The Grand Hotel

DR. COLOHAN'S CARS

Next to Malahide Castle, the Grand Hotel is Malahide's best known land-mark Situated in a most prominent position, overlooking estuary and town, the Grand has, for more than a century and a half, borne witness to many changes which have seen Malahide develop from a village to a town.
The Grand Hotel has had a chequered history which is reflected in the distinctive and colourful variety of its owners over the years. One such owner was Dr. John Fallon Sidney Colohan who bought the Grand Hotel in 1910, for £10,000. He spent an additional £15,000 in refurbishment, which included wiring the hotel and grounds for electricity. Dr. Colohan designed his own postcards which promoted his hotel in the following manner:- "Grand Hotel, Malahide, Ltd. Telephone No.11. Fifteen minutes from Dublin. Golfing Centre. Summer and Winter Resort. The prettiest Residential Establishment on the Coast, standing in its own pleasure grounds of ten acres, with sheltered walks. Sea and country combined, a Home away from Home. It contains all the requirements of a First - class Hotel - good Garage, Stabling, Boating Fishing, Shore Shooting. Two Golf Links- The Muldowney and The Island Links, and close to Portmarnock Links, Badminton Hall, Hot and Cold Sea and Fresh Water Baths, Ballroom, Electric Light throughout, Spacious Lounge, Steam Heated, Sandy, quick-drying soil. Smallest rainfall in Ireland. Special terms. County new water supply. From October to Easter £2-12-6. From Easter to October £3-3-0".
Dr. Colohan had the Grand Hotel painted pink to celebrate his favourite drink, Pink Champagne, of which he consumed a hefty daily supply. His postcards depicted the hotel in its pink splendour and the Grand became known, far and wide, as the Pink Hotel. Dr. Colohan and his first wife promoted the hotel as a health centre to revitalise one's flagging health. Yachting, fishing, golfing, swimming and badminton were available for the actively minded while the hot sea baths were recommended for the more sedentary minded visitors. The doctor's wife wrote many articles, under various pen names, promoting the motoring, fishing and shooting facilities in Malahide as well as acting as a most genial hostess to the many visitors who frequented the hotel
Dr. Colohan was the pioneer of motoring in Ireland and was recognised as a leading motor expert. In 1898 he imported the first petrol driven car into Ireland. In 1902 his
Daimler Car wasadmitted to be the smartest and fastest of its type in Dublin.

The Pink Hotel

He soon relinquished his medical practice and practically founded the motor trade in Ireland. When involved in the promotion of motoring, Colohan was an indefatigable worker, a prolific inventor and was possessed of a restless energy. He was appointed Secretary in Ireland for the Automobile Association of Great Britain. He won a £50 wager that he would complete a one hundred and thirty mile journey from Blackrock to Kilbeggan and back in under twelve hours. The Benz Comfortable was the first motor car he imported into Ireland and it has been featured in the Irish Motor Classic Stamps, issued in April 1989. Dr. Colophon's Benz has survived and in 1985 it was purchased by Denis Dowdall of Irish Motor Distributors and fully restored. During the doctor 's ownership of the Grand Hotel his motorcar, parked outside the front door, was a regular feature in all photographs of the hotel.
He had other hobbies too and was an expert with the sporting gun. Very few competitors could match him in clay pigeon shooting. He backed himself for one hundred pounds to defeat Mr. H. Leon Millet, of Paris, in a pigeon match shot. Out of one hundred birds, Colohan shot ninety-three while Millet scored eighty-five. He founded the Malahide Gun Club.
The Gordon Bennett Automobile Race took place in Ireland in 1903. Dr.Colohan was employed by James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the New York Herald and sponsor of the race, to record on film all the events associated with the race. This gave him a major opportunity, to indulge himself in another of his hobbies - photography, in which art he later won a gold medal.
Colohan was an expert yachtsman also and sailed with the Malahide painter, Nathaniel Hone and the Portmarnock businessman, Willie Jameson, the whiskey millionaire.
The doctor's costliest hobby was his gambling as he was a compulsive gambler. Year after year he returned to the Hotel Metropole, Monte Carlo, where he lost a fortune. For years he was part of a syndicate of gamblers who owned quite a few well-bred racehorses which were stabled in the extensive stabling area at the rear of the Grand Hotel. Whether he won or lost at racing, Dr. Colohan's generosity was abundant. Guests at the Grand Hotel always received owners badges to the reserved enclosures at all the major race tracks. After racing, theatre tickets were provided, along with transport, to the doctor's private box.
The flambuoyant doctor's Malahide innings came to an end in 1918. After the death of his second wife, he sold the Grand Hotel in the opening days of 1919 to a syndicate of businessmen. The hotel which he had bought for £10,000 in 1910, he now sold for £17,000. Colohan's last home was in the English village of Cookham Dean, where he died of a liver disorder, occasioned by alcoholic allergy, in 1931. He was aged seventy one. In the latter years of his life he had retained a block of shares and remained a director of the new company which now owned the Grand Hotel. During his ownership of the hotel, the Grand had come to recognised as one of the foremost hotels in Ireland. It had been managed by Mr. E. P. Gordon, late of the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin.

