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The Butler Arms Hotel is located in the town of Waterville, County Kerry, Ireland.
The hotel opened in 1884 and has a written history closely linked with the history of Ireland.
The Butler Arms opened in 1884 and is situated on the southern tip of the Ring of Kerry, along the south-west coast of Ireland, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
The hotel is close to Valentia Island and Skellig Rocks, home to an early Christian monastic settlement and one of the biggest bird colonies in Europe, as well as Lough Currane and Waterville Golf Club.
The hotel was opened in 1884 by the McElligott family. From 1915 to 2022 it was owned by the Huggard Family who ran it for four generations. It was then bought by Paddy McKillen Jr's Press Up Entertainment group. [1] [2]
When the Butler Arms opened in 1884 it benefited from the cable companies who had laid the first successful transatlantic cable from Valentia Island to Heart's Content in Newfoundland, as well as coming of the railway to Killarney. Bradshaw's Railway Guides would also promote the scenery and fishing.
The Huggard family, who had bought the hotel from the McElligotts also owned the Royal Hotel in Valentia, The Caragh Lake Hotel and the Lake Hotel in Killarney, the last of which is still in their possession.
One of the earliest guests was J B Hayens of Leamington who arrived on 20 March 1884. He spent eight weeks there and caught salmon of an average weight of 13 lbs.
T. C. Kingsmill Moore, who later became Justice of the Supreme Court stayed in the hotel in 1932 to fish on the lake. The hotel featured in his angling book, A Man May Fish. [3]
Sir Horace Plunkett came to the hotel twice in 1891, immediately after his appointment to the newly formed Congested Districts Board. From there he saw the conditions of the people and formulated his vision of setting up the cooperative societies and creameries of Ireland. [4]
In August 1899 the hotel register noted the name of Roland Allanson Winn. He was an engineer who had built roads in India, designed coastal defences at Bray in Wicklow and Youghal in Cork and coast protection in his home territory of Glenbeigh.
Lord Dunraven, who chaired the Land Conference of 1902, was a frequent visitor to the hotel.
Women of great influence and wealth also came to the Butler Arms, amongst them, in 1937, the Countess of Lauderdale of Thirlstane Castle in Berwickshire, then one of the grandest private residences in Scotland.
Lady Maud Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne of Bowood House in Wiltshire also spent time at the hotel in 1903. As the daughter of the first Duke of Abercorn and Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Alexandra of Denmark, she held extensive influence in her own right, while her husband, the fifth Marquess of Lansdowne held numerous posts including Viceroy of India and Governor General of Canada.
Lady Maud Landsdowne or The Countess of Lauderdale, like many others, came to enjoy the scenery, as described in Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay's The History of England from the Accession of James the Second
The south western part of Kerry is now well known as the most beautiful tract in the British Isles. The mountains, the glens, the islands, the capes stretching far into the Atlantic, the crags on which the eagles build, the rivulets brawling down rocky passes, the lakes overhung by groves in which the wild deer find covert, attract every summer, crowds of wanderers sated with the business and pleasures of great cities.
The beauties of that country are indeed too often hidden in the mist and rain which the west wind brings up from a boundless ocean. But on the rare days when the sun shines out in all his glory, the landscape has a freshness and warmth of coloring seldom found in our latitude. The myrtle loves the soil. The arbutus thrives better than on the sunny shores of Calabria. The turf is of livelier hue than elsewhere. the hills glow with richer purple, the varnish on the holly and ivy is more glossy; and berries of a brighter red peep through foliage of a brighter green.
The hotel is well known for hosting famous guests including Charlie Chaplin, [5] Walt Disney, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Flatley. [6]
Walt Disney and his wife and daughters had stayed there in 1947. Travelling with them was Dr James Delargy, who had set up the Irish Folklore Commission. Song of the South, from the Uncle Remus stories of Joel Chandler Harris of Georgia (1946) was a box office success at the time. Dr. Delargy had taken down more folklore from Sean O Connell in Ballinskelligs (across the bay from the hotel) than had ever been collected from one source at any time.
A Miss Blake who holidayed in the hotel remembered a moonlit night in 1932 when John McCormack sang from the steps of the hotel stairs. [7]
In the 1960s business was at a peak and Charlie Chaplin and his family were almost turned away; however the owner stepped forward and gave them his private suite. It was the beginning of a long relationship, as they returned for long holidays several times after that.
Famous writers such as Alfred Perceval Graves, Virginia Woolf and John Steinbeck also stayed in the Butler Arms but Chaplin is remembered best of all. A life size statue of him stands on the street, and a festival runs for his honor.
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