Pat McCarthy - The Inn at Ballilogue Clochan
I’M A FASHION designer by training. I lived in New York for a number of years before coming back and settling here, 10 miles from Inistioge, in Co Kilkenny. The countryside is gorgeous and there’s a very artistic community.
Over time, I bought a number of old stone properties, basically three farms that were close to one another, but without their land. I have four acres, which is enough.
A clochán is a series of stone buildings. It’s like a little village. I restored some of them – including a farmhouse, a dairy and a barn and we launched the Inn last year. It’s going really well. I’m up at 7am and I’ll spend the first hour making a quick check to see everything is okay. We have a capacity for 16 people and I’ll go and make sure everyone is happy and maybe recommend places to go and see in the area.
We’re lucky here because there are lots of places worth visiting nearby, including the Dunbrody Famine Ship, the Ros Tapestry in New Ross and Woodstock Gardens, which are gorgeous, in Inistioge. Waterford Crystal, since it moved to the city and started glass blowing demonstrations, is hugely popular too.
Our guests are almost all from overseas – the US, Scandinavia, Germany and the UK, in that order. I think Americans are most demanding, particularly in terms of customer service, but they are standards I’m comfortable with. All our guests come here because it’s different, it’s traditional and it’s not a hotel.
The rooms have a lot of local crafts in them and we have a shop here, too, where guests can buy throws and things.
In the mornings I’ll work in the vegetable garden, which is a lovely change from the design field. It’s very hands on and hugely satisfying to eat the fruit of your own labour. We have a chef who comes in to cook dinner and we use as much of our own produce as possible.
Guests check out at 11am and in at around 3pm so during turnaround I’ll have lunch with the rest of the team and do a review to see how it all went.
In the afternoon I’ll spend my time on the phone, promoting the Inn to in-bound tour operators and dealing with paperwork and administration. Marketing is my strength so I’m always looking for ways to do things a little differently.
Apart from high standards of food and accommodation, at the end of the day so much of hospitality comes down to friendliness and having a bit of a laugh with your guests.
I’ll finish up at around 6pm and take the dogs for a walk by the river and that’s me done until the following morning.
- In conversation with SANDRA O'CONNELL