Hotels needed to make Killiney a “second Monte Carlo” - Councillor
Killiney, 19 July 1923 - The Dublin coastal suburb of Killiney could become a ‘second Monte Carlo’, a prominent member of the Urban Council has said.
Speaking to the Irish Independent on the prospects for developing the tourism industry in the country, Mr. R. T. Meagher stated that more hotels were a pre-requisite to enabling picturesque Killiney to deliver on its potential.
‘We have not a hotel along the sea front’, he said, ‘and I consider it great blindness on the part of the railway company not to have negotiated long ago with a view to acquiring a site. Immense numbers of afternoon visitors and trippers come from Dublin and if a hotel were erected it would pay like fun.’
What made Bray, Dun Laogheire and Greystones so popular is that they had ‘heaps of hotels’ and Killiney, Mr. Meagher added, possessed a ‘great number of vacant houses which could be readily converted into hotels.’
Mr. Meagher also stressed the need for an improved railway service and suggested that for the summer months alone, half hourly trains instead of hourly should be provided.
Mr. Meagher said that he had visited many of Europe’s premier beauty spots along the French and Italian rivieras and the Bay of Naples and none could compare with Killiney. And now that Ireland had a government of its own, he predicted a ‘great future for Killiney’ where its beauty would be recognised by the State.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
