GAA’s Thurles birthplace set to sell for about €750k

The birthplace of a sports movement with more than 1m members in 2,300 clubs across five continents and with an annual turnover of €50m is set to sell this year — for about €750,000.

A strong sales push on Hayes Hotel in Thurles, where the GAA was founded 130 years ago in Nov 1884, is being undertaken this month by estate agents CBRE, who guide it at €750,000-plus.

They already report both local and national interest, after brief pre-Christmas preliminary advertising on the 30-bed hotel, considered a shrine to the GAA’s origins.

Hayes Hotel is steeped in GAA lore, with bars and nightclubs capable of hosting more than 1,000 sports revellers and fans.

Since the privately-owned hotel went into receivership nine months ago with KPMG, there have been calls for the GAA to buy it, given its iconic status as the spot (Lizzie Hayes’s billiard rooms) where the national sports body, which now has a global reach, was conceived.

A so-called local Tipperary Troika has also been identified as a possibly interested buyer. It is headed by Tipperary hurling star Lar Corbett, who already has bar and restaurant interest in his native Thurles, and their interest has garnered strong local and GAA support.

CBRE says the hotel is synonymous with the GAA, within walking distance of Semple Stadium — the county’s second largest GAA stadium, after Croke Park, with a 53,000-person capacity.

On Liberty Square, the Hayes Hotel complex includes an unused three-storey building, acquired by the owners with a view to expanding the facilities.