Exploring a Decaying Abandoned Seaside Hotel in Ireland
In today’s Urbandoned video, we are exploring in one of the most scenic locations we have ever visited. The building in question is an abandoned seaside hotel in Ireland, dating back to the 1970s. It overlooks the western coast of the country, towering above residential areas surrounding it. As for the inside, the brutal weather of it’s position has caused extensive deterioration, mixing beautifully with how it was left untouched. We find scenes of nature reclaiming it’s property across the whole site.
Join us as we head within the hotel to discover what remains. Our last question that we asked was ‘Should we show new locations we find even if they aren’t special?’ We had many interesting responses but have selected this one from Sandra, who suggests we make a compilation style video featuring buildings that haven’t been showcased prior. This might be something we look into, because it would make for interesting content when the buildings are grouped up together. This time we are asking, ‘What do you think has a more impactful closure and why - leisure facilities or industry?’ Let us know in the comments to possibly feature in our next upload.
Perched atop some cliffs, the neglected hotel has been an iconic sight for locals over the last fifty years. It would have brought tourists from around the world to the rural location and business to nearby restaurants and attractions. However, it’s time has come to a conclusion. With a new fence halting some entry into it’s vacant interior, signs of dilapidation on it’s walls and once admiring passerby’s now keeping an eye on it for intruders, the pleasure aspect of the building is no more. Thankfully for us, after a long drive to somewhere we believed we couldn’t miss, accessing the structure was very simple and we were into it’s dark rear quickly.
The resort’s heated pool was one of many leisure facilities onsite, also including a small gym, sauna and beauty salon. Passing the lone gym machine left behind, we wanted to stop using our torches in this mostly non-boarded abandonment so we hunted for light down the corridor. Until the year 2021, when we explored the seaside premises, it had stayed off the radar from the majority of Irish urban explorers in great condition. Social media had recently brought newspaper attention onto it, which made us wonder whether we were too late to see the hotel in all it's glory. Despite only being inside momentarily, signs of natural decay were already prominent. The few ferns developing on the carpeted floor would be minimal compared to what we would find as we headed into the back rooms.
It’s very apparent that the entire complex wasn’t watertight upon closure, the vibrant green colouring caused by leaks from above. All the spare linens and tools had been ruined by the overwhelming mass of water, leaving them soggy and moulding. In the second floor’s restaurants and bars, directly above the mossy back rooms, we started to notice a pattern. Later we would see that the third level repeated suit. The penetrating dampness was causing these apocalyptic scenes of green in the spaces, inevitably causing collapses in the future when the weight of the upper floors gets too much.
The 32-bedroomed holiday resort was constructed in the 1970s but then extended in the next couple decades. It contained a restaurant, bar, conference and function room as well as the leisure facilities mentioned earlier, once very popular due to it’s views of the bay and isolated location. Sadly, it was placed up for auction for just over half a million euros five years ago.
We are unsure why this occurred, but it might relate to low tourism in the area as well as the property steadily becoming structurally unsafe. You can see the devastating effect of thieves scouring through the reception for anything valuable and not tidying up after themselves. Papers were left everywhere and cupboards were wide open, emptied out. Finally, we began to see some of the untouched bedrooms we had been hoping for. Wandering the highest level, we were intrigued to see how much one could appear as if it was still in use. However, we soon came across the total opposite. We aren’t lying when we say this is some of the most stunning deterioration we have ever seen.
It was incredible to see rooms in time capsule states growing forest-like plants. Comparing the decaying regions with photographs of their past look shows how little their furniture has changed, but signifies the amount of overgrowth that has progressed driven by the consistent water intrusion. Disregarding the idealistic view of the sea out the window that our cameras failed to pick up in these clips, these bedrooms were very picturesque and we could have captured details inside them for a lot longer than we did. As we had completed the exploration of the whole resort, we decided to finish our walkthrough with a moment’s reflection on the balcony where visitors used to enjoy food and drink.
Even though there has been speculation regarding restoration work for the hotel in phases, opening new sections to the public every now and then, nothing is happening so far. The decay is damaging the half a century old structure and the effects will worsen if little is done. We think a building with such high prospects should be saved to continue bringing tourism to a rarely seen part of the country. What an immense shame it is that the building is shuttered and abandoned. Over our years of documentation of these sites, some tend to touch us and this is definitely one of those, impacting the beautiful scenes of vacancy we saw because of how sad it is that they are like that in the first place.
Here are some of our photographs we captured at the abandoned hotel. If you like the look of them, check out our Instagram page in the description where we share images from our explores months before they are seen on YouTube. Thanks for watching! We found this video the favourite that we filmed from our recent Ireland trip, so we hope you like it, too. See you next time!
2021-12-13 17:10
