Skipave Quay Casino Hotel · West of Ireland

A land-based casino hotel on the west coast of Ireland

Rooms over the harbour, dinner at eight, and the casino floor down the hall

Forty-one rooms in a nineteenth-century quay building, four rooms to eat and drink in, a salt pool fed by the hill behind us — and An Seomra Óir, our casino floor, through the oak door to the left of reception. One roof, one key, Atlantic weather thrown in at no charge.

See the rooms What is on the floor

Over-18s only past the door of the gaming room, or the higher age where local rules require it. Photo ID every visit, no exceptions made for residents.

The house

Built for pilot boats, kept on for guests

The thick end of Skipave Quay went up in 1861 as a harbourmaster’s store: lime-washed stone, window frames painted the same green every spring, a yard where coal came off the boats. The store became a guesthouse in the 1950s when a widow named Peig Lenihan put six beds in the loft, and it has taken in travellers every year since.

We added the east wing in 2011 and the bathhouse four years after that, and we were careful about it: the new work is plainly new, timber and glass, so the old stone is not asked to pretend. What has not changed is the shape of a day here. Breakfast runs late because people want it to. The porter knows which boats are going out. At six the lamps come on in the hall, and whatever you do with the evening afterwards — the dining room, a session in the bar, an hour at a roulette table — you never have to put a coat on to get there.

  • 41Rooms and suites
  • 4Rooms to eat and drink in
  • 1861Date on the oldest wall
  • 24hSomeone on the desk

Rooms and suites

Four ways to sleep above a working quay

No two rooms are the same shape, because the building would not allow it. All of them have blackout curtains, a kettle worth using, and glass thick enough that the gulls stay outside the story.

  • The everyday room

    Quay Room

    Facing the slipway, so you wake to ropes and diesel and somebody shouting good-naturedly at half six. Lime-plaster walls, a wool throw woven two valleys over, and a deep window seat that is better than the armchair.

    • 24 m² / 258 ft²
    • One double bed
    • Up to 2 guests

  • Under the old roof

    Gable Twin

    Top floor, in among the original beams, with a sloped ceiling you will duck under once and then remember forever. Two long single beds, a shared desk in the dormer, and the quietest corner of the building after midnight.

    • 29 m² / 312 ft²
    • Two single beds
    • Up to 2 guests

  • Room and a half

    Pilot’s Room

    A junior suite in the east wing, where the floor-to-ceiling glass gives you the whole harbour mouth. There is a proper sofa, a bath you can lie down flat in, and a hatch through to the corridor so breakfast arrives without anyone coming in.

    • 46 m² / 495 ft²
    • King bed, sofa bed
    • Up to 3 guests

  • The top of the house

    The Harbourmaster

    Two rooms and a hall of its own, with the solid-fuel stove the room is known for and a basket of turf refilled every afternoon. Books nobody has sorted since 1994, a long table for cards or paperwork, and a view that runs out to the light on the point.

    • 88 m² / 947 ft²
    • King bed, twin room
    • Up to 4 guests

An Seomra Óir

The casino floor, part of the hotel and inside it

Ground floor of the same building, through the oak door to the left of the reception desk. No street entrance of its own, no walking anywhere, no second address: you go from the hall to the tables in about nine steps, and back again when you are done.

An Seomra Óir — the gold room, and it is called that for the ceiling rather than anything else — is a table room, not a hangar. Nineteen metres by eleven, dealers you will be on first-name terms with by the second night, and a bar hatch in the corner so nobody has to leave a hand to fetch a drink. The dress code is whatever you had on at dinner.

Because this casino is part of the hotel rather than a business we rent space to, the people on the floor are the people on the desk, the same staff, the same training, the same book of house rules. That matters more than it sounds. It means a host can see when an evening has stopped being enjoyable, and has the standing to do something about it.

Everything here happens in the room. The website you are reading offers no games, no stakes, no deposits and no accounts, and it never will — there is nothing to click.

