Galway businessman Gerry Barrett is selling on the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney less than a month after buying it.

The hotel will be acquired by two Killarney property developers along with a husband and wife team involved in a neighbouring hotel business, it has emerged.

Transactions between the State-owned Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) and the successful tenderers for seven of the eight Great Southern Group of hotels announced in August were due to be completed last night.

The announcement that the 152-year-old Killarney hotel was to be sold on was made yesterday.

It is understood Mr Barrett will receive around €40 million for the hotel, the same amount he paid for it when he bought the hotel along with the two Great Southern properties in Galway for around €140 million last month.

Mr Barrett, who owns the G hotel in Galway and the D hotel in Drogheda, Co Louth, was understood at the time to be interested primarily in the Galway properties.

The Killarney hotel will now be sold on to Risteard O'Lionaird and Mike O'Shea of Sunday's Well Properties, Killarney and Janet and Padraig Treacy of the neighbouring Killarney Park Hotel and nearby Ross Hotel.

Mr O'Lionaird, a former county council engineer, and Mr O'Shea, an accountant and owner of the Killarney Bookshop, have already developed apartments on adjoining lands sold by the Great Southern Hotel as surplus land some four years ago.

The Treacys, who own the five-star Killarney Park, have a long background in the hotel business in Killarney.

Janet Tracey at one time worked on reservations at the four-star Killarney Great Southern Hotel.

It is expected that some of the 12.4 acres at the hotel will be used by Sunday's Well Properties to develop a further residential scheme.

Most of the 100 staff at the Killarney hotel have accepted a severance deal that will see them receive a package comprising eight weeks' pay per year of service, including two weeks statutory redundancy for each year of service.

Manager Conor Henigan who has agreed to steer the handover said that the past few weeks had been very emotional for staff, many of whom had long associations with the hotel, some over a number of generations.

The news that a local concern had now bought the hotel and would be anxious to preserve the history of the hotel was "a dream come true," Mr Henigan said.

"We could not have hoped for a happier new beginning than this," he said.

A busy conference season loomed and the hotel was very busy, Mr Henigan added.

Staff who are remaining at the hotel received transfer payments, while those accepting the severance package were free to reapply for positions.

The news that the Killarney Great Southern has been bought by the group of local businessmen and by "a highly respected" Killarney hotel family was welcomed by the Irish Hotels Federation yesterday.

Meanwhile, Great Southern's Rosslare hotel, which failed to sell at the tender stage, is expected to be bought by an existing hotel group.

A new tender process closed yesterday. It is likely to make between €4 million and €6 million.

The Killarney hotel, which hosted some of the large retinue accompanying Queen Victoria's visit to Killarney in 1861 is one of the most historic of the eight hotels in the group.