Set for another busy summer season, the Clanree Hotel in Letterkenny is ideally located for exploring beautiful Donegal and the Northwest of Ireland. Hotel & Tourism touched base with its General Manager Micheál Naughton to hear more about this fabulous hotel, its recent renovation work and what he feels sets it apart from the competition.
This year marks a quarter century since the Clanree Hotel was first established and today business is very much thriving for the popular Letterkenny property.
Owned by the McGettigan Group, an Irish-owned company with luxury properties in eight locations throughout the country, the Clanree Hotel provides its guests with a comfortable base for exploring Donegal and is conveniently located only a few minutes’ drive from the vibrant town centre of Letterkenny.
It has 121 beautifully designed bedrooms and a fantastic Leisure Centre, which includes a 20-metre swimming pool, a separate kids’ pool, sauna, steam room, jacuzzi and an extensive gym.
The Serene Wellness Health & Beauty also offers mini facials to manicures and pedicures to pamper packages for guests to treat themselves.
This four-star award-winning hotel is also host to Donegal’s premier conference venue. Comprised of a diverse selection of meeting, conference, exhibition and banqueting rooms, the Clanree’s Conference & Event Centre is truly the ultimate destination.
When it comes to live sports, live music and great tunes, McGettigans Bar & Restaurant has you covered, serving delicious food up until 10pm, while families are known to travel from far and near to enjoy the delights of the five course Sunday Lunch at the Clanree Hotel.
The hotel itself operates with 150 staff between full and part-time and its General Manager is popular Tir Chonaill County native Micheál Naughton whom was good to take some time recently from his busy schedule to update Hotel & Tourism on the happenings at the Clanree Hotel lately.
“Business is not bad at the moment here,” he said. “St Patrick’s weekend was good for us here and Easter was good as well. Overall, we can’t complain.
“Our hotel would do a big commercial business during the week Monday through Thursday in relation to reps and workers, with a small bit of leisure as well.
“Our weekends then are mostly made up of leisure and events. We’d be a big wedding and country weekend venue, like, for example, this weekend is a big country weekend here at the Clanree and we’re completely booked out with it.
“We’re probably the newest country venue in the Northwest at the moment and that should do fairly good for us as well.”
The Clanree Hotel is a popular wedding reception venue in the Northwest of the country as well, combining luxury, delicious food and a superb service.
The hotel’s Shellbridge Suite is tastefully styled and its banqueting menus can be tailored to the happy couple’s preferences and budget. Whether planning an intimate family event or larger celebrations of up to 500, the hotel’s dedicated team are on hand to ensure everything runs like clockwork on the big day.
The property has the perfect backdrop with some stunning bridal photo opportunities, and its sweeping ‘Gone with the Wind’ style staircase affords the most breath-taking memories.
Outside there is an original stone arch bridge surrounded by native flora, a quaint relic of the Donegal Railway which has been lovingly restored by local craftsmen and, alternatively, the Victorian-style Gazebo and a garden walkway for creating perfect photographic memories.
Indeed, the hotel has hosted countless unforgettable weekends over the last two-and-a-half decades and it has continuously reinvested in itself during those years as well.
The most recent renovation works at the Clanree took place last year, as its GM outlined.
“We did a lot of work in the last year. Between the whole lot we would’ve spent nearly the guts of €2m,” said Micheál.
Committed to sustainability, “We changed our heating system to a biomass boiler and we put in our own well, and also installed solar panels as well.
As part of our decarbonising programme , we opted for a prefabricated “Turnkey” plantroom with a 500kW biomass boiler supplied by CHP Mechanical Services. The hotel now benefits from an annual carbon savings of 433 ton and a substantial annual fuel savings with a return on investment period of less than 3 years. The hotel was also eligible for the SEAI 15-year government support scheme called the Support Scheme for Renewable Heat. As most of the work with our modular plantroom was completed off site this minimised the disruption to the hotel’s operations.
“We also carried out energy saving measures inside. We changed all lighting over to LED lighting, and put in the Heatboss heating system in all of the bedrooms which allows the guests to tailor the heating to their needs.
