New hotel to create more than 100 jobs
December 2002
exploitation of people amounts to extortion on a massive scale.
‘They are thriving on poverty that is rampant in Wexford and there is no doubt that money lenders have a vested interest in the continuance of high unemployment levels,’ he claimed.
Mr Enright said he had made a formal complaint to the Gardai on Wednesday morning, referring to the interest rates charged, and he understood there was a full investigation planned into legal and illegal money lending.
Supdt. Dan Kenny confirmed that complaint was received from the Workers’ Party and said it will be ‘thoroughly and systematically’ investigated.
‘The full rigours of the law will be applied and people need have no fear about making complaints. There may have been a reluctance in the past to come forward but people need have no anxiety now,’ he said.
More than 100 jobs will be created at Wexford’s newest luxury three-star hotel over the coming months.
The €13.6 million Quality Hotel, on a five-acre site next to the Barntown roundabout, has 108 bedrooms and an extensive leisure centre, and will be operated by Cork-based Choice Hotels Ireland.
‘The new hotel will bring an added economic benefit to the area in terms of visitors and jobs,’ said Frankie Whelehan, Choice Hotels’ chief executive.
The hotel will be managed by Limerick man Fearghal O’Sullivan, who has international experience with the Forte Group, and who most recently managed Dunbrody House and Kinnity Castle in Birr, Co. Offaly.
The hotel is being built by Wexford-based Ellen Construction, the company founded in 1995 by brothers Michael and Martin Doran.
Ellen’s past hotel experience includes the Brooklodge Hotel at Aughrim, an extension and refurbishment project at Kelly’s Hotel in Rosslare, and the three Bewley’s Hotels properties in Glasgow, and at Newland’s Cross and Ballsbridge in Dublin.
The company recently appointed John Whelan, Sean McKelvie and Tracey Moran to the board of directors. All three of them are from County Wexford.
The Quality Hotel brand operations team also manages hotels in Cork, Clonakilty, Galway, Donegal and Waterford, with another project also underway at Youghal. brothers, now sadly passed away.
The present owner, Mr. George O’Donnell, himself a blacksmith, has built a new forge behind the old premises, and he explains that this is one of the reasons why his sons Martin and Robert, who work with him, will be demolishing the buildings in a few days’ time. Mr O’Donnell, whose grandfather was Irish, came to Ireland from Birmingham and took over the blacksmith’s business from Jack Kelly in 1971.
He still has the tools and old bellows that Jack Kelly used to shoe horses, and while his own work as a blacksmith is now mainly confined to welding, he marvels at the fact that the late Mr Kelly, because of absence of electricity, would have shoed farm horses by candlelight.
In fact, one of Mr O’Donnell’s prized possessions on the premises is a candlestick made by Jack Kelly and used by him in his work.
Some time ago, Mr O’Donnell was introduced to the man who made for himself in Liverpool as a master baker, while he was on holiday in Ireland, and it transpired that the baker’s wife had actually been born in ‘The Bakehouse’.
Mr O’Donnell explains that the present deeds of the building date back to 1910, but though they were built in 1880, no record is given because the original deeds were lost.
When the ‘Old Forge’ and ‘The Bakehouse’ in the ‘Barony of Shelmalier’, overlooking the Forth mountain, are finally demolished, another link with the old Irish rural scene will fade away.