Staff at the hotel where Jack Charlton prepared his Republic of Ireland players for the momentous 1993 World Cup qualifier in Belfast, and the tournament finals in United States the following summer, hope their wait for statutory redundancy payments and overdue holiday money will come to an end soon after a liquidator was appointed to its management company in the High Court on Monday.
“It would be good to get that sorted,” says Sandra Fealy, one of the small number of 90 or so employees who spent more than 20 years working in a hotel that was, for a time, one of the country’s best-known. “Even if you weren’t lucky enough to get another job, it would provide a bit of closure. This has all been going for a long time at this stage,” she says.
The legal saga around the hotel’s demise is a very modern tale involving several different companies, including one that was involved in arranging “golden” visas to foreign nationals in return for investments of €1 million or more, another that actually owned the Nuremore, which is valued at about €8 million, and a third that employed its staff.
The appointment of the liquidator to that third company on Monday is just the latest stage in the legal unravelling of the wider group but it would appear to mark the end of the road for staff who stuck with the Nuremore through some pretty good times and some very bad ones before its eventual closure on New Year’s Day this year, when Ms Fealy locked the doors.
Debts estimated at up to €50 million will swallow up the proceeds of the hotel’s sale when it happens. As the company they worked for since long-time owner Julie Gilhooly sold the hotel in 2020 has almost no assets, employees are resigned to only getting whatever money they are guaranteed by the Department of Social Protection.
It would have seemed unlikely back in the Nuremore’s heyday. Charlton brought the Irish team there several times in the mid 90s, the on-site availability of golf and fishing ticking most of his boxes for a training base.
Some of the players who stayed at the hotel spoke of being bored out of their minds. Phil Babb, writing in this newspaper, talked of the younger ones settling into a running gag of yawning and announcing it was time for bed in the early afternoon while others begged them to stay around until teatime.
Still, nobody complained about the quality of the accommodation and the hotel’s reputation grew.
“When I started here in 1997, it was £104 pounds for two people to eat in the restaurant and you weren’t allowed chips in the lobby,” Ms Fealy says, laughing now at the thought of it.
“The hotel set high standards – certainly, its restaurant did. Chris de Burgh used to fly in on his helicopter for lunch. He’d have it in a private room, stay around for a bit then fly off again,” she recalls.
Ms Fealy was joined by former colleagues and Siptu members Brenda Burns, Eloise Alexander and Geraldine Walsh to discuss with The Irish Times the days when the hotel hosted Neven Maguire’s wedding and when head chef, Raymond McArdle, assisted by Dylan McGrath, regularly won awards.
One of the lowest points came in April 2022 when there was a power outage due to an unpaid bill when Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys – a TD for the local area – was attending a tech event. “We were telling them there’d been a surge of power because of all the computers,” says Ms Fealy.
For weeks, they worked while a generator nicknamed Jenny provided enough electricity to keep the lights on but not enough to both heat rooms and provide hot water.
Ms Alexander recalls paying suppliers in cash for food and deliveries being added to her responsibilities as a receptionist. Other staff were sent on quick trips to the nearby Aldi in Carrickmacross to buy bottles of wine to serve in the once well-regarded restaurant.
In December, in advance of the busy Christmas period, the staff staged a work stoppage over unpaid wages and though they got their money on that occasion, they all say there were so many problems it was obvious the end was coming.
When the hotel closed on January 1st, they were told it was for three months for refurbishment. Nobody really believed it. The power was soon cut again but the leisure centre and golf course stayed open for a few weeks until Jenny ran out of diesel.
One of the women remembers paying a visit to the empty hotel and finding a colleague sitting in the clubhouse eating cornflakes in the dark. The Sheriff arrived shortly afterwards to seize gym equipment on foot of a Revenue debt.
“We stayed until then end out of loyalty to the hotel, not to the current owner,” says Ms Burns. “Now, all we can hope is that they sell the place and we can apply for our old jobs again.”
