“Here will be the coach house, which will have the Grace O’Malley experience behind the building,” says Barry O’Connor, chief executive of Westport Estate, as we pass the main house on a whistle-stop tour of its 438 acres on a rain-sodden day.

“The one on the left is staying, the one on the right gets knocked down with a 200-seater cafe and the one in front of you will be a retail space,” he adds from the back of a 4×4 being driven by estate manager Michael King.

In another part of the vast estate, where the main house dates back to 1734, construction work was beginning on a €65 million redevelopment of the property, with funding of €36 million from Fáilte Ireland.

The balance of the funds will be provided by the Hughes family, who bought the estate from Nama about a decade ago and who also own Portwest, a successful local company that specialises in making safety clothing and workwear.

Harry Hughes, one of the three brothers who owns the company, was chosen as the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.

Construction is planned to last two years with the aim of attracting 100,000 visitors in the first year after opening, rising to between 270,000 and 300,000 annually within 10 years.

It will be designed to draw American and other tourists to the region. According to O’Connor, just 10 per cent of revenue from the Wild Atlantic Way tourism goes north of Galway.

“The estate will have the potential to drive traffic all season round,” he says. “We’re putting a big emphasis on storytelling about the myths and legends of Ireland that will hopefully have a pull.”

Central to the storytelling is an immersive 360-degree cinematic experience, telling the story of Grace O’Malley, Ireland’s pirate queen.

O’Connor says the redeveloped estate will provide activities in the evening for visitors to the area, beyond going to the pub (good and all as they are in Westport).

“It will be something that’s nice and casual and relaxed with someone telling stories for an hour, hour and a half. People are really interested in finding out more information about what story you’re telling. Music and poetry will all be part of it, too.”

Down the road, O’Connor says there could be the potential to develop short-stay accommodation. The estate already has a caravan park and glamping on site.

Delivering

A native of Galway, O’Connor is the man charged with delivering the project, which first applied for funding in 2020 but was derailed by Covid before getting over the line earlier this year.

“We expect it [the estate] will be handed back in June or July 2028 and will hopefully open up some time that summer,” he says. “From a sales perspective, we have to get out on the road now and talk to operators and our marketing campaigns have to kick in.”

Part of the plan to attract tour operators is to tie in with other attractions in the region, with Kylemore Abbey in Connemara being one possibility.

“I think we can collaborate on different things. We can work together and my benefit is their benefit,” he says.

A planned greenway that would link Westport to Louisburgh would also be a “game changer”, he says, adding that having a train station in the town is already of “huge benefit” to the area in terms of attracting visitors.

The redevelopment also includes rewilding projects and the intention is to plant only native trees and plants, with a dedicated team on site nurturing them from seed to soil.

We continue our chat at the nearby Grace Hotel, which is located on the edge of Westport Estate, just a stone’s throw from the centre of the bustling town.

The 129-bedroom, four-star hotel is also owned by the Hughes family and got a multi-million refurbishment recently, with a soft opening in April.

For about 24 hours, it was the hub of Mayo GAA’s celebrations on winning Sam Maguire for the first time in 75 years.

The victorious team occupied 45 rooms at the hotel on the Monday night following the team’s stirring victory over Kerry at Croke Park on July 26th, with fans swarming the lobby area for selfies with Kobe McDonald and Sam.

O’Connor moved west from a senior role with US real estate investor Kennedy Wilson, working as resort director on the redevelopment of the Portmarnock Hotel and Golf Links, having been approached by the Hughes family in 2019 to oversee the project.

Formerly known as Hotel Westport, the Grace is a modern hotel, offering excellent food and comfortable accommodation, operating at a near 90 per cent occupancy rate. It attracts both locals and visitors and is a popular wedding venue.

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, who has strong Mayo family connections, stayed at the Grace during his visit here earlier in the year. “A gent, he stayed here and was just another resident,” is how O’Connor describes him.

“Westport is very strong at weekends, all year round. Our challenge in the west of Ireland is midweek. You’d have a certain amount of corporate but not huge amount so you’d be looking for the leisure guests in the off season.

“You have to create activity for them and packages that are attractive. You have to keep innovating. The estate will have the potential to drive traffic all season. We’re putting a big emphasis on storytelling about the myths and legends of Ireland that will hopefully have a pull.”

O’Connor says October is “looking good” for the Grace, November is a “bit weak but that will come good” and December is “very strong”. The hotel will close on December 24th, 25th and 26th.

“It’s a costly time to open both from payroll perspective and costs in general. There’s a lot of bedrooms to fill to justify that opening.

“Staff will appreciate the breather, too, they’ll be able to spend Christmas with their families and come back refreshed knowing they have some busy days ahead up to New Year’s Eve,” he says.