  • RouletteTwo wheels, both single-zero
  • BlackjackFour tables, one low-stake
  • Three-card pokerWeekends and bank holidays
  • Punto bancoOne table, from eight
  • Wednesday tournamentBlackjack, entries at the desk
  • Hosts who will teach youAsk — they would rather you did

House rules, on the wall by the door

  1. Over-18s only, or the higher legal age where local rules require it.
  2. Photo ID at the door on every visit. Staying in the hotel is not a substitute for it.
  3. No cash machine on the floor and none in the building — that is deliberate, not an oversight.
  4. No credit, no tabs, no lending between players, and no cards from the hotel bill.
  5. Phones face down at the tables. Photographs nowhere on the floor.
  6. Ask any host for a time limit, a spending limit, a break or a quiet word, and they will set it and then hold you to it. That is the job.
Casino floor
6pm – 2am, Wednesday to Sunday
Closed
Monday and Tuesday
Last entry
1am, ID at the door

Eat and drink

Four rooms, and the boats decide what is in them

The fish comes off the pier two hundred metres away, which is lovely most of the year and means a short menu in February. The bread, the butter and the brown crab are all local enough that we know the names.

  • Dining room

    Tollan

    Six courses that change weekly, written out by hand at five o’clock when the kitchen knows what it has. Twenty-eight seats, one sitting, no rush.

    Dinner · 6.30pm – 10pm, Tue – Sun

  • Bar

    The Long Bar

    Flagged floor, forty-odd Irish whiskeys, a stove that is lit from October. Toasted sandwiches until eleven and a fiddle in the corner most weeks.

    Noon – late, daily

  • All day

    Spillway Café

    Coffee from a roaster up the coast, scones at ten, soup and soda bread at one. Where the walkers end up, boots and dogs welcome.

    7am – 4pm, daily

  • Oyster room

    The Glasshouse

    Twelve stools around ice, shucked in front of you, with stout or a cold white and nothing else on the menu. Standing room by half seven.

    4pm – 9pm, Thu – Sun

What’s on

A week at the quay, Monday through Sunday

All of it free to residents and to anyone who walks in, with one exception you can probably guess. Nothing needs booking except the Wednesday tournament, and that only because the seats run out.

  • Mon

    Set dancing in the Long Bar

    Eight o’clock, two sets taught from scratch, and Marie will absolutely come and get you off the stool.

  • Tue

    Fiddle and box session

    Whoever turns up turns up. It starts around nine and has been known to find half ten without anyone noticing.

  • Wed

    Beginners at the tables18+

    An hour before the floor gets busy, a host walks newcomers through roulette and blackjack with chips that are not worth anything. Then the weekly tournament starts, and you can watch or sit in.

  • Thu

    Oyster hour

    Half price in the Glasshouse from four to five, which is the busiest sixty minutes of our week.

  • Fri

    Singers’ night

    Unaccompanied, one song each, the bar goes quiet for it. Put your name on the slate by the door.

  • Sat

    Swim at seven

    Off the steps at the end of the quay with whoever is mad enough. Towels, a hot room afterwards, and porridge in the café by half eight.

  • Sun

    Market and a roast

    Twenty stalls along the harbour wall in the morning; one long table in Tollan from one o’clock, carved at the table, pudding passed around.

Comforts

The dull things, done properly

None of this will go on a postcard. It is what makes the difference between a good week and a week spent asking at the desk.

  • Porter on the desk, always

    Someone awake at four in the morning who can find a taxi, a charger or a pot of tea.

  • A real drying room

    Heated rails for boots, oilskins and the rest, because you will get wet here and that is fine.

  • Parking and a bike store

    Nineteen spaces in the yard, two chargers, and a locked shed with a track pump and a stand.

  • Lift to every floor

    Including the loft rooms and the bathhouse basement, which took some doing in a building this old.

  • A room for twelve

    The old chart room, with a screen, a kettle and a door that shuts properly. Lunch can come up.

  • Laundry back the same day

    In by nine, back by six, pressed. Shoes cleaned overnight if you leave them out.

The bathhouse

Hot water, cold water, and the sea if you insist

Dug out under the east wing in 2015 and plumbed off the spring in the hill, which is why the pool tastes faintly of the place. Residents swim free, from seven in the morning until ten at night.

It is a low room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling and no music, and that is on purpose. People come down here to stop talking for half an hour. There are eight loungers, a jug of water with mint in it, and a window at pool level looking out at the harbour wall, so you swim towards the weather without being in it.

