Cliff House Hotel takes over Village at Lyons

Irish businessman Barry O'Callaghan has acquired the 16-acre Village at Lyons wedding venue and cookery school in Celbridge, Co Kildare, for about €6 million.

The venue forms part of the vast Lyons Demesne, which was restored to its former glory by the late Irish entrepreneur and Ryanair founder Tony Ryan, who purchased the property in 1996.

This commercial arm of the estate, which had been wholly owned by his son Declan Ryan since mid-2014, was placed on the market last year with estate agent Colliers International seeking offers in excess of €6 million.

It has now been rebranded as the Cliff at Lyons and joins a portfolio of Irish hotels owned by Mr O'Callaghan.

Sister property

It is now a sister property of the five-star Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore, Co Waterford, and the Cliff Townhouse on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin.

Philip Rock, general manager of the property, will continue to run the business and all bookings for weddings and other events will be honoured by the new owners.

The Village comprises four shops and three apartments, a cafe, separate cookery school, the main function room, with a capacity for 180 guests, the feature Lyons bar and the La Serre restaurant and oyster bar, which can hold 100 people.

Weddings

There is a hotel element to the Village and there are a number of houses on the grounds. In 2014, 112 weddings were held there, according to the sale brochure.

In a marketing email sent out to customers recently, the Cliff at Lyons was described as a “truly unique property”, rebuilt and restored to an “exceptional standard” in an historic Irish village, that provides a “peaceful haven” for guests to enjoy the “quietness and tranquillity”.

“Cliff looks forward to bringing its exceptional culinary and leisure experiences to Cliff at Lyons,” it added.

The last set of abridged accounts for Village at Lyons Ltd show it had accumulated losses of €8.2 million at the end of 2014, a year in which the company made a net loss of €353,047.

In January, Mr Rock told The Irish Times that the business was now trading profitably.