Not moving with the fashion keeps hotel up with the times

During Ireland’s late lamented Celtic Tiger era, it seemed that time you went outside the door, a new hotel had sprung up. These creations, which were generally made of concrete, glass, steel and marble, reflected the country’s new-found ‘wealth’ and portrayed a slick, modern image of Ireland that was far removed from our traditional hotels.

But some people continued to believe that the old-fashioned way was best, among them Paul and Brian Hughes of the Abbeyglen Castle Hotel in Clifden, which this year celebrates 40 years in business.

To call the 45-bedroomed Abbeyglen an institution is no exaggeration – it has hosted guests from Grace Kelly to Woody Allen to Billy Connolly, to Brian Cowen and just about everybody in between since Paul and his late wife June opened the doors in 1970, having taken over the Glenowen House Hotel from the Joyce family, who had run it during the 1960s. If the walls could talk, there’d be no shortage of tales, personal and political, from this establishment.

The house has changed beyond recognition in the 40 years since the Hughes took over, but while they extended and castellated it, the Abbeyglen is built around the original dwelling that was commissioned by John D’Arcy of Clifden in 1832 as a hunting lodge.D’Arcy was the most important landlord in North Connemara and his family owned vast tracts of land locally. But those were hard years and shortly before his death in 1839, John D’Arcy mortgaged his estates.

They were inherited by his son Hyacinth, who was was not a good businessman, and whose difficulties were compounded by the fact that tenant farmers were unable to pay rent during the famine years. A committed Christian, Hyacinth subsequently became a vicar. He gave the house to the Church of Ireland and it was run as an orphanage until the mid 1950s. The building subsequently fell into rack and ruin, before being re-established as a hotel.

Today, in the function room to the rear of the Abbeyglen, an informal exhibition gives a brief history of the hotel in all its incarnations, and among the more poignant images is a photograph of the orphan girls from the 1950s.

There are also photos from the early days of Paul and June’s reign as they initially leased and then bought the building.

Paul, originally from Dublin, and June, from Dundalk, had learned their hotel skills in Dublin and subsequently ran Renvyle House Hotel for six years, explains their son Brian, who is now a partner in the Abbeyglen with his father – June died three years ago.

Renvyle was owned by Paul’s uncle Donny Coyle, one of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs, who set up Hygeia Chemicals in 1939.

“Donny was my role model,” says Paul, whose enthusiasm for life and the hotel industry remains undimmed after five decades in the business.

“You’ve got to live it and love it,” he says. And he did love it, since his early days training in Dublin, firstly in the Russell Hotel on St Stephen’s Green, and later in the Hibernian and the Moira Hotel. He also spent some time in Italy and Switzerland training.

An ebullient, outgoing personality, Paul is perfectly suited to the hotel business, and knew while working at Renvyle, that one day he would own his own hotel.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.