Our Tiny Village Has Been Turned Into a Ghost Town After B&B Was Turned Into a Hotel for Migrants

The thriving hotel in Carna hosted weddings, christenings and festivals during busy summer months when tourists flocked to the tiny scenic coastal resort on the west coast of Ireland.

They brought with them a buzz of excitement and a welcome revenue stream for locals.

But three years ago the holidaymakers and day-trippers stopped coming to the Carna Bay Hotel after it closed its doors to the public to welcome in Ukrainian refugees fleeing their war-torn country.

It was supposed to be a temporary measure after the owners of the charming B&B, the village’s only hotel, signed a lucrative contract with the government.

Now locals, fearing for their livelihoods, have decided enough is enough after an application was put forward to turn the establishment into a centre of asylum seekers.

The proposals would see its 28 rooms occupied by 84 migrants from around the world – significantly increasing the population of the tiny village which has fewer than 180 residents.

Now locals, dressed in high visibility jackets, are taking it in turns to guard the hotel following rumours that a bus carrying migrants was heading to the village in Connemara, County Galway.

Operating a shift system, they plan to maintain a round the clock presence until they believe the crisis has been averted, and the hotel is back in the community fold.

For more than a week, the group known as the Carna Bay Hotel Action Group, have been camping outside the property kitted out with deck chairs and food wrapped in tin foil, taking turns protesting whilst remaining wary of new faces.

It comes as hopes have been raised that the hotel can be saved after officials paused the opening when a local group put forward alternative plans to buy Carna Bay and turn it into a ‘community-led hotel’.

But amid growing tensions, a thick atmosphere of distrust remains after locals in the predominantly Irish-speaking community rose up in their quiet rebellion.

Immigration has been a sore topic in Ireland in recent weeks with the growing emergence of International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) centres in rural areas such as the 300-year-old Dundrum House Hotel in County Tipperary.

It comes as MMA fighter Conor McGregor launched a scathing attack on Ireland’s prime minister Micheál Martin during a speech at the White House.

He claimed the country was ‘potentially losing its Irishness’ due to an ‘illegal immigration racket ravaging our country’.

McGregor added: ‘There are rural towns in Ireland that have been overrun in one swoop.’

He went on to hit out at the massive bill taxpayers were left facing with Ireland spending 1.43 billion euros (£1.2 billion) on accommodation for asylum seekers and Ukrainian refugees in the first nine months of last year.

Heading the protest in Carna, Maedhbh Ní Ghaora, 28, told MailOnline that local businesses are already ‘suffering’ after the hotel closed its doors to customers three years ago.

She said: ‘There was a lovely atmosphere in the village when we had the hotel opened and trading – and that’s the way we want it back.’

Noting the nearest town is Clifton and the nearest city is Galway, both respectively around 23 and 50 miles away from Carna, the bus driver stressed that only one bus passies through the village.

She insisted there simply aren’t the amenities to cope with the volume of new arrivals.

And she raised concerns over the ‘huge’ impact the hotel’s closure had already had on local tourism.

As well as hosting popular local festivals, the hotel accommodated cycle tours and the parents of Irish summer school students while serving the local community with events such as funerals and parties.

She said: ‘The culture and the livelihood of the village has declined without somewhere to stay.

‘It’s not even just somewhere to stay – a lot of gatherings were held in there.

‘There was always hope that the hotel was going to open. It was said last year the hotel would be open and trading in April and now we are in April and there’s talks of an IPAS.

An International Protection Accommodation Scheme (IPAS) centre provides accomodation to those applying for refugee status.

‘The community is browned off because we have spent the last three years without our hotel and we knew it was always temporary but how far can temporary go? This is year three.’

She continued: ‘Sometimes you wonder if the government even know we are here, then something like this happens and it’s like ‘yeah they know where we are now’.’

Describing the aims of the protest she said: ‘I do hope [the Irish government] are seeing this and it might open their eyes to the danger they’re putting our culture, our traditions into.’

Another local, John Foalan, 64, said: ‘When the Ukrainians came we welcomed them, but we see what’s happening in other areas, people turning up with no papers, no documents, no nothing, just expecting to walk in.’

He warned that if the IPAS application went ahead, the village of Carna would ‘end up like’ Lisdoonvarna in County Clare, where a government plan to settle asylum seekers was approved despite a vote of 197 against and only 15 in favour.

He said: ‘We know what it would be, a bus load of males of unknown origin with no proper identification.

‘It’s happening in Lisdoonvarna. It’s happening in every small town and village – it’s all the same. It’s a recurring pattern.

‘We used to have tourists and they used the hotel, but now they bypass us all the time. There’s nothing here.

‘It’s the quietness of the place. There’s just no stopping, nothing to see – no reason to stop here.

‘It was a lovely hotel. They would have weddings, christening, events – all these things, but nothing now and it’s just not fair I think.’

Maureen, 74, who works in a local shop, added: ‘Something has to be done to stop this all from happening. It’s just not on. The place is not suitable for them and we need a hotel badly.

‘There’s no work for local people, never mind having more people coming in and there’s nothing for them to do, it’s crazy. It doesn’t make sense especially in small communities.’

A few minutes walk up the road lies a cosy Irish pub called Tigh Mhóráin ran by Peter Fitzpatrick, who fears the shrinking business would only decline if the plans are approved.

The publican, who has leased the pub for nearly three decades, has seen his business dwindle dramatically since the hotel was ‘temporarily’ closed to tourists, with his workforce declining from five to one, while his beer taps have depleted from 12 to only five.

