Kerry's Royal Valentia Hotel, up for sale for €3m, is likely to generate transatlantic interest 

Currently a 30 room hotel, its bedrooms and suites have undergone significant upgrades in recent years.

A new 250-seater Skellig Rock function room was unveiled in 2018. Selling agent John Hughes, of CBRE Hotels, said the function room is flexible and can be adapted to any occasion, “such as corporate events, seminars, meetings, or weddings”.

The hotel, in Knightstown village, has a fantastic quayside location adjacent to where the car ferry drops off visitors crossing from the mainland.

It’s also near the Transatlantic Cable Museum, a commemoration of the first successful transatlantic cable, which connected Valentia Island to Heart’s Content in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1866.

Hailed as marking a new era in global telecommunications, it also led to a huge influx of visitors to Valentia Island.

This resulted in the expansion of the hotel, which started out as a small inn.

The hotel has undergone a phased development/restoration programme since 2012, having been bought by the Kidd family in 2005, using funds generated by previous careers in the family business, EV Kidd Wood finishers, as well as a bank loan. It starred in popular RTÉ TV series At Your Service in 2011, when hospitality gurus John and Francis Brennan provided expert advice.

The hotel is known to generations of Irish holiday makers whose kids took part in sea sports summer camps, run off the seafront in Knightstown.

Its breathtaking location — off the Iveragh Peninsula on the Wild Atlantic Way and Ring of Kerry — makes it a popular stop off for overseas visitors.

The Royal Valentia’s storied past adds to its sense of old-world glamour: It evolved on the coat tails of the highly successful Valentia Island slate quarry, which by the 1850s employed 500 men.

Its first iteration was as an inn, which opened in 1833, around the time engineer Alexander Nimmo was designing Knightstown village — one of the first planned villages in Ireland.

Subsequently, a new hotel was built on the site by carpenter Thomas Young, who ran it with his wife and family, as the Valentia Hotel and later as Young’s Hotel.

As its reputation grew, it attracted some notables, including Lord and Lady Adare, who spent two months there in 1858 and were charmed to find that there were no “miserable little cottages near to make it disagreeable”.

A couple of royals visited Valentia in the latter half of the 19th century, including Queen Victoria’s son Prince Arthur, and the hotel was renamed the Royal Valentia shortly after.

In 1897, the Duke and Duchess of York visited (later King George V and Queen Mary, the great grandparents of King Charles III).

In 1901, the hotel was taken over by Timothy Galvin and in 1937, it was bought by the Huggard family, stalwarts of the hotel industry in Kerry.

In 2022, the Huggard’s best known hotel — the Butler Arms in Waterville — sold for an undisclosed sum to the Press Up/Paddy McKillen Jnr group.

The Royal Valencia Hotel is expected to attract both domestic and international interest.

“Valentia Island’s blend of natural wonders, historical landmarks, and vibrant community makes it a unique destination.The rare opportunity to acquire an established charming hotel, with recent planning granted for additional rooms, will appeal to a wide base of potential buyers,” Mr Hughes said.

The island has several tourist attractions from the cable station museum, to Ireland’s oldest slate quarry, to lighthouse tours, to the tetrapod tracks — a 385m-year-old fossilised trackway said to represent the transition of life from water to land.

Valentia Island is reachable by both car ferry and by bridge from the mainland at Portmagee, from where boat tours operate to Skellig Michael.

Details: John.hughes@cbrehotels.com; Tel: 0872608861.