Early Days

But the history of the Grand Hotel goes back much further than the turn of the century. The Hotel was built in 1835 by Mr. James Fagan of Feltrim, who also built St. James Terrace. The Feltrim Fagans had roots in Feltrim for centuries and when the Earl of Desmond was a state prisoner during the reign Elizabeth I, he was held in custody by Christopher Fagan of Feltrim. James Fagan was a member of the British Parliament and when he built his Malahide hotel he was granted a royal warrant and so called the hotel the Royal Hotel. The very first picture of the hotel available is a watercolour, entitled "RoyaI Hotel and Terrace - Malahide. The property of James Fagan M.P". The motivation for building the Royal Hotel was obviously influenced by the impending arrival of the railway in Malahide and the subsequent development of a tourist resort in an area already furnished with natural amenities.
Once the hotel was in operation, visitors began to arrive by stagecoach and a sprinkling fountain in the middle of the Diamond had to be removed to facilitate easier passage for the stagecoaches. When the Dublin and Drogheda Railway arrived in Malahide in 1844, some excellent town planning resulted. A recreational square was railed off, where the tennis courts now stand, a promenade by the waterfront was devised and new streets were laid down.
The Royal thrived for some years under a succession of different owners and managers. The records show a William Shaw in 1857; Anthony Jesson 1867; Mrs Gamble 1877; and William Green in 1887. In 1897 H. Bethell owned the Royal Hotel, but with the awakening of Irish nationalism the name had changed to the Grand Hotel by the time Dr. Colohan took it over in 1911.

THE RAILWAY YEARS

During Bethell's time, the Grand Hotel was advertised as "Malahide - Grand Hotel. Fifteen minutes by rail from Dublin. A summer and winter resort. The hotel is charmingly situated on the Coast and surrounded by four acres of ornamental pleasure grounds. Excellent golf links adjacent to the hotel. Hot and Cold seawater baths. Good boating and bathing".
The railway was now bringing big business to the Grand Hotel and special combined railway and hotel tickets were being issued. The weekly inclusive fare was sixty three shillings which included first class travel between Malahide and Dublin for a week and full board and lodging at the Grand. The railway brochures mentioned that visitors staying at the Grand Hotel can play on the excellent Golf Links adjoining, on payment of one shilling per day or five shillings per week. Visitors were also advised that a fine yachting trip can be made to Lambay Island, seven miles from the mainland, a charming place for picnics. In 1910, the Grand was described as a large and handsome hotel, owned by the Bethell Hotel Company Ltd. and managed by Linz.
The railway company also provided special weekend combined railway and hotel tickets for Dubliners who wished to spend the weekend in the Grand Hotel. The cost was seventeen shillings and six pence and this fare included the conveyance of passenger's luggage between the station at Malahide and the Grand Hotel. For years the Railway played a major part in ensuring that there were no vacancies at the Grand Hotel.

A major attraction for the hotel was the famous Malahide Baths, situated at the rear of the hotel on the site of the apartment block constructed in 2006. The baths, which are, unfortunately, no longer in existence, lent their name to Bath Avenue which runs behind the Grand Hotel and was, prior to 1936, the main road heading to Portmarnock. The baths uniqueness and architectural rarity must have attracted many a visitor to the Grand Hotel for over a century and a half. From a single story frontal one entered into a double storey rear where there existed oblong twin plunging pools. A tall chimney stack was conspicuous. Renowned for their curative powers, the baths had their seawater changed at high tide. In the Malahide Baths, over the years, many a tired visitor must have relaxed as he or she passed through a series of compartments each a hotter temperature than the preceding one. The therapy was usually concluded with a plunge in the cold sea pool.

