Three chapters · 1968 → today
Ahouse,afamily,aname.
The Adare Guesthouse has had only one set of keepers - the Conroy family of Galway, into a fourth generation now.
Chapter I
The house,
opened by the Lord Mayor.
On the first of July 1968, Pat and Kay Conroy turned the key in the door of 9 Fr Griffin Place - the very first guesthouse to open in the city of Galway, ribbon cut by the Lord Mayor himself.
We’ve been here, with the kettle on, ever since.
Chapter II
The family,
three generations deep.
Kay was born in Adare, Co. Limerick - the namesake of the house - and trained at Shannon’s pioneering catering school before opening the door.
Pat was born in Rosmuc, Connemara, and walked a Galway beat as a guard for forty years.
Their son Padraic and his wife Gráinnerun the house today - extensively remodeled, gently kept, and still with the same sense that you’re a guest, not a customer.
Chapter III
Padraic O’Conaire,
the writer in the family.
The Conroy surname comes from the Irish Ó Conaire, and the family tree leans toward one of Galway’s great writers: Padraic Ó Conaire (1882–1928).
Born in Galway, raised in Rosmuc, he moved to London in 1899 and joined the Gaelic League - a pioneer of the Irish Literary Revival. He and Patrick Pearse are remembered as the great short-story writers of early-20th-century Ireland.
A statue of him sat in Eyre Square from 1935. It now keeps quieter watch in the Galway City Museum, near the Spanish Arch - a five-minute walk from this front door.
“Pioneer of the Irish Literary Revival. Born 1882, Galway. Died 1928.”
- Plaque, Galway City Museum
A closing line
“The house, the family, the name - kept honest for a little over half a century, and counting.”