Owners

What are the Hughes family like as owners? “They are good, they’re businessmen, success is the only word they know. They want to make sure it’s [the estate] self sustainable and the next generation don’t have to make hard decisions and that it’s making money to be reinvested back into the property.”

O’Connor says the hotel will be profitable next year, with revenues of between €12 million and €15 million in 2027.

“A hotel in Westport is a safe enough bet. There’s a good domestic market, the international could be better but generally you’d be confident about the hotel doing well,” he says.

The lower 9 per cent Vat rate, introduced in July for food services, is “helpful”, he adds.

“Food and beverage is hard to make money out of right now. There is only so much people will pay at the end of the day for a coffee or a pint. Westport is still about €5.80 around town [for a pint of Guinness] and €6 here so that tells its own story.

“When people come from Dublin or other places they think it’s great. And you want support from the locality, who need to feel that they are being treated fairly.

“Everything is made fresh here, with local ingredients where we can. We keep the menu tight. I want people to relax. People want to experience good service, good food and feel that this is lovely. They don’t need a lot of fuss.

“I don’t want fancy chandeliers or gaudy, you want people to come in and feel comfortable in the space. Just make it cosy and intimate. When you walk in the door that in the first five seconds you feel relaxed and that you’ve made the right choice.”

On why Ireland is more expensive than many other European countries for eating out, he says: “The minimum wage in Portugal is less than half of here and that’s driving a lot of it. Wages have gone up 40-plus per cent in the past seven years.”

O’Connor studied hotel and business management in Galway, moving to New York in the early 1990s on a Morrison visa to try his luck over there.

It was a time before the internet and mobile phones, with O’Connor sending job applications by post to various high-end hotels in Manhattan.

He was offered a number of roles, taking one at the St Regis, then a new five-star property in the city.

“I bought the Forbes guide on the way to New York and marked out who I was going to apply to. There were no mobile phones, you applied by letter. I picked the St Regis because it was the feeling I had. It wasn’t pretentious, it was a nice, soft feeling with genuine care for customers and people.

“I felt that my next five years were key to my long term. I was trying my luck as well. I didn’t know I was going to get a job and I’d nothing to lose.”

In his early twenties, he “wanted to learn from the best”, and was given a job as a butler.

“It was kind of a housekeeping and concierge role. I met every celebrity you can think of. Every president, it was an amazing experience,” he says, namechecking the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and president George Bush as among those he served.

“New York is a great city when you’re young. Very cut throat. You succeed or fail, there’s no in between. I liked that type of pressure, I thrived with that.”

On returning to Ireland he worked on the redevelopment of the Berkeley Court hotel in Ballsbridge before being tempted to the midwest to work on a new golf resort that was planned for Doonbeg in Co Clare, which is now owned by Donald Trump.

He drove to Doonbeg with his wife to check out the venue before committing himself to the project. “On passing Ennis, she said to me ‘this is like the twighlight zone. We’ve gone from New York to Dublin and now you want me to go to west Clare’.

“When I arrived, there was a lad holding a big pole with a seat on the pole and a strap on the seat. I asked what it was and he said ‘if you wanted to buy a property we’d stick you on the seat and show you exactly your view’. I thought he was having a laugh. That was the selling technique.”

From there it was on to Killeen Castle, which was owned by property developer Joe O’Reilly, where he was general manager in preparation for the Solheim Cup women’s team golf tournament in 2011.

He worked as a consultant for a time before taking up his role with Kennedy Wilson. Now in Westport, he says the main challenge starts when the estate reopens.

“The real work is to get people to come here and that work starts today. The person in north America or France needs to hear about it a year out if not more before making the decision to come to Ireland.

“Americans aren’t coming to Ireland for the sun, they just don’t want it to be lashing rain all the time. Having the Grace O’Malley experience, the 250-seater cafe, the retail and the house itself will be a great attraction.

“If you talk to tour operators, they’re always looking for something new. Ireland has to create new product, it can’t just rely on Killarney and the Cliffs of Moher.”

Westport Estate represents the biggest project that Fáilte Ireland has funded to date. It’s also a major investment by the Hughes family.

Is O’Connor feeling any pressure to deliver?

“You’ll always feel pressure, which is a good thing. We all need that to get the best out of us and I don’t worry about it too much. There’s a very strong team here and really I’m the support guy.

“There’s a lot to do and a lot of money is being spent here. But it’s good pressure.”

CV

Name: Barry O’Connor.

Job: Chief executive, Westport Estate.

Age: 53.

Lives: Westport, Co Mayo.

Family: Married with three adult children.

Hobbies: Golf and GAA.

Something we might expect: He loves to travel.

Something that might surprise: In his early twenties, he travelled to New York on a Morrison visa, securing a job in the five-star St Regis hotel, working initially as a butler.