Supermac’s boss snaps up hotel

A STRONG Irish buyer, Pat McDonagh of the Supermac’s restaurant chain, has emerged as the buyer of Cork’s purpose-built Charleville Park Hotel after very competitive bidding via agent Denis O’Donoghue of Savills.

It had a price of €3.75m but was bid well above that by a number of interested parties, mostly Irish. It is now the third hotel owned by the McDonagh family, joining the Lough Rea Hotel in their native county Galway, and the Castletroy Park Hotel in Limerick. Confirmation of the Co Cork purchase for a sum close to €5m comes in the same week as the McDonagh family opened the Barack Obama Plaza, a €7m-plus motorway filling station at Moneygall, with visitor centre commemorating the US president’s links to the village, on the Offaly-Tipperary border.

The only purpose-built station on the M7 Dublin-Limerick motorway, it is hoped to repeat the business mix of filling station and food halls and services in other locations, Mr McDonagh told the Irish Examiner.