Doubts surround the reopening of the 36-bedroom Butler Arms Hotel in Waterville for the summer, raising concerns amongst the local community and tourism interests.
Butler Arms Hotel supports up to 50 jobs and plays an essential role in the tourism sector of the Iveragh area.
The Butler Arms Hotel in Waterville, the partially redeveloped Loftus Hall in Co Wexford, and the incomplete Donloy Castle (Puxley Manor) in Castletownbere are among 14 properties in receivership connected to Paddy McKillen Jr, managed by lenders Relm finance.
The Butler Arms, in business since uit was established by the Huggard family in 1884, was acquired by Paddy McKillen Jr’s Press Up group for €6.5m in 2022, taking over from the Huggard family after a long history with the establishment.
Loftus Hall located on Hook Head in Wexford was to be renamed ‘Ladyville House’, and was undrr development to provide 22 bedrooms, an outdoor swimming pool and a restaurant that’ll seat 180 people. James Gleeson is the hotel’s General manager.
Donloy Castle, situted on a hillside west of the town of Castletownbere, was developed by Horst Schulze, former president of Ritz-Carlton Hotels as a proposed “seven-star hotel” in 2007, part of the short-lived Capella group alongside Castlemartyr (and Schloss Velden in Austria) and but was not completed before the global financial recession.
