FIFTY jobs are to be created at Woodstock Hotel, after the Choice Hotel Group bought the upmarket 67-bed hotel on the Shanaway Road, Ennis, for a reported €1m-plus.
The hotel is to re-open on a phased basis, starting in the middle of next month, with the bar, lobby and bedrooms available to guests, while €750,000 in refurbishments are carried out to allow the hotel facilities – including its function/conference room, leisure centre (complete with 15-metre pool), restaurant, meeting rooms and spa – to be fully open for business by the end of September.
Regional group general manager, Darragh Brady is currently in Ennis, overseeing the start up and recruitment of around 50 staff for the hotel.
“It’s a fantastic hotel and we’re getting great support from local people, who are delighted to see Woodstock Hotel reopening as part of the Choice Hotel Group,” he said.
The Choice Hotel Group is the largest four-star operator in Ireland, with over 1,300 rooms under their direct management in Dublin, Kildare, Cork, Limerick and London.
Selling agent, David Costelloe of Costelloe Estate Agents has welcomed the purchase of the hotel and said he is delighted to confirm the sale of Woodstock Hotel to the Choice Hotel Group.
“It’s great to see a quality four-star hotel coming back on to the holiday and leisure market again. It was badly missed in the town and is a great wedding venue,” Mr Costelloe said.
Built and opened in 2000, Woodstock was one of three hotels in the Dunne Hotels Group (DG Hotels). It closed in October 2008, when a liquidator was appointed to the group.
It reopened in 2009, after hotelier, Noel Mulhaire and a UK-based consortium of hoteliers reached agreement with the hotel’s liquidator but closed once again in January 2013.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.