GARDAÍ WERE last night searching for a gang who tied up a night porter and locked two guests in a fridge during a raid at the Arklow Bay Hotel, Co Wicklow in the early hours of yesterday.
Five men, believed to be in their 20s, broke into the hotel at about 4.30am armed with iron bars and axes. They used the bars to force open the front door of the hotel and overpowered the night porter.
The gang, who were not masked but were wearing sweatshirts with hoods which they used to obscure their faces, told the porter to open the main hotel safe.
When the porter explained he was unable to do so because all the hotel’s safes had timed locks, the gang attempted to smash it open using the axes and bars.
The noise alerted two guests, a husband and wife, who were in a room nearest the main safe. Not realising a robbery was in progress they left their room to investigate the disturbance. The couple, who were dressed only in nightclothes, were locked by the gang into a walk-in fridge, while the porter was tied up on the floor outside.
The gang, unable to open the safe, emptied the tills at reception and in the bars, which only held a small amount of “float money”, according to hotel owner Brian Brennan. They also stole the couple’s four-wheel drive vehicle.
The porter managed to untie himself and release the couple from the fridge within 15 minutes before raising the alarm. The porter and the guests were shaken but uninjured.
“The three people involved were traumatised. Nobody expects to go away for a weekend and become involved in something like this, it really is awful,” Mr Brennan said.
He paid tribute to the actions of the porter and other hotel staff who continued working over the busy bank holiday weekend.
Mr Brennan, who owns four other hotels, including the Green Isle in Dublin, said it was the first time any such incident had occurred at any Brennan hotel. But he was aware there had been a recent spate of robberies at provincial hotels.
“All our safes are now on time locks, so there is no point in trying to get them open,” he said.
