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DUBLIN CITY WILL get a new hotel on the River Liffey.
The hotel will be based in national heritage ship PS Naomh Eanna, which has been given a licence to berth on the city’s river at Custom House Quay.
The licence comes as part of the Docklands water animation strategy.
Businessman Sam Field Corbett, whose company also restored Dublin landmark the Cill Áirne, had been attempting to save the Naomh Eanna by putting it in Galway, but that plan would not come to fruition. Field Corbett’s company also owns both Grand Canal passenger barges and the Escape Boats attraction.
Once used to carry passengers and supplies between Galway and the Aran Islands, the Dublin-built ferry has been berthed in the city’s Grand Canal Dock since 1989. After falling into disrepair, she had been due to be scrapped by Waterways Ireland when safety concerns were raised in a hull inspection.
After years of efforts a berth in the river and private funding of €6.6 million to restore the ship and refit her as a 28-bedroom hotel. The hotel will have a glazed restaurant on the boat deck.
The campaign group says it will “represent the ship building legacy of the Dublin Port area and will recall her past service to the Aran Islands from Galway”.
The group hopes the works will be carried out in the 250-year-old Ringsend Graving Docks and will take nine months.
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I remember travelling on the Naomh Éanna to Inis Mor as a child. Delighted she’s being restored.
They would need to clean the Liffey first, rats & all!
@Colette Kearns: Rats out
@Bingobango: put away that hosepipe
Where / How do they deal with the sewage from a venture of this scale ?
@Johnny Mason: probably they blast it into space
@Johnny Mason: same way ships are done with barges Johnny
@Jonathan Power: Ships aren’t done with barges, they have sewage treatment plants onboard.
6.6 million Eh?
And children with their mam living in hotels in emergency accommodation hearing this must be thinking what’s going on.
@Gerry Fallon: if you look a little closer you’ll find it says private funding.
@Gerry Fallon: Should turn it into a homeless shelter…
@Gerry Fallon: Go ask me bollix Gerry.
@Niall Hawes: Private funding? no such thing as private funding without subsidies and tax breaks. the mythical private sector.
@Gerry Fallon: there will always be homeless. If businessmen want to privately fund a project they should be free to do do without guilt.
@Dotty Dunleary: no they shouldnt
@Gerry Fallon: can anything not be done in this country without bringing the homeless into it?
@Gerry Fallon: let’s all give our houses to the homeless .
@Declan Bowe: Nope. Why, just yesterday as I popped into the toilet to *ahem* attend to business, Gerry sent me a message asking me to think of the homeless instead.
Delighted she’s been put to new use, pity not in Galway where she serviced. .my last time on her, seas really ruff think all including staff upchucked!! Got stranded on Aran for 3 days as bad weather ..happy times
@Kerrie Roche: yep sitting in Galway Harbour makes far more sense from the boats historic narrative, but return wise they’re looking at the prices they can charge in prime Dublin location. Hopefully it at least spurs some guests to.head out West and explore it’s history..
I remember being old he reason she was left to rot in the grand canal dock was because she was the last boat on be built using rivets and therefore had a preservation order on her but the owner couldn’t afford the restoration. Glad to see her being transformed
Lyrics from an old Bagatelle song. “ I remember that summer in Dublin & the Liffey as it stank like hell”
Hope its not a TRUMP river hotel
Remember going to Aran islands on this ship. There were cattle in the hold. Local men towed them ashore behind currachs. Will have to book a night when it opens
Proud to say I was named after this ship, very happy to see it restored!
Love it! I well remember the Naomh Éanna, though a bit of a rough voyage from Galway city to Aran, typically and hour and a half.
Oh my God! They got the spelling of their own project wrong in the rendering above!!!
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