The Ice House Hotel Mayo was originally called “The Iceland Cottage” or “Iceland House” and was strategically positioned on the Moy Estuary – which subsequently became the principal sea-port of Ireland.
The fisheries were granted to a great number of the nobility from early 17th Century (before 1641) until the beginning of the 19th Century, when the Messrs Little founded the Moy Fishery Company. They spent a huge amount of money rebuilding Salmon Weirs at the falls of the river where drifting nets were positioned further downriver. The great quantities of fish caught here were taken to Killala Bay and transferred to bigger boats that were then exported to Dublin or Liverpool. The River Moy was hugely congested with boats at this time – indeed between 1882 and 1893, the fish exports from the river totalled between 120 and 130 tons of salmon.
The importation of such perishable goods required a great deal of ice, as did the operation of the two breweries to ensure year-round production of beer. The current Ice House is a substantial two-storey Neo-Tudor double pile over three large cellars, and was constructed by Messrs. Little in 1859. It wasn’t the first structure of the sort on the site. The Previous Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1838) shows a large salmon fishery and icehouse on the location of the present building, and a number of similar structures along the river from Ballina to the mouth of the estuary. The one in Ballina formed part of the property of the Lindsey family and was at the time leased at an annual rental of seven pounds and ten shillings to John Little, presumably one of the Messrs. Little who managed the salmon weirs.
It would thus appear that the ice store incorporated within the house is older than the rest of the building. A similar solution was employed in Maidenhead, Castle Hill, Berkshire, where two large ice pits were constructed in 1850 by a local fishmonger called William Hamblett. When he died c. 1890, the pits fell into disuse and his widow constructed a tall, two storeys building over them to utilize the ground. The Ice House in Ballina, however, retained function as an ice store subsequent to its incorporation into domestic residence. Even in its residential capacity, the building served a functional purpose: while the basement was used as a cold store for salmon exports, the rest of the house itself was used to accommodate the manager of the Moy Fishery Company. The house is in a strategic location on the Quay, at the edge of the river, into which the ice vaults probably drained, and at right angles to the adjoining road. The road-facing elevation contains a large central archway for easy access into the vaults for the delivery and collection of ice.
THE ICE-STORE
The filling of the cellars was an annual event and involved every able-bodied person in town. During the winter, when the local lakes and ponds froze, farmers and quay workers would harvest the ice by breaking it into large chunks with pick axes and sledge hammers. The chunks were conveyed on carts to the ice house, where they were crushed with long handled wooden mallets and thrown into the cellars.
On mild winters, additional supplies of ice were sought from Norway and Sweden. Ice ships arrived at Ballina quay loaded with hundreds of tons of ice, which was conveyed by carters to the company’s storage. Importation was however considered undesirable, mainly because of the expenses it incurred: not only was the freight over a long voyage costly, there was also the added charge of £1 per ton import duty in foreign ice.
Oweing to a gradual climate change, less and less ice was produced locally; by the 1920s and 1930s, only approximately one Winter in ten was cold enough to fill the cellars. One such Winter occurred in 1938-39, and in December 1938, the manager of the Moy Fisheries Company was unable to open the Ice House vaults for a supply a local ice for the first time in twelve years. Ice was sourced from a large lake on Michael Davis’s land between the Ice House and the Quay Cottages know locally as Poulmore, and so rich was the harvest that the three massive vaults were filled in the course of a single day and night. Harvesters were paid 6s. for a horse cart, 4s. for a pony cart, and 3s. for a donkey cart.
With the introduction of mechanical refrigeration, the Ice House fell into disuse as an ice store. It remained in residential use until 1989, when the state acquired the assets of the Moy Fisheries.
Domestic icehouses were a reasonably common feature of the larger landed estates but, following the advent of mechanical refrigeration, they fell into disuse and many are now in ruins. Surviving examples are regarded as functional and innovative pieces of architecture with considerable technical significance, and as a structure are considered of important preservation value.
The Ice House hotel Mayo is of obvious architectural and historical merit, serving as a snapshot of the technical innovations available to merchants and traders before the invention of mechanical refrigeration.
We are very proud to present, one of the most sought after hotels in Mayo, the restored Ice House to the 21st Century to explore and enjoy.
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