Falls Hotel Spa Resort
Nestled in it’s wooded vale beside the tumbling waters of the River Inagh, the distinctive building known today as the Falls Hotel Spa Resort conceals within it’s walls an eighteenth century mansion, a late medieval castle, and a formidable history of four and a half centuries embracing clans and warfare, landlords and tenants, poets, dreamers and entrepreneurs.
* 140 Spacious Bedrooms and 9 Duplex Apartments
* Conference Facilities for up to 350 delegates
* Two Restaurants
* Dylan Thomas Bar. Named after the Welsh Poet, who's wife lived in the Manor House.
* Wedding/Banqueting Facilities for up to 400 people.
* Aqua & Fitness Club, which has swimming pool, sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi, outdoor hot tub, bubble pool, childrens pool and fully equipped gymnasium.
* River Spa, which contains 12 treatment rooms, a thermal suite and a relaxation room overlooking the River Inagh.
River Spa
Spa Rituals | Facials | Body Wraps & Dry Floats | Body Massage Therapy | Signature Treatments | Bathing Ceremonies | Beauty at the Spa |
River Spa has 12 treatement rooms, including a thermal suite, dry floats, Rasul (hot mud treatment) and relaxation room overlooking the river Inagh. Between and after treatments all spa guests will have access to all the aquatic and leisure facilities in Aqua & Fitness Club.
New Treatments Now Available:
Tri-Enzyme Resurfacing Facial
This new facial delivers groundbreaking, clinical results after one treatment. The skin is left increadible clean, smooth and radiant bringing a renewed level of evenness and clarity to the complexion.
Balinese Massage
This is a deep oil based massage therapy where pushing techniques predominates, working very deeply to ease muscle and joint pain.
Stress can lead to imbalances within many areas of the bodies systems. Massage helps to reduce this stress and therefore leads to the rebalancing of the body. This, in turn, contributes to improvement int he function of all major body systems.
Hot Stone Massage
River Spa is open daily from 10am - 8pm.
Our History
Nestled in it’s wooded vale beside the tumbling waters of the River Inagh, the distinctive building known today as the Falls Hotel Spa Resort conceals within it’s walls an eighteenth century mansion, a late medieval castle, and a formidable history of four and a half centuries embracing clans and warfare, landlords and tenants, poets, dreamers and entrepreneurs.
The O Briens
In 1712 the farm of "Inishtymond" was granted to a John O’Brien of Dublin, who was probably acting on behalf of his relative Christopher O’Brien. Christopher O’Brien died in 1743 and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Edward. Then, in 1764, Edward demolished much of the old castle building.
The new structure, Ennistymon House, was a Georgian-style building with large sash windows, fine panelling and rococo decoration inside.
The Finucanes
In 1792 the house passed to Ann O’Brien and her husband Matthias Finucane. A year later, Ann was divorced by her husband by a special Act of Parliament; but since she was held to be the guilty party Ennistymon House remained in the Finucane family.
The Finucanes resided here in the early 1800’s.
The Macnamaras
On the death, without lawful heirs, of Andrew Finucane in 1843, the house passed to his brother-in-law William Nugent Macnamara of Doolin, who had in 1798 married Susannah Finucane, who was in turn a grand-daughter of Edward O’Brien, formerly of the same house. Francis ("The Colonel") Macnamara, only son and heir of William Nugent, married Helen McDermott in 1860 of Dublin and they lived variously between London and Ennis until July 1863 when they made Ennistymon House their permanent home. In the same year they added a west wing to the house to accommodate guests who came to enjoy - among other things - good shooting and fishing.
Dylan Thomas
Francis Macnamara Jnr, grandson of The Colonel, could justifiably be considered the most colourful of his clan (his daughter Nicolette Devas wrote of him in her autobiography Two Flamboyant Fathers). And it was he who was responsible for turning Ennistymon House into a commercial property for the first time. Another of his daughters, Caitlin married Welsh Poet Dylan Thomas, both of whom lived in the house during the first two years of their marriage.
Francis’ marriage to Yvonne fell asunder and in 1928 he married again, this time to Augustus John’s sister-in-law, Edie McNeil. At this time he was dividing his time between London and Ennistymon, where he planned to turn the family home into a country hotel. After Edie died, Francis took a third wife, this time Iris O’Callaghan-Westropp of O’Callaghan’s Mills. That was 1936. He was then fifty-two years of age, some thirty years her senior, and shortly after they both returned to Ennistymon House which they soon after opened to the public as the Falls Hotel.
Towards the end of the 1930’s, Francis leased the hotel for five years to Brendan O’Regan, who later pioneered catering and sales services at Shannon International Airport. O’Regan ran the hotel during the years of World War Two, and one of his innovations was to supply hot meals in hayboxes to the golfers at Lahinch!
At the end of the O’Regan lease, Francis took the decision to sell the hotel, thus ending a connection which stretched back -almost unbroken- to the original O’Brien’s of Ennistymon Castle some four hundred years previous.
Ownership From 1942 - 1986
The new owner of the Falls Hotel was a retired Welshman called Gerard Henry Williams-Owen. He and his family operated during the summer months only.
In 1955 John F. Wood and his wife Bridget acquired the hotel. They added the hydro-electric plant which for many years provided power to the building, and the ‘plant’ can still be seen a short distance upstream, just below the cascades.
The Mc Carthys
The current owners of the Falls Hotel are Dan and Eileen McCarthy (since 1986). Under their stewardship, the hotel has been greatly extended and improved, and now boasts 140 bedrooms, a restaurant and bar, a 400 seat Conference/Banqueting Room, a leisure club, a highly equipped gymnasium and the 12 treatment room River Spa.
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