CLAIMS that Glengarriff’s Eccles Hotel has been sold have been described as premature, writes Jackie Keogh.
The hotel was put on the market with a €5m price tag in 2024, and, last April, it was rumoured to have been sold to a US hospitality investor for €4m.
Rumours resurfaced recently that the deal is about to go through and that the hotel will be retained as a local tourism asset, but there is still no official confirmation of this according to a well-placed source.
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Owners Ray Byrne and Eoin Doyle acquired the property in 2016 and upgraded it from a three-star to a four-star, refurbishing 59 bedrooms and creating a wedding, conference and banqueting facility and a spa.
It is understood that they have agreed to sell it to US hospitality investor, Brian Patrick Martin, who has a large property portfolio.
Records show that there has been a bar on the site since 1745, but the beautiful waterfront property wasn’t built by the Eccles family until 1890.
As a tourism destination, Glengarriff has been famous for centuries. Glengarriff, and the Eccles Hotel was in fact part of the historic Prince of Wales Route, a famous 19th-century Victorian tourist itinerary.
