If you're going to bail out of a high- flying job,
the most important thing
is to make sure you have a soft landing.
The last thing you want is to free-fall
into unknown territory with no parachute.
I've never done anything in hospitality.
Will it all be a bit too intense and a bit too much?
Meet Ciara O'Brien.
She's given up a successful accountancy career
to take a big risk in a small town.
It just doesn't add up.
It can be a bit overwhelming sometimes on my own.
I'm trying to manage the budget, and
manage the decisions and the design...
If the Brennans came with a different plan for me,
I... it might throw me off a bit.
Right now, Ciara is planning to turn this old farmhouse
into a brand new luxury bed and breakfast.
Our question is... why?
I wonder if they think I'm a bit crazy to take all this on!
I suppose, yeah, it's my baby in the end.
B&Bs in the last number of years have all closed.
I don't know when I've heard of a B&B opening.
♪ (theme music)
Four years ago, Ciara O'Brien
was a successful corporate accountant,
travelling the world for big multinationals
like global giant Google.
I spent quite a bit of time in London,
and then I went on to work in Singapore,
and then came back, worked in Rotterdam,
which is really cool, cosmopolitan city.
In 2020, when the pandemic hit,
Ciara left all that behind and returned
to her childhood home of Mitchelstown, County Cork.
My friends who know me
as having a nice globetrotting lifestyle, probably wonder...
"Is she settling down too much,
compared to what she's normally been doing?"
Your average accountant tends to avoid risk.
But you see, Ciara's not your average accountant.
She's pouring her entire life savings
into a bed and breakfast with absolutely no experience.
So there is no guarantee of success, and no safety net.
Financially, she's completely exposed.
I'm not even sure she knows what she's getting herself into.
What I'm hoping for now is to maybe have a less
kind of hectic approach to my life.
Ciara needs proper guidance,
because she knows nothing about the hospitality business,
and the kind of graft that is required to make it work.
We will do everything to make her dream come true,
but first she has to build it.
As it is, I'm trying to manage within the budget I have.
The budget for the build is somewhere in the region
of about 400,000, and then there's another 100,000
for, say, the finishes and everything to do with the house.
It's a lovely autumn morning, and I'm here in Mitchelstown
for a bit of a sniff around.
Good morning! I brought the sunshine!
Welcome to Barnahown! How are you, Francis?
Well, I'm Alright, except for me nose.
I had a little I did a surgery on it yesterday.
Got three or four stitches, but you know, I'll get over it.
I'm flying along.
Ciara's old farm house will have a new name, Barnahown,
and a new layout.
On the ground floor, there will be a reception area,
a sitting room or good room, a dining room, and a kitchen.
And upstairs, four en-suite bedrooms.
After spending the last four years
living with her parents to save money,
Ciara will finally have her own space,
a separate apartment at the side of the B&B.
Out the back, there's a courtyard, outbuildings,
and a big patch of overgrown garden.
So we're here in the reception room now,
so I'm hoping to have in this corner
a reception desk to greet my guests,
maybe take some afternoon tea when they arrive.
A little display area here for, you know, local hikes,
local activities, and so on.
Okay, lead the way there. Come on.
So now, Francis, we're coming into the dining room. Dining room, yes.
So this room has been designed to accommodate 12 to 14.
And where are you going to have the seating now?
So hoping to have a banquette here. Along the wall. At the window.
Yeah, exactly. If you put a banquette seat there... Yeah.
And then you put a long table,
the person in the middle can't go to the toilet.
But also, people mightn't like to sit with other people at a table.
Okay. So you might put three tables here
that you could push together if there was a family,
or separate if there's three twos.
Are you with me? Yeah. I have you.
So just keep that in mind. Yeah. That's a great idea.
So Francis, we're here now in the kitchen,
this is the original kitchen of the house. Right.
So you can see, it's a small domestic kitchen.
I don't have a lot of space.
I'm hoping not to have to go for a commercial kitchen
with the numbers that I'm talking about.
I mean, this is a... You don't need to. Yeah, I hope not. No.
What about the sink, now? Where's the sink going?
So the sink is here on the back wall. Oh yeah.
Francis, wake up! (Ciara laughs)
Not to worry!
When it comes to the real heart of Ciara's business,
I'm fully focused.
This is one of the larger bedrooms
that I'm hoping to be a premium bedroom.
I have two of these exactly the same here
at the back of the house. Let's stop for a second.
