County Sligo luxury hotel in Ireland

Environment
We were audited in June 2009 and have an Eu Ecolabel Flower. In the last two years we have planted 6,000 hardwood trees on the estate. All tap water is derived from rain harvesting and topped up by our spring. We have a wetlands reed bed to treat sewage. The main heat source is wind-blown timber. 80% of electricity used is wind generated. We recycle and compost. We allow no shooting on the estate and feed wild barn owls every night.

The O’Hara family are aware of our responsibility to manage the environmental impact of our business and have assessed our activities to determine the nature of that impact. We would like to point out that we are most fortunate to live in a 235 year old building that was built in an age of self sufficiency and designed with enormous windows for light, to be heated with bio-fuels and to use the rain that falls on her roof. Our performance so far: Heating: Taking advantage of windblown timber from the 500 acre estate, the public rooms are heated by a large wood burning stove and three open fires. Fresh Water: We collect rain water from the roof and supplement it with our own spring water. It then goes through a natural filtration process before arriving in our taps. Waste Water: All waste water is treated in our own septic tank and then a wetlands reed bed. The pure water leaving there is tested regularly. Recycling: Meals are cooked to order so there is little waste. Fruit and vegetable waste is composted and put back into our gardens or fed to our deer and sheep. Plastic, glass and paper are separated and recycled. Newspapers are turned into bedding for local stables.

We implement the following practices:

Electricity:
Our electricity provider sources 80% of its power from renewable sources, primarily wind. Older light bulbs are being replaced by low energy versions as they need replacement.

Food:
Wherever possible we grow our own, when that is not practical we buy locally, and the last option is to buy nationally. On a day when Venison is on the menu we can boast that the distance from farm to fork is about 500 metres! We have an expanding vegetable garden and have a fruit garden providing the ingredients for many of our deserts and jams.

Estate Management:
On our farm we participate in the latest Rural Environmental Protection Scheme guaranteeing measures to care for the land such as the preservation of stone walls & hedgerows, care of our livestock and the promotion of bio-diversity in our wild flora and fauna. In our extensive woodland we grow beautiful hardwoods such as beech, oak and ash and are part of ongoing national Native Woodland Improvement schemes to encourage indigenous species. In the last two years we planted over 6,000 hardwood trees on an estate that already had extensive woodland. We encourage wildlife by preserving habitat and allowing no shooting on our property and provide extra food for endangered Barn Owls that were bred on the estate and then released.

Community
100% of the staff come from the immediate area which means that they can often walk, cycle or car share to work. All wages go directly into the local community. Produce which isn’t grown on site is bought as locally as possible. Laundry is done on site providing local employment and eliminating transport emissions.