HOTELIER Dena O’Donovan has spoken out about how swimming has kept her sane during the difficult time she has experienced since her hotel’s loan was sold to a vulture fund.
The businesswoman, musician and daily sea swimmer features in this month’s Southern Star sea-swimimg podcast, From A to Sea which you can listen to here.
Having spent her childhood summers on Inchydoney Beach, the Clonakilty woman has continued her love affair with the popular strand and can be seen there most mornings splashing about in the waves or swimming short distances, for health and well-being.
In the interview with Southern Star editor Siobhán Cronin, Dena explains how her much-publicised trials and tribulations at the hands of a vulture fund in recent years have left her seeking the solace of the salty water more than ever.
In March of last year, Dena revealed how, as a result of an AIB loan being sold to a vulture fund, the owners of O’Donovan’s Hotel in Clonakilty felt they were being ‘tortured.’
Seventh-generation businesspeople Tom and Dena O’Donovan took out a €1.2m loan with AIB in Clonakilty in 2007 – secured against their hotel business – to buy The Kilty Stone Tavern next door, and incorporate it into their existing business.
Every month, for about 10 years into their 30-year loan, they paid €6,000 into their account to meet the loan demand, but it stopped being taken out of their account when Everyday Finance acquired the loan from AIB about five years ago.
The couple engaged with Everyday Finance, queried the non-withdrawal of payments, and stock-piled the monthly amount.
They tried to continue the same payments they had been making to AIB to Everyday Finance without defaulting, but the vulture fund wanted large sums on the table, so told the hoteliers they were, technically, in default.
Since then the family have been in negotiations to save the iconic Clonakilty business, which is a major employer in the town, and they hope to come to a conclusion soon.
Outside of the business, swimmer Dena is also actively involved, along with other Inchydoney locals, in research, spear-headed by UCC, to monitor the ongoing coastal erosion at her beloved beach.
As a result of this, the BBC recently shot an episode of its Storyworks series at Inchydoney, featuring Dena, and the story of coastal erosion.
And in this, the 17th episode of the Star’s podcast, Dena describes the threat to the stunning beach from the onslaught of the sea, and how UCC is working with the community to slow the deterioration of the dunes.