Okay. The use of premium is always a problem,
because you give a person an expectation
when they're coming, that they're getting something
better than the others. Mm. Okay?
And this might be a quarter the size of their own bedroom at home. Mm.
So the use of words like that when you're starting out, not necessary.
Only gives you trouble down the line.
Okay, makes sense, yeah.
My vision for this area is to have a lovely outdoor dining area
where in fine weather my guests can come out and enjoy the space.
Oh, yeah.
So now, what happens out here?
We're gonna have the outdoor patio for sundowner drinks for the guests
in the evenings, and then here,
hopefully, if the budget allows, there'll be a sauna
for people to relax. A sauna? Yeah.
Do you know the price of a sauna and the cost of it? Oh...
Very expensive. Mm. But you could put a hot tub here.
Okay, yeah. It would be probably a cheaper option to get going.
Yeah, yeah. So that would be lovely here in the evening. Yeah, okay.
In summer 2024, when Barnahown opens for business,
Ciara plans to start phase two of the project.
Three more bedrooms in a barn, making a grand total of seven rooms.
Originally, I actually had intended to do the whole seven together,
but I thought it's, yeah, maybe too much,
so my plan now is get the house up and running,
see how the four bedrooms are going,
and then if it's, yeah, really successful,
then come on and do this in phase two.
Running a brand new bed and breakfast
is going to be tough for Ciara,
because she lacks experience.
But what she does have is inspiration in buckets,
and the support of friends who, like her,
have returned to Mitchelstown to run their own businesses.
Hi, Ciara.
Hi, how are you? Good, how are you?
I'm good, I'm good.
Kate O'Callaghan recently returned home
to help run her family business.
With years of experience in high-end hospitality,
she knows the challenge Ciara is about to face.
I spent a year in Cannes working at the Intercontinental Carlton,
and then I moved to London once I finished,
and spent some time working at the Dorchester Hotel,
the Lanesborough and 45 Park Lane,
which are all based in Mayfair.
And then just in here, we have the en-suite. Yeah.
I am a little bit worried about her lack of experience.
The hospitality industry, it's hard work,
there's a lot of pressure involved...
Where will your wardrobes be or what's your kind of...
thinking? So I'm going to have a hanging rail sort of along
this wall... Yeah. I'm not sure if I have enough space
to have, like, a fully enclosed wardrobe. Yeah.
So that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, yeah.
Owning your own business, it consumes you.
It is 24/7.
If you're off, you are still thinking about it,
or worrying about it.
But I think there's no one more equipped to do it than Ciara.
Two more of Ciara's friends, Bernadette and Mikey,
run a coffee shop in the centre of town.
So this room in here then is going to be the dining room.
Amazing! Yeah!
Bernadette's a yoga teacher, and Ciara already has a plan
to align their chakras.
I'll only use it, you know,
maybe two, three hours max in the mornings for breakfast.
So I was wondering if it might work for the yoga studio.
Yeah, I could definitely see something happening.
Ciara wants Barnahown to be sustainable.
These are, like, scaffolding planks,
and I did the tops myself then. Yeah.
So among other things, she'll be using recycled café furniture.
And how many do you have, like? I probably need
seating for 12 or 14.
We have six in total, so... Yeah.
Okay, well, that should be perfect then. Yeah.
Okay, and I'll give them a second life. Deadly! Yeah. Deadly!
Brilliant! (laughs) Perfect.
(John Brennan) I know Mitchelstown from the signs on the motorway,
but that's the point. I pass by.
It's a beautiful square.
Opening a B&B in a rural town requires a lot of guts.
But there's one thing working in Ciara's favor,
Ireland's Hidden Heartlands.
A scheme designed and promote tourism in undiscovered areas.
So there's a lot of optimism here,
especially for someone as ambitious and determined as Ciara.
Four good-size rooms.
Nice size bathrooms in these.
This must be Ciara's living space now.
Fabulous height.
Great windows.
That's the barn now for the three new rooms in the future.
Nice building, too. Loads of character.
Okay, it's time for myself and Francis to put our heads together.
So tell me now, what are you thinking?
I enquired around a little.
There's a dire shortage of rooms in town, I know. In town, yeah.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she should have business.
It's just... it's an awful lot of work for just four rooms.
But you know her thinking at the moment is that she'll generate
enough cash from the four bedrooms
to pay for the additional three in time.
If she does four and starts working,
she will never do the other three. No.
