Trade NamesThe Listowel Arms Hotel is very much 'the hotel' in this pretty Kerry town, writes Rose Doyle

The Listowel Arms is far and away one of the better known hostelries in north Kerry. Not hugely surprising, given that it was built for and been in the business of inn-keeping since the late 17th century. The "Lease for Lives" system once in operation in Listowel, based on ownership for the lives of three people, indicates the building was an inn in 1801.

It's a landmark and it's impossible to visit Listowel for any or none of its annual high-stepping events - Writers' Week in June, the races in September and such - without being aware of and spending sleeping, eating, drinking or just meeting time in "the hotel". Then there's the way it fits, snug and lovely to look at, into a corner of Listowel's square.

Local historian Padraig de Brun, who knows a thing or two about the town and the Listowel Arms, has discovered that one John Leonard owned and ran the building as an inn until 1824, when he leased it to a Mr Adams. Said Adams had one child, a daughter who, in or around the 1850s, took over the running of the inn with her husband, a Mr McElligott. McElligott it was who first rebuilt and added to parts of the building which the McElligotts then looked after and ran as an inn for most of the rest of the 19th century.

Thackerey visited, and recommended it as a hotel in his 1843 Irish Sketchbook. Daniel O'Connell used to regularly stay there, making reference to it in his writings in the 1820s and giving one of his rousing speeches from a first floor window overlooking the square. Parnell made one of his last speeches before he died, probably in 1891, from the same window.

With all this it's strange to find the building's 20th century fate was to have many owners, including singer Joseph Locke for three to four years in the 1960s. He changed its name to the White Horse. A trio of Listowel businessmen owned it for a while and the Ryan family, hoteliers from Limerick, owned it for about three years.

And then, in 1995, along came the O'Callaghan family. Bernard O'Callaghan, in 1960, had built and developed the ever popular Cliff Hotel and restaurant in Ballybunion, on the coast not far from Listowel. The renown and success of his started-from-scratch Cliff House may have nourished in him the dream of owning the centuries old "Arms" in Listowel, or it may have been simple good sense.

Whatever the root, Bernard O'Callaghan had an affection and enthusiasm for the the Listowel Arms and, on what was a second attempt, managed to buy it in 1995.

Bernard O'Callaghan is no longer around. He died, sadly and much too soon, in 1998. Fortunately and happily, he'd seen a lot of his dream through by then, "pouring every bit of his enthusiasm into the Listowel Arms", according to daughter Patrice, who looks after innkeeping in today's Listowel Arms.

Bernard O'Callaghan had also ensured the Listowel Arms' future, passing his dream on to a family which has every intention of seeing it through for generations to come.

Patrice, who is married to Graham Gleasure from Tralee, laments that her father "didn't see the fruit of his labour" while happily acknowledging that, because her brothers Kevin, Colm and Brian are "on board" and a third generation is "on the way up", it is "not about to go out of the family!"

She grew up in Ballybunion, the third of the four children born to Bernard and Josephine O'Callaghan, and went to school in Listowel. She remembers the Listowel Arms well from those years. She says it "was always a lovely looking older building and always the hub of the social life of Listowel. The work we've done since 1995 has rectified the 1970s decor, unearthed original features and brought the building back to its old, original style."

Bernard O'Callaghan bought the Listowel Arms from the Ryan family. A one-time Kerry footballer, he grew up in Moyvane, just five miles outside the town of Listowel, and married Josephine Ahern from Ballylongford, another of north Kerry's vital village/towns. His family may have favoured the professions - his parents were teachers and siblings went into nursing and teaching - but Bernard, as Patrice puts it, "broke out and went down the business line, which was how he came to build and develop the Cliff House in the 1960s. It's going very well, overlooking the beach with 45 bedrooms and a good restaurant."

Kevin O'Callaghan, first-born of today's generation of O'Callaghans, did the Shannon hotel management course, so time-honoured it's a classic of its kind. "He was earmarked to run hotels," Patrice says, "and ran the Cliff House with my parents. He was involved, too, in the buying of the Listowel Arms."

By the time Bernard O'Callaghan became ill and died of cancer Patrice had spent five years working in France and Spain for a Monaghan-based firm. Usefully for the business, she'd studied marketing and languages.

"When Dad bought the Listowel Arms we were very conscious of its age and history," she says, "and knew that we would have to ensure the inside was in keeping with the façade of the building. We've gone for timber floors and such so as to marry the two and added 12 bedrooms. There were 30 originally. The restaurant makes up the main part of the extension, then there's a function room, called the River Feale Room after the nearby river, storage, another function room, conservatory and new reception area. Reception used be under the stairs as you came in - that's all changed."

The Listowel Arms is, she says, "a real community hotel with a great mix of people coming through. It's also the only hotel in Listowel," and she laughs, "that's because we do the job so well! We cover what business is here. It has a huge role in the community in Listowel and is referred to as 'the hotel'.

"It's lovely to work here because of this, it's a really buzzy place. In the mornings the ladies come in for coffees and tea after mass, then there's the lunch trade, which brings in a lot of older people. In the evenings it's a younger crowd and at the weekends there are weddings and christenings and all sorts of celebrations. We get the golfing set, too, and stock brokers from London playing in Ballybunion who always stay here.

"We're very lucky to have such events as Writers' Week and the Listowel Races - and the Food Fair in November, as well as a second racing festival in the days after Listowel Writer's Week."

She lives the short journey away in Tralee and travels daily to Listowel. "I really love the town, Church Street and William Street, and how it looks. It's a great town for people getting together with ideas and what not - you can really feel the literary influence. People are very progressive in a very down-to-earth way in Listowel. There's no narrow-mindedness here!

"I was quite concerned, when I was living abroad and planning to come back, as to what it would be like, living here. But it's great and I've no worries."

It says a lot for the hotel business in north Kerry that Patrice and her siblings are all committed to and loving what they do. Kevin, with his wife Fiona, runs the Cliff House Hotel while Colm, an accountant, is overall financial controller. Colm's wife, Asya, who is a Muscovite, is very involved, too, as is Brian, youngest of the brothers and who studied accountancy.

"Kevin has three boys and Colm one, so there's a new generation on the way," says Patrice. "You have to really 'mind' a hotel like this, get to know people. A woman in the town said to me recently that 'nobody ever made a go of the hotel like the O'Callaghans' and I was really pleased. I'm very proud of this hotel. It's completely itself!"