€500k auction price for hotel where GAA was founded

The iconic Tipperary hotel where the GAA was founded, and where tens of thousands of sport fans have congregated every year since, is to be sold at auction with a guide price of just €500,000.

Hayes Hotel in Thurles will be Lot 82 at the Allsop’s auction September 16. The auctioneer has put a reserve range of €450,000-€500,000 on the 30-bed hotel.

That is €300,000 less than the guide price put on it by estate agents CBRE at the start of this year, nine months after it went into receivership with KPMG.

Since details of the receivership became known, there were calls for the hotel to be bought by the GAA, given the venue’s iconic status as the spot where the national sports body was founded.

According to the GAA website: “At the behest of Michael Cusack, seven men met in Hayes Hotel, Thurles, on November 1, 1884, and founded the Gaelic Athletic Association for the Preservation and Cultivation of our National Pastimes.

“Maurice Davin was elected President, Michael Cusack, John Wyse Power and John McKay elected Secretaries, and Archbishop Thomas William Croke, Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt were asked to become patrons.”

Almost exactly 130 years later, the property comes up for auction comprising a reception, lounge bar, coffee dock, two nightclubs, and the 30 bedrooms. The sale also includes Cusack’s Bar.