Note the side cars at either side of the gate waiting for hire

The Grand Hotel was taken over by a company led by a Mr. McCavanagh in the early 'twenties. A Mr. A. Garret had managed the hotel for a brief period after Dr. Colohan had sold it but the McCavanaghs con trolled the Grand for over thirty years. Among the Mccavanna directors there was also a family called McCavanagh, and this family took control in the later years of the 'twenties. In 1928, the three signatures to all hotel documentation were Eliz. McCavanna, Patrick McCavanna and P. McCavannagh.
The McCavanna's were greatly interested in horses and possessed a few good hunters and chasers. One of their racehorses was aptly named "A. Jar".
The First World War disrupted the Grand Hotel's business for a period of time so Malahide never became the tourist centre envisaged by the proprietors and the railways. Indeed, the Grand was chosen as the Irish headquarters for the British Army in the event of a German Invasion.
The aspect of the hotel changed somewhat in 1936 when the new coast-road was built to Portmarnock. Bath Avenue, formerly the main road, now became somewhat redundant and the hotel grounds were diminished in size.
After the Second World War, business picked up again and the discerning came to Malahide to admire the best sunsets on the Eastern Coast. Regular horse drawn vis-a-vis provided a transport service between the railway station and the hotel. Postcards of the Grand Hotel quoted Malahide as: "A town noted for it's ideal compromise between city and country". When Miss Elizabeth McCavanna ran the hotel, it exuded a great atmosphere and visitors came from far and near. The hotel contained a magnificent upstairs ballroom with wrought-iron balconies at both ends. Stephen Gwynn visited the Grand Hotel in 1949 and revels in the open unspoilt country around the hotel, just an eight penny bus fare from the capital. He describes his delight at looking out of his window and seeing a pair of terns on the shore just in front. He also recalls the good turf fires in the big sifting-rooms.
During the period when the Grand had failed as a hotel, only half of the building was in hotel use.

The other half was divided into two parts, one of which was occupied by Lord Talbot and the other part housed two old maiden ladies. Lord Talbot, who traveled for most of the year, found it easier and more convenient to stay in the Grand rather than the Castle when he returned to Malahide. He was, of course, without wife at this time. When Lord Talbot was resident in the hotel the Talbot flag flew from its roof, which gave the impression to some people that the Grand Hotel was a Talbot dower-house.

Top chef Jimmy Flahive received his training in the Grand and today around Ireland and further afield there are many hotels and restaurants whose owners received their training in Malahide's hotel.

Perhaps about 1940. There are bicycles on either side of the door and a side car awaiting a fare to the right of the gate.

. RECENT TIMES

In 1955, the Grand Hotel was reconstructed and modernised. It was officially re-opened by the Attorney General Mr. P. McGilligan T.D.
In the sixties Luke and Yvonne McCabe owned the Grand and the tourist trade began to pick up once more. Many families made Malahide their regular holiday base and returned to the Grand year after year. Fresh air, country walks, golf, the Silver and Velvet Strands were all incentives to bring the visitor to Malahide. However, the Grand Hotel didn't really come into its own until the arrival of Matt Ryan in 1974. On a visit to Malahide he heard rumours that the hotel was to be leveled to accommodate a supermarket. He met the hotel's owner Mrs. Yvonne McCabe and within a matter of a few days had contracted to purchase the Grand Hotel. At this stage the hotel was somewhat run down and there were only 12 staff. Mr. Ryan refurbished the building including a new dining room and bar. In the early 1980's, the indoor equestrian centre was demolished and a large conference centre was built and in the early 1990's a new bedroom wing was added followed by fully equipped fitness centre and swimming pool. A further major extension was added in 2006.
In addition to attracting substantial numbers of visitors to the town the Grand Hotel is a major source of employment in Malahide.

To view the facilities currently offered at the hotel visit www.thegrand.ie .