Daughter of Laharna

By: Patricia E. Beattie

Narrated by: Leon Jacobs

Daughter of Laharna provides a glimpse of family life at Laharna Hotel, Larne, which was Patricia’s home for 24 years, and also details its history from 1833 to becoming the largest tour hotel in Ireland. Her father, George A. Beattie, was the resident manager of Laharna Hotel, Larne, from 1935, and in the Second World War, as part of essential services, looked after troop-feeding at Larne Harbour and later the American Officers’ Club in the former Midland Hotel, Belfast. These were formerly railway-owned hotels. Laharna Hotel was the base for a six-day tour of Northern Ireland, and with some 200 tourist residents weekly, from April to October, shows the great extent of tourism in the province before “The Troubles” began in 1968, lasting some 30 years. The hotel, destroyed by fire in 1999, was then demolished.

This is a personal history of the Beattie family’s life in the hotel; how George, born in Belfast, became an hotelier, and his lifelong hobby of music as a piano accompanist and church organist. It records many events such as the Titanic launch, Second World War events in NI, the tragic sinking of the Princess Victoria in 1953, and family life in Larne.

©2020 Patricia E. Beattie (P)2020 Patricia E. Beattie