The two treatment rooms take bookings at the desk the day before. Ask for Fionnuala if your shoulders have been driving; ask for anyone if you simply want to fall asleep on a table for an hour.

Salt pool, fourteen metres
Held at 30°C, four lanes when it is quiet, lane ropes out after five.
Hot room and cold plunge
Cedar-lined, 85°C, with a tiled plunge beside it at eleven degrees all year.
Two treatment rooms
Massage and seaweed baths, half an hour or ninety minutes, booked at reception.
Steps into the harbour
Granite, handrailed, swum off all year. There is a flag on the wall when it is not safe.

Before you come

Three things worth knowing

Short version: come in off the road whenever you like, bring the children, and tell us if stairs are a problem so we can put you in the right wing.

  • Arriving

    Rooms are ready from two o’clock and we would like them back by eleven, but the desk is staffed all night and bags can sit in the chart room either side of that. The last train into the county town connects with a bus that stops at the end of the quay; tell us the time and somebody will meet it.

  • With children

    Cots and camp beds are free, the café has a shelf of board games missing roughly one piece each, and the pool has a family hour from four. The casino floor is the one door in the building a child cannot go through, and the staff will say so kindly but will not bend on it.

  • Getting around the building

    Six rooms are on the flat with wet rooms and grab rails, and the lift reaches every floor including the bathhouse. The oldest corridors have a step or two we could not remove without taking the wall with them — ring ahead and we will route you around them.

Playing should stay the small part of the evening

The gaming room is for adults, and we check that at the door rather than taking anyone’s word for it. Inside, a host will set you a time limit or a spending limit the moment you ask, will remind you when you reach it, and can arrange a quiet period away from the floor for as long as you want one. There is no credit here, no cash machine in the building, and nothing you do at a table can be charged to your room.

If you would rather talk it through with someone before you come down, the reception desk will sit with you for as long as it takes, in private, and will not write any of it in a file. Everything we offer we offer in person, at the desk or on the floor — there is nothing to set up online, because there is no online.

Questions

Things people ask at the desk

If yours is not here, write to us and a person will answer it, usually the same day.

Is this an online casino?

No. There are no games on this website and there never will be: no stakes, no deposits, no accounts, no payments of any kind. Everything described here happens in one room on the ground floor of a hotel on the Irish coast, in front of a dealer, with chips you buy at the table.

Where exactly is the gaming room?

Inside the hotel, on the ground floor, through the oak door to the left as you face reception. It is part of the house itself — same building, same front door, same staff on the rota — and you reach it without stepping outside — which, given our weather, is the detail most guests end up grateful for.

Do I have to be staying here to come in?

Not at all. Locals and day visitors are welcome on the floor, in all four dining rooms and at everything on the week’s programme. The bathhouse is the one exception — that is for residents, plus day passes when the pool is quiet. Ask at the desk.

What identification do you accept at the door?

A passport, a national identity card, a driving licence or an age card — anything official with your photograph and date of birth on it. A photocopy or a photograph on a phone is not enough, and we check every visit, including the fifth night of a five-night stay.

Can we bring children?

Yes, and plenty of people do. Cots and camp beds cost nothing, the pool keeps a family hour, and the kitchen will do a plain plate for anyone who wants one. The one firm line is the gaming room: no under-18s through that door, not to look in, not with a parent.

Is there a dress code?

Nothing written down. People come to dinner in what they walked in; the only thing we ask is no wet gear in the dining room and no bare feet anywhere but the bathhouse. If you were hoping for an excuse to wear the good jacket, Friday and Saturday are when you will have company.

How do I book, if not here?

Write to the address in the next section and tell us the nights and how many of you there are. A person reads it and writes back with what is free; nothing is taken from you on this website, which has no booking engine and no card form on it.

Find us

Write, or walk in off the quay

The desk answers email faster than it answers anything else. If you are standing outside wondering whether to come in, come in.

Email
[email protected]Rooms, tables, the chart room, anything at all.
The building
Skipave QuayThe harbour road, west coast of Ireland. The green door with the lamp over it.
Reception
Open 24 hoursA person, not a phone tree, every hour of the year.
Casino floor
6pm – 2am, Wed – SunOver-18s only. Photo ID at the door, last entry 1am.