Street Wise Athlone – Hodson Bay

This series of articles for the Westmeath Independent is run in conjunction with the Street Wise Athlone series on Athlone Community Radio which is broadcast on Wednesdays during Athlone Today at 2.30pm and repeated on Thursday mornings at 10am on The Brekkie Show.

Athlone Miscellany with Gearoid O'Brien

Hodson’s Bay is known nationally and, indeed, internationally, as the location of the Hodson Bay Hotel. Hodson’s Bay is located in the townland of Barrymore (also formerly known as Great Berries). According to the experts the use of the prefix ‘Barry’ in placenames in Roscommon and Longford, two strong sheep-rearing counties, seems to have a different derivation to the more common ‘Barraidh’ (boree) a mountain tract or hill-top as in Barryroe, Co Cork (Barraidhe-ruadha or the red hill-tops). P.W. Joyce a pioneer on Irish placenames consulted a Gaelic scholar, a Mr Hoare, who he described an “old correct Gaelic speaker.” Hoare pronounced the Irish as Bearraidhe meaning ‘a close shaven place’, from the Irish word ‘bearr’ to shave.

Enter the Hodsons

The Hodsons were of English origin, possibly from Buckinghamshire. The first of the name to come to Ireland was John Hodson D.D. who, until he was made the Bishop of Elphin in 1667 was rector of Louth and Dean of Clogher. He was consecrated bishop in St Nicholas Church, Galway on 8th September 1667 and enthroned in Elphin four days later. He died in 1686 and was buried in St Mary’s Cathedral, Elphin. He left a provision in his will for the building of a new Bishop’s Palace in Elphin and the Elphin Grammar School. The Hodsons of Hodson’s Bay are descended from Bishop John Hodson.

As with a number of other men of the cloth who came to settle in Ireland in the seventeenth century, he quickly amassed a substantial estate, including the Manor of Skea in Cavan and the lands of Tuitestown in Co. Westmeath. Soon branches of the family were established in various places including St John’s, Co Roscommon (1689), Great Berries, Co Roscommon (c1758) and Twyford, Co Westmeath (c1790). The earliest members of the family to settle at Great Berries, as it was then called, were Thomas and Alice Hodson, who set up home there c1758. Thomas also held property in Northgate Street, he died in 1797 and his widow, Alice, died in 1802. Thomas Hodson was very committed to bog reclamation and was probably responsible for the cutting of a canal, or ‘a navigable drain’ as it is called on an early 19th c map of Lough Ree. This waterway links Bally Bay to Hodson’s Bay.

In the Fourth Report of the Bog Commissioners to Parliament, quoted in Isaac Weld’s ‘Statistical Survey of County Roscommon’ (1832) there is an account furnished by Mr Hodson of Hodson’s Bay of bog reclamation and cultivation works on “the great bog of Curramore” which was traversed by the road leading from Athlone to Roscommon.

The Hodsons survived in Hodson Bay until the mid to late 19th century. By 1890 the house was, more or less, derelict when it was bought by William Hodson Gunning Esq., who was related (by marriage) to the Hodsons.

The Hodson Bay Hotel

In 1947 the late Patrick J. Lenihan, bought the house and land at Hodson Bay. This was in an era before rural electrification was properly established. He bought the property with the intention of opening a family run hotel. A report in The Westmeath Independent of 10th July, 1948, states: “ESB engineers and workers are at present engaged in the work of conveying electric current to supply the new hotel at Hodson’s Bay, which will be opened in the near future. The efficiency of all concerned cannot be praised too highly. In a short space of time a line of wooden standards has been erected from the town to the hotel, a distance of over 5 miles, and at present the work of fitting up the cables is in course of progress.” The road down to the Hodson Bay Hotel from the main Roscommon Road, which is now populated by many fine houses, originated as the avenue to Hodson’s house, as late as the 1930s when negotiations were continuing between Athlone Golf Club and the landowner this road was still referred to as the ‘avenue’.

Early Visitors

It seems that the hotel may have opened its doors without any great fanfare in the Spring of 1949 – among the earliest recorded notables to stay there were General Mulcahy, the Minister for Education and Senator Hayes who “spent a short holiday in the Hodson Bay Hotel” in April 1949. One can only presume that it was very much a working party. General Richard Mulcahy (1886-1971) was a former Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and afterwards leader of Fine Gael (1944-59). He served as Minister for Defence (1922-24), Minister for Local Government and Public Health (1927-32) and Minister for Education (1948-51 and 1954-57). His companion was Senator Michael Hayes (1889-1976) former T.D., Minister and Ceann Comhairle and Fine Gael Senator from 1938-65. Michael Hayes was a Professor of Irish in U.C.D. and was in a unique position to advise his comrade General Mulcahy.

In June 1949 Judge Gleeson at a luncheon interval of the Circuit Court informed the members of the Bar that accompanied by Mr William Tormey, solicitor he had visited the new hotel at Hodson Bay and was very impressed. The first advertisement I could find for the Hotel was in The Westmeath Independent in May 1949, when the hotel was the venue for a wedding reception. From a small family run hotel in 1949 the hotel has gone from strength to strength. The Lenihans extended the hotel in the 1950s by adding an annexe but it was not until it was taken over by the O’Sullivan family in 1992 that the hotel began to expand and grown into the fine hotel we know today.

Golf at Hodson Bay

The first golf course in Athlone was known as the Athlone Garrison Golf Club and it was a nine-hole course on the Batteries. It was founded in 1892 and spread out over land which has long since been taken over for housing. It stretched from Halls Bridge, through Ave Maria Terrace, St Anne’s Terrace and St Paul’s Terrace and out across the Napoleonic fortifications where Battery Heights was built.

The first tee shot was from the roof of a disused ammunitions store on the Batteries and the 7th tee was almost on the banks of the Canal. The next course, also a nine-hole course, was located in Garnafailaigh on lands leased from Mr Kearney. In 1937 a deputation from the Golf Club met Mr Gunning of Hodson Bay who agree to lease land to the club to develop an eighteen-hole golf links. An unforeseen expense was that the club was requested by the Railway authorities to cover the cost of building a level crossing and to appoint a permanent gate keeper.

After much negotiation it was agreed “that the club would pay £140 towards the cost of the building of the level crossing, that they would take out an insurance policy covering the risks of accidents at the crossing and that they would pay 10/- a week towards the payment of the gatekeeper.”

The conditions were accepted on the condition that if and when the ‘avenue to Hodson Bay’ became a public road the Golf Club would be relieved of their responsibility to pay the gatekeeper. For over 80 years Athlone Golf Club has been located at Hodson Bay.

The present club-house was designed by club-member, the late Noel Heavey, architect and built by Crehan Brothers.

The story of the first hundred years of Athlone Golf Club is told in an excellent book by the late Tom Collins called ‘Athlone Golf Club 1892-1992: 100 Years of Golf.’

Next article: Iona Park.

For all previous articles in the series, see here