“In December, we renovated our lobby area with new furnishings, curtains and carpets. We upgraded our bedroom corridors with new carpets and decor. In 2023 there was also a completely new dining room put in which can seat over 200 people.”
With all the right pieces in place, the team at the Clanree are now relishing what they hope will be another busy summer season at the Letterkenny venue.
“We’re looking forward to summer. The last few weeks have been great weather-wise and, if we get the weather, we have a beautiful product and that with great value here up in Donegal,” the GM stated.
“The tour business will be starting to kick in now in the next few weeks. We had our winter series there with American Tours, two tour buses, which was very good.
“It was basically Americans coming into the hotel in the off-season, which was great, it started in November and ended in March.”
So, all of that considered, the clear question is what has been the secret behind the continued success of the Clanree Hotel to date?
What is it about this four-star property that sees its guests choosing it first ahead of other competitors out there?
“The one thing about the Clanree is that it’s very spacious. Our bedrooms are very big and you also have great parking around the hotel,” Micheál pointed out.
“That’s very important for guests now and there’s no charging for our parking here. We have a huge area out the back of the hotel.
“I suppose the one thing that makes us different at this hotel is our staff. We have great staff and very friendly staff, which is something that would always
be commented on in our reviews and that.”
A man well-known to have plenty of irons in the fire throughout his life, Micheál himself just finished serving a four-year term as President of the Ladies Gaelic Football Association.
He described the role as a huge personal “honour” and it came to a fantastic end this past March when the annual LGFA Congress was held in Letterkenny for the first time ever at none other than the Clanree Hotel.
“We had the LGFA Congress up here for the first time ever on the first weekend of March and that was great for tourism in Donegal because you’re bringing people from all over the 32 counties, from the UK and all our international units as far away as Australia,” he said.
“It was a great thing and I enjoyed my four years (as LGFA President) immensely. It was a huge honour to lead the LGFA and the All-Ireland finals day in Croke Park is a really special day for our association.
“We have made huge strides as an association. Hopefully, in the next two years, we’ll be integrated all as one and have a new GAA as one association. That’s the plan.”
Along with having held the LGFA’s presidency, Micheál also serves as a Donegal County Councillor and, to say the least, it all combines to keep him a busy man 12 months a year.
“As the saying always goes, ‘If you want something done, you ask a busy man’, so it’s all about timing. I was very much involved in the community and always have been,” he said.
“Before that I served on the LGFA county board in Donegal, Ulster Council and that. I also managed the Donegal ladies and we won an All-Ireland title in 2010.
“I’m blessed that I have a good wife that doesn’t mind when I go away, and two young kids as well. It’s not easy on her all the time but, in fairness, I’m blessed to have her and it allows me to do what I do.”
Looking at the months ahead for the Clanree Hotel, its General Manager doesn’t shy away from the fact that there will be challenges to come.
In saying that, he’s always been an optimist at heart and firmly believes in the product that Donegal itself offers as a county.
“It’s difficult, we’re not going to say it’s not. We welcome the VAT reduction as soon as possible,” he said.
“It would’ve been nicer if it came in. I think this year’s going to be very difficult for tourism and we all know that going out to shop ourselves that our weekly shop has gone up. The cost of living and that.
“It’s happening on a weekly basis and it is difficult to be in business. The minimum wage has gone up, now the pension scheme is going to come in in September and you also have the extra five days sick pay that you have to pay. I call them an extra five days holidays because everybody takes them because they’re there and they get paid for them. That’s just how it is.
“It will be a difficult year, I’ve no doubt, but I still think that we have a great product in Donegal in our tourism. I think we have a huge lot to offer and we have exceptional value up here.”
The GM concluded: “As you are a little bit cautious and a little bit worried, I always believe in looking at the glass as half full and I think it will be good enough, but it will be tight and you have to watch your costs.”
This article was published in Hotel & Tourism Magazine, Summer 2025, Vol 1 No 1
