A New Life Paul O'Doherty meets a man who was both mad and brave enough to turn his house into a hotel, golf course, leisure centre and nightclub
Ten years ago, Carnbeg House in Co Louth was better known as the Kirk family's farm and the former home of botanist Thomas Coulter, who discovered the white flowered matilya or Californian poppy in the 19th century. Today, it houses the Park Inn Dundalk, an 84-bedroom hotel and leisure complex, Sky nightclub and the Carnbeg golf course.
It's a radical development that was carved in the mind's eye of a young welder, Philip Kirk. "People said it wouldn't work and that a golf course was crazy, but they're not laughing now when they look up our driveway and they see what we've got. I don't know what motivated me to do it, but there's a small bit of madness inside there somewhere.
"I don't know whether entrepreneur is the right word to use. I think you only do these things once in a lifetime from where we started with no money. And, I mean no money at all. We had the property, but my father died when he was 51 and we were a young family. My mum did so well to hold onto this place. They were all telling her to sell it and get a couple of million. But fair play to mum, she held on."
Two years after his father died, Kirk left school at 13. "It was pretty tough. There wasn't much coming in and we were all very young. So I had to go out and get a job. I started an apprenticeship with George Duffy Coachbuilders. Lord have mercy on George Duffy, he actually sponsored me to go to Fás to learn to weld. I went back to George Duffy with my papers and he gave me a job welding hearses at 15. I suppose it was in the blood. My father was also a welder and ran a successful business in Dundalk. If there were any lorries to be done in those days, my daddy did them."
Having served his time with George Duffy and Louth Transport, Kirk's career took him to Moffett's Engineering where a casual piece of advice from a work colleague, Paul O'Callaghan, was to change his life forever. O'Callaghan said: "I was out playing golf at the weekend, and do you know something, if I had your farm, I'd turn that place into a golf course."
Not yet 21, the idea began to play on Kirk's mind and eventually he convinced the family to consult Jimmy Blythe at Glebe golf course in Trim, who suggested they talk to legendary golf course designer Eddie Hackett. "Eddie Hackett was 86 years of age at the time and he was the architect of the century in golf courses. Eddie came down and went around the golf course, and there was cattle about it and electric fences and barbed wire everywhere and muck, you know yourself, a farm, and eventually he said: 'My God, this has the makings of a fantastic golf course.' Five months later, a registered letter arrived with plans for the Carnbeg golf course.
"We 'walked' the golf course, me and Eddie, in an old 1990 Renault van and he told me to go to the local sawmills and get about 70 stakes, about four foot tall. I didn't know what they were for but I went away and got the 70 stakes. He said 'right, get that stake and put it there, there's your first tee-box'. Then he said, 'walk 367 yards' and I'd walk 367 yards and he'd say 'stop, that's your first green'. It went from there: the second, the third . . . all the way to the 18th."
Initially, Kirk tried to develop the golf course doing most of the work himself. "I went out and I cut the greens with the lawnmower and there was cattle flying and muck and shite and everything going on. I remember one day we were in dosing cattle and my vet asks me: 'What are doing out there with the lawnmower?' And I said, 'you won't believe it Charlie, I'm going to make a golf course'."
Finally, after a summer on work experience at Nuremore golf course, and numerous conversations with everybody from the greenkeeper to the guy who supplied the cutting machinery, Carnbeg golf course opened in 1998.
But Kirk wasn't finished and in 1999 he decided to build a 65-bedroom hotel on the golf course. The planning permission was fine but he had difficulty raising the investment capital.
"Then in 2002, I got the itchy feet again and I said 'let's go for a bigger one: let's go for 84 rooms, nightclub, leisure complex, pool, conference rooms, lounge, bar and six all-weather football pitches'. And we got the planning permission for that and backing and here we are now with a property, in my book when the motorway is finished, worth about €55 million."
Along the way there have been major risks. "When we built the hotel we pulled down our 11-bedroom beautiful Victorian home worth serious money and risked everything my mother and father worked their arses for. It's not even the money: they don't build those sort of homes anymore. From a farm of land with sheds on it to a leisure complex with 2,500 members and six five-a-side football pitches - we're only open and we've got 28 weddings in already this year. I've my own private pilot's licence and a Robinson 44 helicopter which I bought last year. We're doing special deals with wedding couples. Free of charge, we're collecting them from the church and taking them around the skies before the reception."
Future plans include owning Ireland's first Las Vegas-style casino, legislation willing. "We'd definitely have space here to do it. We've 112 acres on the golf course and there's an acre or two I could definitely steal."
Tuning into the hotelier and golf club owner's enthusiasm and powers of persuasion, it's easy to paraphrase Elvis: "Lady luck please let the dice stay hot, let me shout a seven with ev'ry shot. Viva Dundalk, Viva Dundalk."