Hotel on market for €10m

The Ring of Kerry gem-set hotel Parkna-silla, on 500 acres and with 62 lodges and villas, has been put up for sale for €10m.

The historic hotel has been visited by the likes of George Bernard Shaw who extolled its natural beauties, by Charles DeGaulle, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, and more latterly favoured by Bertie Ahern.

Parknasilla was last bought by the now hugely-indebted developer Bernard McNamara for €40m in 2006, when the seven Great Southern Hotels were sold off for €265m by the Dublin Airport Authority.

Mr McNamara added 24 two-bed lodges, 38 three-bed villas, a spa, and other elements as part of a multimillion-euro investment. It brings total bed numbers to 250, at a sale price of €40,000 per bed.

Parknasilla comes up for sale a week after Mr McNamara’s 500-bed Burlington Hotel in Dublin 4 also hit the market guiding €65m to €75m, having cost him €288m.

Parknasilla, between Kenmare and Sneem, is on 500 acres of land with extensive Kenmare river and bay frontage, and features a 12-hole golf course. Its sale comes about as its bankers, Lloyds/Bank of Scotland, continue to dispose of their unwise Irish boom-time investments — Mr McNamara’s debts alone are said to be around €1.5bn to €2bn.

According to selling agents Tom Barrett and Isobel O’Regan of Savills, acting for receivers Grant Thornton, Parknasilla is a destination resort and at the €10m guide, “represents a superb opportunity to acquire an internationally recognised hotel located on one of Ireland’s major tourist attractions, the Ring of Kerry. There is enormous opportunity for an incoming purchaser.”