Gougane Barra Hotel

Neil and Katy’s hotel has had many lives, and has seen many lives, throughout its long history. It all began, on the edge of the lake where Saint Finbarr founded a monastery, back in 1870, when the Cronin family opened a shebeen in a hunting lodge, formerly owned by the Earl of Kenmare. In time, this would become Cronin’s Hotel, and then the Gougane Barra Hotel, as generation after generation of the Lucey family developed and improved the hotel. For many guests over the years, the Gougane Barra became a second home – Professor David O Mahony of UCC stayed regularly over a period of 75 years, and the writer Robert Gibbins once arrived with plans to stay for a week, and then stayed in the hotel for four months.

This history reveals what is special about Gougane Barra: it is a human, all too human enterprise, founded on family succession, hard work, the intimate knowledge of the place, its people, its history and its culture. The Gougane Barra Hotel is not just an hotel: it is part of the place, part of the living culture, and part of the living history of this extraordinarily beautiful region.
Neil and Katy keep alive all those precious elements of the West Cork culture. They are not just hoteliers – though they are very brilliant hoteliers indeed – they are custodians and champions. You will arrive looking forward to your week’s stay, and you will leave regretting that you weren’t staying for four months.