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The Interview In good times and bad, the Gearys have maintained the family focus of their Pontoon hotel.
Embracing and changing
The Interview Olof Gill
“We’re paddling our own canoe out here,” says Brendan Geary with a smile. Brendan is sitting next to his wife Ann in the Pontoon Bridge Hotel, the business they have built together over the past 40 years. From the dining room in the Pontoon Bridge, patrons enjoy an incomparable view as they tuck into their evening meals. A blood-red sunset is illuminating a family of swans on Lough Conn, with Ireland’s oldest oak forest and mighty Nephin mountain adding to the panorama. It’s surprisingly easy, believe it or not, to enjoy a delicious seafood dinner when the view is taking your breath away. The food is wonderful, as is the service. As their website informs you ‘the only thing we overlook is the lake’. The Pontoon Bridge is one of those increasingly rare commodities in the Irish hospitality industry – a bona fide family-run hotel. Brendan and Ann were thrilled when their daughters, Breeta and Mary, decided to follow in their parents’ footsteps and take up the reins as general manager and executive chef of the hotel, respectively. It was the deciding factor in their decision to rebuild the premises some years ago. “It’s their hotel now,” says Ann proudly, though one suspects that her formidable influence is still very much a part of everything that happens here. The new and improved Pontoon Bridge has 58 bedrooms, a variety of function rooms (including the popular Grace Kelly suite) and three schools under the one roof: a school of cookery, a school of landscape painting and a school of fishing. Naturally, the hotel also provides the luxury and pampering that modern visitors expect: a rooftop sauna and hot tub overlooks the lake and a beauty salon is available on request. As well as the scenic splendour of its situation, the hotel is located in a unique strategic location. Many borders and invisible lines converge in this place, and Brendan’s eyes light up as he explains how all the paths meet here, between the two lakes. You suspect he has told this story many times before, yet his enthusiasm is so infectious one might easily think it was the first time. He is, and always has been, fascinated by it. The Tuam and Killala dioceses meet here. It’s eleven miles to both Castlebar and Ballina. The Garda districts of Swinford and Castlebar collide here and it used to be the dividing line between the East and West Mayo electoral districts. It’s a meeting point, a halfway house. Brendan, originally from Limerick, met Ann Kelly, a Westport native, in the Shannon area where she was attending the School of Hotel Management and he was working at the airport. After they completed their training in the early 1960s, they set about finding a place to put their skills into practice. They settled on buying a renowned angling hotel, built in the 1880s on a sliver of land between Lough Conn and Lough Cullin in Pontoon. “This place came on the market and we said we’d give it a go,” says Ann. At the time, the hotel’s business consisted almost exclusively of British anglers. Brendan recalls that at the time, ‘if you were to walk in to the breakfast room and say ‘good morning, colonel’, ten English gents might raise their heads’. Those were different times. Ann recalls that in those days, they would make a weekly shopping trip to Ballina – now they might go twice a day. Like any family business, the Gearys have experienced their fair share of ups and downs. Within a few years of taking over, they experienced an extraordinary swing of fortunes; a ‘double-whammy’, to quote Ann. First came the moment when they thought their ship had come in. A BBC holiday programme came to film at the hotel, and as Ann recalls fondly, ‘everything went right. Everything was perfect.’ Almost immediately after the programme screened in Britain, the phones went mad. “We got 600 calls in one day,” says Brendan. That was 1971, and the sky was the limit. Then came 1972, Bloody Sunday and the emergence of the troubles in the North. “As soon as I saw it on the news, I knew we were in trouble,” says Ann. The British tourism market in Ireland was dealt a heavy blow and it might have sounded the death knell for businesses like the Pontoon Bridge that relied so heavily on UK anglers. Instead of giving up, however, Brendan and Ann rolled up their sleeves and set about attracting business from the continent. “We did a lot of marketing, attending conferences, knocking on doors in Europe,” they explain. “When your back is to the wall, you fight,” says Brendan. Slowly but surely, the business grew. Brendan and Ann, paddling their own canoe, began to think of new, creative and innovative ways to attract business. They opened Ireland’s first fishing school. A school of art followed soon thereafter. For a while, they ran a craft school using the finest of local materials. “We had to dream up new things all the time,” says Brendan. “We invented things that were never thought of before.” Their latest brainwave has been running murder mystery nights, which are proving very popular with groups from all over. Meanwhile, as their businesses expanded, Brendan and Ann threw themselves head-first into raising a family and getting involved in the locality. They have been involved in more tourism initiatives and tourism development committees than they can remember. They were involved in producing some of Mayo’s first tourist guides. The hotel has been the centre for all kinds of training and education courses – how to handle a boat, water safety, you name it. They hold the unique distinction of being the only husband and wife to both have held the position of Irish president of SKAL (a worldwide organisation of professional tourism) and, to complete the set, their daughter Breeta is taking over the same position next year! Family is important to the Gearys. Besides their two daughters who have returned to the Pontoon Bridge, they have children scattered all over Ireland and the globe, and ten grandchildren. The hotel too, is all about family. The Gearys still hold the firm belief that a small, family-run hotel has something unique to offer in a world of corporate hotel chains.“They’re all the same,” says Ann, “you could be anywhere.” They see themselves as the custodians of the great Irish tradition of hospitality. “We need family hotels to continue the tradition,” they both say. “Most people say you can feel the difference once you come in the door.” Their love for hotel-keeping has never diminished. Though they’ve had their ups and downs, their commitment to providing a warm welcome and the highest quality of service remains undimmed. The changes in modern Ireland have seen a steady increase in their Irish patrons. “People are more affluent now,” explains Ann, “and therefore more critical. They could have been in Dubai one week and in Pontoon the next.” Though they are ready to hand over the reins to the next generation, their eyes for the industry remain as keen as ever. Their remarkable journey continues, though they are still paddling their own canoe.
Lough Conn
Mayo’s second largest lake covers about 14,000 acres (57 km²). Along with its immediate neighbour to the south, Lough Cullin, it is connected to the sea by the River Moy. Lough Conn is noted for its trout and salmon fishing. According to Celtic mythology, Conn was created when Fionn MacCumhall was hunting with his hounds, Conn and Cullin. When they came across a wild boar, Fionn and the hounds attempted to chase it. However, as the boar ran, water poured from its feet. The hounds ran ahead of Fionn and, eventually, Conn was ahead of Cullin. Conn chased the boar for days until a lake appeared. The boar swam back to land but Conn was drowned. The same thing happened to Cullin, to the south.
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