FAMILY-RUN BUSINESSES DOWN THROUGH THE GENERATIONS HUNTER’SHOTELISAPIECE OFLOCALANDIRISHHISTORY

HUNTER’S Hotel in Rathnew, is considered to be Ireland’s oldest coaching inn and has been run by the same family since 1825.

Richard and Tom Gelletlie are currently at the helm of a family business which is just shy of being 200 years old.

The origins of the hotel date back to around 1650. Built on land held by Sir Abraham Yarner of Clonmannon Estate, it was originally a forge, situated at a shallow ford on the banks of the River Vartry on the then main Dublin to Wexford road.

It evolved into what became known as the Newry Bridge Inn, a post house where travellers rested and changed horses, with the river providing an important watering spot for weary animals.

Down through the years many famous faces chose to pay a visit to the comfortable and scenic surroundings of Hunter’s, including nationalist leader Charles Stuart Parnell.

When Sarah Hunter ran the hotel along with her younger brother Charles Parnell Hunter, named after his godfather who also happened to a friend of Robert Hunter, who lived in nearby Avondale House, Charles Stuart Parnell was a frequent visitor to the hotel and often came along for poker games.

‘Family legend has it that he used to sit in a corner of the drawing room in a large comfortable chair, which is still there and known to this day as “Parnell’s chair”, said Tom Gelletlile.

‘He would take out his gun and put it on the table in front of him before commencing a game of cards.’

Another family story highlights the divisions in Irish society at that time when many of the younger Anglo Irish generation supported Parnell’s fight for Home Rule for Ireland and many of their parents viewed him as a traitor.

‘Apparently when old John Hunter was blind and bedridden, he was confined to a room at the top of the hotel’s main stairs. On hearing Parnell enter the front door and walk across the tiled hall he would bang his stick on the floor and shout at the top of his voice. “Get that man out of my house.” It seems that Robert Hunter took no notice of his father’s commands.’

From the mid-1700s, the Newry Bridge Inn was leased to various owners until around 1820, when it came into the hands of John Hunter, the great, great grandfather of the present owners, Richard and Tom Gelletlie.

John Hunter was a butler for Charles Tottenham, owner of the Ballycurry Estate, and his wife Catherine was housekeeper there. In 1825 the young couple obtained the lease on the hotel, stable yard and seven acres of garden from Henry Tighe of Ballinapark, Ashford.

John and Catherine were clearly an entrepreneurial pair. Using the skills acquired at Ballycurry, they quickly built up the hotel to become the major establishment in the area.

A well known guidebook of the time, (Halls Ireland, 1825), stated: ‘ We strongly recommend Mr Hunter’s Inn at Newrath Bridge which is, according to our experience, the most comfortable in the county.’

In 1858, John Hunter decided to expand his business and took a lease on a second coaching inn, the Woodenbridge Hotel in Avoca. From then until his death in 1869, he ran the two hotels with the help of his wife and two sons. His eldest son Robert took over Newrath Bridge Inn and George became proprietor of the Woodenbridge Hotel.

The Wooden Bridge remained in the Hunter family until around 1912 with various family members branching out into alternative forms of employment including horse training at the Curragh.

Robert Hunter who took over Newrath Bridge when his father died had a very large family, even by the standards of the time. He and his wife Elizabeth had twelve children. Two sons joined the South African Infantry and fought in the Second Boer War, bringing back the water buffalo horns that now grace the hotel’s front hall. George, one of these sons, went on to fight in the Great War and was killed in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme. Eventually just two of the children ended up running the hotel – Sarah Hunter and her youngest brother Charles Parnell Hunter – until Charles death in 1937. From then on, Sarah became the sole proprietor of the hotel, evolving into something of a legend known to all and sundry as Aunt Sarah. She never married and devoted her energies to building up the hotel, introducing electric light, improving the gardens and relishing the increase in business which followed the demise of horse drawn transport and the arrival of the motor car.

One of her sisters, Fanny Hunter had married Thomas Gelletlie, a watchmaker from Wicklow town whose family originally came form Scotland. In 1944, their son Cecil Gelletlie married Maureen Murtagh, a young hotel manageress who had come to work in Hunter’s Hotel a few years previously.

When Sarah Hunter died in 1966 she left the hotel to her nephew Cecil and so it passed into the hands of the Gelletlie family.

Certainly being a funeral director is different to any other career and it has its own challenges.

‘Being an undertaker is a hugely rewarding job. It is always an honour to be entrusted with the care of a deceased person and it is very satisfying to be able to take the burden of responsibility from a grieving family and ensure that their loved one gets a funeral which is both dignified, and a true reflection of the individual.

‘It is a huge responsibility however and is very emotionally draining as it can be difficult to separate the emotional aspect from your responsibilities as a professional. What we tend

Maureen Gelletlie ran the hotel for over 60 years, building up a wide circle of friends across the globe, expanding the business and modernising the premises while maintaining the character of the old building and gardens.

Maureen had five children and today Hunter’s Hotel is run by her two sons, Richard and Tom Gelletlie, who carry on the tradition of hospitality begun by their great- great-grandparents, John and Catherine Hunter, in the 1820s.

The hotel’s award winning gardens on the banks of the River Vartry are justly famous, retaining all the charm of a bygone age. Laid out in the Victorian style with box-edged borders, croquet lawn, a small knot garden and summer house, the garden has a spectacular display of oriental poppies in May and June and features many other interesting perennials.

Hunter’s Hotel has evolved over 300 years and at every corner there are reminders of this long history. The oldest part of the hotel is the kitchen area to the back, where there are thick walls and a large open fireplace with overhanging beams where meat was smoked.

The central part of the hotel was built in the Victorian era, and its essential layout remains unchanged with original floor tiles, oak staircase, open fireplaces and reception rooms bordering the charming gardens.

The windows in the dining room bear the signatures of some of the visitors to the hotel over the years who must have surreptitiously carved their names into the glass between courses. The bedrooms still retain their old world charm but have all been updated with modern comforts. A new wing encompassing a small conference room and bedrooms was built in the 1990s. to do is, after we finish each funeral, as a team we sit down and have lunch together and talk about the previous few days.

‘For me, the best thing is to spend time with family and friends, especially my daughter Lucy. That helps me to focus on life outside work.’

While there are many years ahead before Niamh will be thinking of retiring, she said she would like to see the business remain in the Sweeney family.

‘ There are three grandchildren in the family so definitely I would love to see one of them take an interest and to keep Grandad’s name going. That is my hope, but it will ultimately be their decision to make.’