary design and full-length windows looking on to the sea. And the people checking in for midweek breaks in the airy lobby, where a massive turf fire burns on a raised grate, are hardly concerned if they lack the cultivated air of superiority guests might have had in the days when the hotel employed a nanny.
An early advertisement boasted that it had "electric light" and "every modern comfort and convenience". It was opened in 1897 by Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland, which wanted to develop tourist traffic on the new line to Achill. Boarding in Dublin, the gentry of the day could buy a combined ticket for travel and accommodation, and when they descended, at the back door of the hotel, they were met by hotel porters. Facilities included a billiard room, a telegraph office and hot and cold sea- water baths. Looking at an image of the original Edwardian dining room, you can almost feel the crispness of the white tablecloths.
But former guests were not all of the stiff-upper-lip variety: John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed in the hotel in 1968. Photographs of them hang in the bar and in one of the bedrooms, which has been decorated distinctly in their honour.
The restoration of the hotel was entrusted to Quilligan Architects of Dublin. Given that it was a protected structure, the facade is largely unchanged. Paul Quilligan says it struck him that there was something special about the building the first time he walked through the door. "Even when it was completely derelict, when you walked into those very handsome rooms, particularly the reception room, the scale and the height of them was wonderful. It felt almost that the building had a soul. There are just some buildings like that."
The restoration takes full advantage of the views. The lounge and bar, reception room, dining room and new function room all have large windows looking out over the sea.
Poorly designed extensions added over the years were knocked down. A design principle, says Quilligan, was to keep the modern modern and the old old. So the new extension containing the leisure centre and function room is clearly modern, with much of the frontage in glass. In the old building, new wooden sash windows are replicas of the originals. The interior design is generally very contemporary, although the original wooden staircase has been retained. In the 41 bedrooms, fireplaces are out - most were removed long before the O'Keefes bought the hotel - and mosaic-tiled bathrooms are in. Hardwood bedroom furniture was designed by the Quilligan firm and made in Tuam, in Co Galway. Unlike in many modern hotels, the rooms are not boringly uniform, coming in a range of shapes and sizes. Those with bay windows overlooking the Atlantic are the most inviting.
Quilligan says he believes that one of the hotel's most interesting features, "as an example of man's intervention in nature", is a causeway built by the railway company a year after the hotel opened. It runs from the road in front of the hotel out to the sea, to enable guests to get directly to the beach.
His company has also designed apartments that have been built in the hotel grounds, again in contemporary style, and planning permission has been granted for 31 houses to be built around the 42 acres of woodland surrounding the hotel. Kathleen O'Keefe says the apartments were built to help finance the project, as they were sold and then rented back to the hotel. Guests therefore have the choice of staying in the hotel or the apartments.
The O'Keefes are not in the venture entirely on their own, as two Galway-based builders have invested with them. Kathleen O'Keefe says that although the scale of the investment isn't keeping her awake at night, they expect it to be years before they see a return on their money. In the meantime, she and her husband are carrying on their accountancy business in Claregalway, in Co Galway.
She says they underestimated the time and money the project would require. "If we had to do it all again, we would probably never do it. We've had great support from local people, but it has been very hard work, and we've also spent more money than we anticipated."
The hotel is linked to the Rezidor SAS group (owner of the Radisson SAS brand), which plays a role in training staff and is paid a fee for directing guests towards Mulrany, a decision taken, O'Keefe says, because "it isn't always easy to fill hotel rooms in this part of the world".
She says that, because she's a local, in a sense it's even more important that the hotel is a success. "I'm proud that Mulrany now has a leisure centre. Before, the hotel was an eyesore, and every time we passed we used to say something should be done with it. There's a lot of risk attached, but we just have a feeling that it can work, that it's going to be great."
The Great Western Hotel, Mulrany, Co Mayo, 098-36000; accommodation costs €50-€80 a person a night, including breakfast; a set five-course dinner costs €34.50; it is currently offering two nights' bed and breakfast, with one dinner, for €109 per person midweek, €140 per person at weekends