A LANDMARK former city hotel has been targetted by vandals.
The Railway Hotel in Parnell Street closed in 2016 with the loss of 15 jobs, and has lain idle ever since.
Now, it has seen its windows smashed, and wire appears to have been pulled from the interior rooms. The smashed windows have now been replaced by wooden panels.
Former councillor John Loftus – who captured the damage done on his camera – walks beside the hotel each day with his dog Daphne, and he is saddened to see the building fall into such neglect.
He said: “It’s just another step in the line of vandalism and neglect this building has suffered over the last five years. When I looked inside and saw the damage is done, it’s just a terrible shame. It’s never been tight for security.”
Mr Loftus said the building is over 150 years old, and pointed out its historic past.
“When you think of the station opening, and that building there would have been really iconic. You’d see in all the old photographs in Limerick, all the old carriages pulling up, and there are photographs of the Railway Hotel. It was an icon of when people came to Limerick. You came off the train and went for high tea and stayed there. The whole thing has just been lain to neglect,” he said.
