13/02/2025
WHAT WAS STAYING IN A CONNEMARA HOTEL LIKE IN THE 1880s?
Renvyle House Hotel was opened to paying guests in 1883.
Although many local people would be employed in the hotel, advertisements seeking staff from further afield were also a common feature. One such advert looked for a waiter who could multi-task as a gardener.
A cook was also sought for the hotel, food being regularly mentioned as one of the hotel’s strengths.
For £3 a week, guests were assured of good food, fresh milk and the highest standard of care.
One periodical would describe the hotel as ‘a lovely summer rendezvous…The hostess (Caroline Blake) keeps a most tempting table and employs a well-salaried chef.’
Cooking at the time was done on iron bars over the fire and breakfasts were said to include hot cakes, fresh trout and salmon, dressed crabs and lobster, cutlets, new-laid eggs, kidneys, honey, homemade scones, and preserves.
Dinner was served at 7:30pm to ‘suit those who spend the day fishing in some of the numerous lakes and do not wish to come back until late.’
Reviewers wrote about the freedom of the area. One magazine marvelled at the ease with which one could walk out the door at Renvyle and do what one pleased, although they noted one drawback:
'There is a long reach of the smoothest and softest white sand. But no bathing boxes. The only thing to be done is to perform one’s toilet behind the rocks and when this inconvenience is got over, the lovely clear water will be thoroughly enjoyed.’
Tourism to Connemara would continue its upward trend towards the end of the nineteenth century and Renvyle House would be amongst the beneficiaries, receiving tourists from all over Ireland and Britain, as well as Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and many other countries.
By the 1880s, advertisements for day trips to Connemara in conjunction with the Great Western Railway were a common sight.
The improvement of the old road from Recess to Kylemore in this decade, as well as the construction of a road connecting Salruck and Tullycross at the end of the 1890s, helped.
The introduction of the railway the 50 miles from Galway to Clifden, opened in 1895 after four years construction by nearly 1,000 workers, was also beneficial. Before this, the nearest railway had been at Westport, over thirty miles away.
These developments saw a further increase in numbers travelling to Connemara from all over the country and further afield and the Blakes were eager to capitalise.
Offers to send a long car ‘from the hotel to Clifden, fourteen miles distant, on receipt of a wire requesting transport’ were common features of their advertisements.
A long car was a horse-drawn vehicle which carried post, light goods and passengers, connecting rural communities such as Renvyle with outlying towns.
Another long car could be hired from Clifden to Letterfrack, taking one hour and ten minutes and costing 3 shillings and leaving weary travellers a trifling few miles from the comfort of their ultimate destination.
For more like this, see my book 'The Little History of Galway.' In all good bookshops or at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-History-Galway-Colm-Wallace/dp/1803997079?dplnkId=1cdcccfe-3520-4838-90de-8963bee773ce
A picture of Renvyle House, courtesy NLI.
