Castle Hume Leisure Ltd, the owners of the £30m five-star Lough Erne Resort at Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh has gone into administration. 

Opened in 2007 it boasted an 18-hole golf course designed by Nick Faldo, the UK and Ireland’s only authentic Thai spa, located on a 600-acre peninsula.

This despite anouncing this week lucrative multi-million pound contracts with business customers in the US and Canada. The news has come as a great shock.

Accountancy firm KPMG has been appointed administrators, who have said that their aim is to sell the luxury facility as a going concern, saying “an experienced hotel operator” would keep the resort trading.

One of its big supporters since it opened is Northern Ireland’s golf star Rory McIlroy.

He said: “With any capital-intensive investment like this, the pay-off is always long-term; it seems the banks weren’t willing to view this on a long-term basis.”

General manager Jonathan Stapleton added: “I would like to clarify that it is Castle Hume Leisure Ltd, which owns Lough Erne Resort, that has gone into administration and not Lough Erne Resort itself.”