Background & History:
This huge hotel was opened in the 1960's and had a total of 160 beds with stunning views overlooking Waterford city. I'm not sure what it was originally called but sometime during the 90's Jury's group acquired it and it became known as Jury's Hotel.
In the early 2000's ownership was changed again and it became known as McEniff Ard Ri Hotel. It was struggling to perform in the 2000's and closed down sometime around 2005, since then it sat dormant slowly decaying and forgotten about.
Throughout the years it's gone through numerous changes, in the beginning you had a couple of illegal raves there, and skateboarding inside. Later it became a location for squatters and junkies, who also decided to trash the entire building beyond repair, literally knocking the entire rear wall of the structure.
The local council decided to seal the entire building up as it looked horrible over the city and was often brought up in the local newspaper and media.
At least 3 fire's have ripped through the hotel since then, as well as people abseiling down the front of it illegally. They've really sealed it up tight and now nobody really occupies or visits it anymore. They removed a lot of the surrounding buildings including the lobby, leisure centre and swimming pool.
Currently there are no plans to do anything with the site.
Report:
Solo explore. The hotel grounds itself are fairly easy to access, you can come at it from a few different routes but I chose to avoid walking right up the front drive as security tends to check frequently down there.
To my surprise there was no CCTV or any form of security around the building itself aside from welded doors and shutters.
It's right by a dual carriage way, so i frequently got spooked by the sounds of vehicles which I thought was security coming up to check, but as it turned out it was just my imagination. Judging by the amount of objects on the road leading up to the hotel, security probably don't drive up the whole way often.
1. View from the hill behind the hotel.
2. Spotted this. Play on words, I like it. and I took it's advice!
3. The entire rear face of the hotel was knocked out by vandals, here you can see the local council sealed it up with corrugated sheeting.
4.
5. Side
6. Old indoor swimming pool/gym complex. I used to go swimming here as a child. Sad to see it knocked down.
7. Front of the hotel
8. You need to be good at climbing if you want to get inside.
9. Crawl along here for a bit, bit dodgy. It's hard to spot but there is a tiny hole about the width of my body I had to climb up to actually get into the hotel itself.
10. Honestly there's not much left of interest in this hotel. Every floor is identical, a hallway with lots of rooms. There is a cool basement but still not much to see but pipes and water there.
11. Most of the rooms are full of trashed desks or beds.
12. Open elevator shaft
13. I decided to take the stairs instead.
14. Just sidenote which should probably be obvious, but due to the past fires in the hotel, the place is absolutely filthy. You will come out head to toe in black soot. My entire face and arms were black and sweaty. Its damp, humid, and dark inside. Lots of climbing and tight spaces. Keep that in mind!
15. And visible across the road is a previous explore of mine. R&H Hall which you can read here. http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/r-h-hall-flour-mills-waterford-ireland-september-2014.t92219
Apologies for the poor photos, I had no tripod with me. Thanks for reading!
This huge hotel was opened in the 1960's and had a total of 160 beds with stunning views overlooking Waterford city. I'm not sure what it was originally called but sometime during the 90's Jury's group acquired it and it became known as Jury's Hotel.
In the early 2000's ownership was changed again and it became known as McEniff Ard Ri Hotel. It was struggling to perform in the 2000's and closed down sometime around 2005, since then it sat dormant slowly decaying and forgotten about.
Throughout the years it's gone through numerous changes, in the beginning you had a couple of illegal raves there, and skateboarding inside. Later it became a location for squatters and junkies, who also decided to trash the entire building beyond repair, literally knocking the entire rear wall of the structure.
The local council decided to seal the entire building up as it looked horrible over the city and was often brought up in the local newspaper and media.
At least 3 fire's have ripped through the hotel since then, as well as people abseiling down the front of it illegally. They've really sealed it up tight and now nobody really occupies or visits it anymore. They removed a lot of the surrounding buildings including the lobby, leisure centre and swimming pool.
Currently there are no plans to do anything with the site.
Report:
Solo explore. The hotel grounds itself are fairly easy to access, you can come at it from a few different routes but I chose to avoid walking right up the front drive as security tends to check frequently down there.
To my surprise there was no CCTV or any form of security around the building itself aside from welded doors and shutters.
It's right by a dual carriage way, so i frequently got spooked by the sounds of vehicles which I thought was security coming up to check, but as it turned out it was just my imagination. Judging by the amount of objects on the road leading up to the hotel, security probably don't drive up the whole way often.
1. View from the hill behind the hotel.
2. Spotted this. Play on words, I like it. and I took it's advice!
3. The entire rear face of the hotel was knocked out by vandals, here you can see the local council sealed it up with corrugated sheeting.
4.
5. Side
6. Old indoor swimming pool/gym complex. I used to go swimming here as a child. Sad to see it knocked down.
7. Front of the hotel
8. You need to be good at climbing if you want to get inside.
9. Crawl along here for a bit, bit dodgy. It's hard to spot but there is a tiny hole about the width of my body I had to climb up to actually get into the hotel itself.
10. Honestly there's not much left of interest in this hotel. Every floor is identical, a hallway with lots of rooms. There is a cool basement but still not much to see but pipes and water there.
11. Most of the rooms are full of trashed desks or beds.
12. Open elevator shaft
13. I decided to take the stairs instead.
14. Just sidenote which should probably be obvious, but due to the past fires in the hotel, the place is absolutely filthy. You will come out head to toe in black soot. My entire face and arms were black and sweaty. Its damp, humid, and dark inside. Lots of climbing and tight spaces. Keep that in mind!
15. And visible across the road is a previous explore of mine. R&H Hall which you can read here. http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/r-h-hall-flour-mills-waterford-ireland-september-2014.t92219
Apologies for the poor photos, I had no tripod with me. Thanks for reading!