‘Bog hotel’ owner could be fined €12m
A notice served on Patsy Brogan by Donegal County Council describes the bar — which he insists is for private use — as an “unauthorised development”. It also demands he remove old cars, caravan wrecks and lorry parts, which the council says add up to the operation of an illegal scrapyard.
Mr Brogan claimed yesterday he is trying to clean up the yard, but he said he won’t be removing the bar, which he denies is a shebeen and claims is a private facility he shares with friends.
He has denied claims that he charges for drink although some visitors are known to have left “donations” in a large jar. He said: “I’m not doing anything illegal. They will have to shoot me to get rid of the bar.” He said he got little help from the council several years ago when he and his family were made homeless. He said one of the wrecks he has been ordered to move from the yard is an uninhabitable caravan that is the council’s own property. It was provided as a temporary home.
The council notice instructs him to return the shed bar to its original state. But Mr Brogan insists he built it as a playroom for his children and, when they reached their teens, added a disco facility. His children have been in care since he and his partner split last year.
He has not been prosecuted because gardaí say they cannot produce evidence that drink is being sold.
There is also a barmaid — 28-year-old Daria Weiske from Poland — whom the 70-year-old Brogan says is his girlfriend although she laughs off the claim. The council notice was pinned to the door of Mr Brogan’s home on January 29. When officials called him a couple of weeks later he claimed he had not seen the notice, so a copy was sent to him along with a photocopy of a photograph of a garda standing beside it on the date of the original delivery. If a prosecution is conducted in a higher court, the maximum penalty could be €12.69m and two years in jail.
The “bog hotel” earned its nickname from its remote location in the Bluestack Mountains and its owner’s readiness to serve drink to callers no matter what the time.
It earned widespread public attention when it was discovered to be the last place visited by a young man who died later the same day in January this year after a night of partying. Gardaí have ruled out any link between his death and his visit to the “bog hotel”.
