| Butler Arms Hotel | |
| Coordinates: | 51.8277°N -10.1723°W |
| Building Type: | Hotel |
| Location: | Waterville, County Kerry |
| Location Country: | Ireland |
| Opened Date: | 1884 |
| Owner: | Press Up Entertainment |
The Butler Arms Hotel is a 19th-century hotel in Waterville, County Kerry, Ireland. The hotel, which opened in 1884, has had a number of notable guests, including Charlie Chaplin.
The hotel is located on the southern tip of the Ring of Kerry along the south-west coast of Ireland. It is close to Valentia Island, the Skellig Islands, Lough Currane and Waterville Golf Club.
The hotel was opened in 1884 by the McElligott family. From 1915 to 2022 it was owned by the Huggard Family who ran it for four generations. It was then bought by Paddy McKillen Jr's Press Up Entertainment group.[1] [2]
When the Butler Arms opened in 1884, it benefited from the cable companies who had laid the first successful transatlantic cable from Valentia Island to Heart's Content in Newfoundland, as well as coming of the railway to Killarney. Bradshaw's Railway Guides would also promote the scenery and fishing.
The Huggard family, who had bought the hotel from the McElligotts also owned the Royal Hotel in Valentia, The Caragh Lake Hotel and the Lake Hotel in Killarney, the last of which is still in their possession.
Sir Horace Plunkett came to the hotel twice in 1891, immediately after his appointment to the newly formed Congested Districts Board.[3]
Windham Wyndham-Quin, 4th Earl of Dunraven (Lord Dunraven), who chaired the Land Conference of 1902, was also a frequent visitor to the hotel. Other visitors include Lady Maud Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne, who spent time at the hotel in 1903, and the Countess of Lauderdale of Thirlstane Castle, who visited in 1937.
The American banker, J. P. Morgan, reportedly stayed at the hotel in the 1920s.[4]
The barrister and later judge, T. C. Kingsmill Moore, stayed in the hotel in 1932 and fished on the nearby lake. The hotel features in his angling book, A Man May Fish.[5]
The hotel has also hosted Charlie Chaplin,[6] Walt Disney, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.[4] Members of the cast and crew of , who were filming in the area, stayed at the hotel in 2014.[4]
Walt Disney stayed there in 1946.[4] Travelling with Disney was Dr James Delargy, who had set up the Irish Folklore Commission. Delargy had taken down more folklore from Sean O'Connell in Ballinskelligs (across the bay from the hotel) than had ever been collected from one source at any time.
In the 1960s, business was at a peak and Charlie Chaplin and his family were almost turned away; however the owner stepped forward and gave them his private suite. The Chaplin family returned to holiday in the area on a number of occasions and stayed at the hotel several times.[7] [8] The Chaplin connection to the area is marked with a statue in Waterville.[9]
A number of notable writers, such as Virginia Woolf,[10] Alfred Perceval Graves and John Steinbeck, also stayed in the Butler Arms.