Celebrating 50 Years in Business
Mai Duffy grew up in Clooneen, KIlmeena into a family of 10 boys and girls. She studied bookkeeping in the Tec at the age of 16 and worked in Careys Wholesale and Hardware in Newport as a bookkeeper for 9 years. She met Petie Joe Corcoran at a dance hall in Kilmeena and they were married in 1954.
Mai and Petie Joe had 150 guests at their wedding reception which was held in her parents garden in Kilmeena. Mai plucked and cooked the chickens herself which she served to her guests on a beautiful sunny day. To this day she still says it was the happiest day of her life!
Mai & Petie Joe went on to have 10 children, 5 boys and 5 girls, all born in Clooneen. In 1968 they moved their large family from the country into town where the opportunity came up to buy 2 houses side by side on Castlebar Street. Mai wrote a letter to Bord Failte at the time and got approval for a grant for £7,500 which she got in 1969 and opened soon after with 12 bedrooms and a bar and no hotel experience whatsoever.
From there, they bought the Cop Op on the Castlebar Road at a public auction and went on to develop the site into a 40 bedroom hotel. When the famous Starlight Ballroom on the Castlebar Road closed down in 1981, Mai introduced a weekly band in the function room who played to a packed house each night. The Rugby Club took the hotels function room every Friday night for the best part of 20 years and it was one of the highlights on the social calendar in Westport throughout the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
At that time in the early 70’s, the summer season ran from the 12th July for 6 weeks but that was the extent of the tourist season in Westport. In the winter time in order to keep the business ticking over the hotel would keep the bank clerks and the teachers during the week.
All of the Corcoran children were involved in the business and some of them would come straight from school and into the restaurant serving dinner or helping out in the kitchen. Although all of the children were involved in the running of the business, Petie Joe never worked in the hotel itself. He had his own business Corcoran Concrete which he set up in 1958 with his brother and he was content to sit in the bar and chat to the customers while Mai ran the business.
The hotel itself has undergone many transformations over the past 50 years. Mai and Petie Joe gradually bought all the houses and the bakery along Castlebar Street and in 1998 developed the Castlecourt into a 164 bedroom hotel with Leisure Centre and Conference Centre making it one of the largest hotels in Connaught at the time.
Mai retired from the business in 1994 but she continued to tend to the beautiful flowers beds around the hotel under 2011 which was a great passion of hers. Brother and sister team Joe and Anne Corcoran took over the business at the time and together with Joe’s wife Annamarie have developed the group to include the Westport Plaza Hotel, The Westport Coast Hotel and the Asgard Apartments.
The Castlecourt Hotel welcome is all about family and through the years have created a hotel experience like no other which sees the majority of customers returning as loyal guests and bringing their families with them. It holds a special place in the hearts of many over the last 50 years.