He said: ‘The impact has been huge. The first year wasn’t too bad, the second year was worse and the third year was diabolical altogether.

‘It used to be six months good and six months bad, and now it’s eight months bad and three months where you make a few pound to keep you going.

‘We are sympathetic and very caring but we thought it would only last a couple weeks or months and it would be back to normal.

‘Now it’s going into the third year and there are rumours of other things happening, we are panicking.’

He added: ‘If the wrong clientele came it would force me to close. It’s as simple as that.’

Mr Fitzpatrick said some locals were even considering moving out of the village if the plans for the asylum seeker centre go ahead.

He said: ‘It’s hard to hear people saying that they are going to sell up and leave, it’s devastating – it’s awful, but locals aren’t going to hang around.

‘I think it would destroy the community.

‘Looking at Claire and other parts of the country, now it’s only hearsay, but it has destroyed those areas.’

Mr Fitzpatrick also insisted it would be unfair to the proposed migrants to be housed in Carna as there are no facilities to cater for their needs.

He said: ‘There’s nothing here for them – walk the roads? It’s okay in the summer time but in the winter it’s dark at 3.30pm and 9am what do you do?

‘For their own mental health. It would be totally unfair on them. You come here in the summer and winter, it’s two different places.’

Noting a ‘huge distrust’ among the people of Carna and the powers that be, he added: ‘The government are to blame for this full stop. It’s a different situation living in Dublin to living out here.’

And the proposal of a migrants centre hasn’t only stoked tensions between the group and government.

Animosity has also been brewing between locals and the former hotel owner, Karl Rogers, 45.

He told how a couple of years of poor trading after the Covid pandemic led to him selling up.

But he said that did not stop some villagers aiming their anger over its closure towards him and his family.

He said: ‘We wouldn’t have sold the hotel – 100 percent – if we knew it wasn’t going to be owned as a hotel – not a chance.’

Explaining how the hotel was only open for nine days after he officially became the owner before the pandemic struck, he decided to take in Ukrainian refugees because he believed it would be short-term.

He said: ‘We never thought it was going to be three years, and we always knew or thought it would go back as a hotel.

‘Even though we have been gone two-and-a-half years, people are still blaming us. We were hoping it was going to blow over. We just hope it will go back as a hotel.’

Mr Rogers claimed there was an agreement in place with the current owner, Cork-based firm Mulcahy Steel, to ensure the hotel would be back up and operational.

Speaking of the tensions which have impacted his family, he added: ‘It’s not nice, especially for my daughter in school.

‘She’s thick skinned but it’s not pleasant, even the way people are looking at us now locally.

He said the new owners were not local people and didn’t realise the effect it is having on the family. Mr Rogers added: ‘You can feel an atmosphere.’

The former owner also said he felt sympathy with Ukrainians inside the hotel

He said: ‘I just feel sorry for the people up there. The families, the Ukrainians living at the hotel – we had a great relationship with them

‘I don’t think it’s fair on them that there is protesting outside the hotel. I understand the locals’ frustration alright but I don’t agree with them standing outside the hotel.

‘The families inside deserve better.’

Despite the fear and anger within the community, hopes have been raised by the local Carna’s Community Development Co-op,

The organisation’s manager Máirín Ní Choisdealbha-Seoige, 51, said it is carrying out a survey of the premises and exploring different options to see if it could turn it into a ‘community led-hotel’.

She said: ‘It is a business plan, it is sensitive negotiations because I have to get finances to enable us to not only buy the hotel but upgrade it and actually manage it and open it to the public.

‘But in the meantime there is a fear factor developing in the community, which is fair enough and I understand that but at the same time we are trying to balance what’s happening.’

The group hope to secure funding through a number of sources, which would include locally-backed crowdfunding, in a bid to save the hotel so it can be ‘passed on from ‘generation to generation’.

Ms Ní Choisdealbha-Seoige, who has worked in the area for 14 years, added: ‘I am still very focused on the need for the hotel within the community because it’s the last hotel in the community.’

Despite their vastly different approach, the community development manager and the protesters want the same ending – the site back in the hands of locals so they can breathe a new lease of life into the area.

Last summer 72 people travelled to Carna for four days for Tionol Gaeltachta, a national event of workshops, events and cultural sessions.

Ms Ní Choisdealbha-Seoige told how she had to launch a campaign asking people to open up their homes to offer accommodation to visitors.

She said: ‘We had no hotel, it was a nightmare to get accommodation. I got accommodation but it was through callouts and asking people to open up their houses.

‘If the hotel was there it could have been a hub but instead I had buses coming back and over the road like lunatics bringing people from A to B.’

She added of her hopes for the future: ‘The wellbeing of the whole community has to be brought into consideration. We have three months to produce a plan and what we need is the space to deliver that.’

MailOnline has approached Mulcahy Steel LTD for comment.

A spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth said: ‘There is no contract in place or planned to accommodate international protection applicants at this site. Some people fleeing the war in Ukraine remain accommodated there.

‘The Department had received an offer of accommodation for International Protection Applicants from a provider at this location.

‘We informed the community and media in recent weeks that we had decided to pause the appraisal of this offer for three months.

‘This is because the community are making a proposal about developing a community hotel. Our Department have paused the appraisal in order to let the community advance this proposal with the appropriate bodies.

‘After three months, our intention is to resume the appraisal of the site.

‘Responsibility for international protection accommodation and Ukraine accommodation will be transferring to the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration.

‘This transfer has not yet taken place and is due to be completed in the near future.’