To paraphrase old wisdom “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”. So right now at Haddington House, we are feeling a little lost without you, our community and our extended family.

For my part, I wanted to send a personal note to say that while much of our Victorian lady sleeps from the outside right now, there is still activity within, as we prepare for better times that we know are ahead. Being an accidental hotelier, I’ve very regularly found myself having a Talking Heads moment “How did I get here?”.  And up to 16 March, if asked, I would have spouted on about destiny, the ashes of the last recession in 2010 bringing together unlikely bedfellows and an opportunity to both save our restaurant Oliveto, and at the same time reinvent a hotel that has been part of the Dún Laoghaire landscape since Victorian times.

I would also have railed against the obstacles put up to prevent progress; the cost of turning this old dame into a grand dame; of running a business in Ireland; of keeping alive the ambition to (slowly) build up a luxurious hotel not matched by the capital to fund such ambition, all the while evolving a local family restaurant into both a crowd-pleaser and a gourmand-getter. Steering this course has always been the desire that every room guest departs Haddington House feeling better about life than when they arrived, as we’ve continued to stitch and sow all the infrastructure behind the scenes to build a well-meaning, neighbourhood-focused open-house hotel.  

Now, six weeks down the tracks, all of the above is viewed in a completely different context. My prism on our House and the above challenges seem irrelevant, almost selfish. And yet, I feel that we need to do everything in our power to keep the lights on, the building alive, save as many jobs as possible and be sure to reopen better and stronger. With that in mind, we have been busy behind the scenes, readying in anticipation of better days to come.

• We have been painting, deep-cleaning and refreshing all of our 45 bedrooms;

• We are fixing the noisy, messy roof areas of our inner courtyard (yes, we have an inner courtyard and it’s in a future plan to open it up!);

• Our new garden infrastructure continues apace, ready to open as soon as we know it is safe to do so;

• Our Oliveto To Go service has been fully operational for several weeks, and we’ve deliberately kept the prices as low as possible, to ensure it is affordable;

• We have been supporting our local frontline heroes with regular pizza drops to St. Michael’s Hospital and offering free use of our car park for frontline workers. 

We’re attacking all of these tasks with relish. We want to thank our amazingly loyal and supportive clientele for availing of our Oliveto To Go service and our irreplaceable staff for keeping the House ticking over while she sleeps. We look forward to welcoming you all back to a refreshed, renewed and better-than-ever Haddington House.

Keep safe,

Fla