Caiseal Mara Hotel
It seems that the Caiseal Mara hotel is back up for sale.
It is being put up for sale through McCauley’s.
The asking price is €450,000.
Bought at Auction
It was bought, at auction, in Dublin for €175,000.
The Caiseal Mara has 48 bedrooms, of which 32 of them are currently available, with the family using the ones on the top floor where they live.
It has a Function Room which seats 300 people and another smaller one which seats 80 people.
It has a nice restaurant which seats 48 people and it has a bar too.
McKenna Family from Dublin
Moville people have a lot to be grateful for to the McKenna family from Dublin who bought it a couple of years ago.
It was up for auction in Dublin with a reserve price of just €175,000.
There was only one bid and one bidder at €160,00 and it didn’t sell at auction.
However, a bid of the full amount was made after the auction that day.
Bank Bad Luck
They had some bad luck from the beginning with the bank deciding that much of the furniture and fittings weren’t in the original price that it was sold at -which was news to the McKennas.
They then had the electricity company ruining a lot of their kitchen equipment and TV sets with a power surge costing them tens of thousands of pounds using up money they had intended investing in the hotel.
Debt Owed by Moville to the McKennas
However, if it wasn’t for the McKenna’s the Caiseal Mara would almost certainly be still shut now and deteriorating.
Last year it was completely full for the BeatlesFest on two nights and full for three nights at the DylanFest.
Having the hotel open and full again made a big difference to the amount of people attracted to the festivals which benefitted most of the businesses of the town.
Moville’s Heartbeat
The Caiseal Mara Hotel, or McNamaras, as it was called previously, has always been the heartbeat of the town.
The people it attracts to the town go out and spend money in the restaurants, pubs and shops in the town.
You could see how badly that Moville was hit when the Caiseal Mara was closed.
There was an economic slowdown in the country at large but the downturn in Moville was much, much worse than it was elsewhere.
The closure of the Caiseal Mara was a major contributor to that.
High Unemployment
Not only was there the loss of money to the town from fewer visitors but there was the 24 people (I’m told) who were employed there previously.
If they were no longer working they were no longer spending nearly as much money in the town.
Unemployment in the town at 32% was more than double Ireland’s average at the worst of the downturn which was 14%.
Moville’s youngsters were leaving the town in droves to go to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and the UK to get work.
The value of local houses plunged. The value of local businesses plunged even more with pubs and restaurants selling for as little as a tenth of what they used to be worth.
Moville’s Great Depression and Rise Again
It was like a Depression in Moville rather than a recession. Indeed Moville’s unemployment rate reached the same levels as unemployment reached in America at the worst of the Great Depression at 32%.
The economy is starting to rise in Moville over the past 2 years or so.
Indeed, you could probably trace the turn upwards in the Moville economy from the day the McKenna’s re-opened the Caiseal Mara, Moville’s heart. House prices have been rising for the past 2 years.
When no one else in Ireland wanted the Caiseal Mara, the McKennas did.
Re-Opened Caiseal Mara
The running costs are high with high business rates so I hope the family have not lost too much money. Hopefully they regain it from the sale of the business.
Perhaps they want to go back to Dublin.
The McKennas got the Caiseal Mara back open again. It looks as if it will be sold to someone else who will buy it as a going concern and attract maybe even more people to Moville.
Debt of Gratitude
All of Moville, its businesses and its people owe a huge debt of gratitude to the McKennas.
They believed in us, and our little town, when we didn’t even believe in it ourselves.
All those whose house prices are rising should be grateful to them as should youngsters who no longer has to leave Ireland to get work.
All those who own businesses in the town should be grateful to them.
We will always be indebted to them.
When Moville was at its very, very lowest, the McKennas appeared from Dublin, like the cavalry coming over the hill to save the town
Good bless them and good luck to them in their next venture.
If you are interested in buying, click on Caiseal Mara Hotel.