I don't think that's ever going to happen.
She'll get bogged down in the business and
whatever it requires, then, she'll never do it. Yeah.
And she's not going to make money on four bedrooms.
Now is the time to do the seven if she can at all, the extra three.
She has the builders on site.
It's not a huge amount of extra work
'cause the basics are all there, and she will make money.
We need to explain that to her
and tell her it in black and white. Yeah.
Now, we'll have a chat with her now, so... Yeah.
We'll have a chat with her up here. Damp aul day! Yeah.
In eight months' time, Ciara will open a four bedroomed B&B.
She calls it Phase One, a chance to test the water.
But we think she needs to go straight in at the deep end.
First of all, before we go into anything to do with the business,
it is commendable
that you have come back from a high-powered job overseas
to open a bed and breakfast in the town of Mitchelstown.
The one thing, Francis leads with the nice things,
then I'll come in then, Alright?
B&Bs in the last number of years have all closed.
I don't know when I've heard of a B&B opening, okay?
There is a reason for that happening.
And part of the reason is that scale is very, very important.
And four bedrooms is probably on the lower side
of what you can achieve commercially.
If you stay with the four bedrooms, your adrenalin will run out.
You'll have lost money over a period, you won't make as much
money as you would hope to do with the other three bedrooms.
The extra work that you have to put into doing seven isn't enormous
over what the return is going to be, because we do believe
there's a lot of business locally.
Now, it's a big ask, but we just think that the whole business
will be far better with seven rather than four.
Part of my reason, I suppose, for breaking the thing in two
is to prove to myself that I can make the four bedrooms
work successfully, between the linen and the breakfast
and the check-ins and the checkouts and everything, make it work.
Certainly, I'd have to take on a big business loan
to do, say, Phase Two, as we tend to call it, with the three extra,
and then I'm into a lot of pressure
of, you know, having to make a payback in order to meet
that much bigger mortgage or business loan or whatever.
And that does make me nervous, I suppose.
But four bedrooms is going to eat you up,
because you're planning on doing that yourself. Mm.
And that's where I come back to my adrenalin.
That'll keep you going for a while.
But when you don't have the money, you expect to make
at the end of every month, then that starts to wane.
Whereas the other three bedrooms
will pay for someone to ease your workload hugely,
but also give you a much greater turnover
'cause the business is here.
Mm. In my experience,
you will never open the three rooms if you don't do it now.
Because you will find yourself on an uphill battle
with the four rooms, and you cannot see
light at the end of the tunnel with four, where seven,
you'll run at a higher occupancy, you'll have a bigger turnover,
you will have a mortgage,
but it'll be payable from the business,
the increase that you have, but you'll have a much finer,
finished product the day you open, and a better business.
But that's easy for me to say,
'cause I'm not sitting on that side of the table.
Yeah, it is the financial side of things,
being on my own, you know, doing it by myself... Yes.
..is a worry for me, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
No harm keeping an eye on the finances,
but we think there's something Ciara has overlooked.
You have a magnificent apartment
for yourself at the end of the building. Mm-hm.
You could rent that out as well.
If finances became tight.
Mm-hm. And we could do a job on the sheds
across the courtyard where you could live,
or you could go back to Mum and Dad for a couple of years.
Yeah, that is something I would...
I'd resent. Because I've been living at home with Mam and Dad
to save to pay for this now for almost four years.
It may only be for July and August.
Mm. Yes. But that could make all the difference to ya
on the 31st of December when you're doing the yearly accounts.
Mm-hm.
If it takes the worry out of you from doing the three rooms,
that there's that It's a possibility,
If all hell broke loose and you couldn't make ends meet,
you could do something maybe.
Did you have any discussion with the builder
in relation to doing the three rooms, on a cost basis?
No, we haven't spoken about it. At all? No.
No. So he could price it up fairly snappy. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Okay. I would do it tomorrow.
Ciara has her site set on an upmarket clientele,
but that clientele needs to be educated
on what Mitchelstown has to offer.
Tourism doesn't come overnight.
Mm-hm. There are many, many destinations in in the world
that have pumped a tourism agenda for years
and still haven't achieved anything.
It's a huge hill to climb, excuse me, now in the Galtees, okay?
(Ciara laughs) But it's a huge hill to climb.
So you're starting on a low base.
While you have fantastic things going for you,
you have to tell the market what it is.
So we've left Ciara with a lot to think about.
We want her to start with seven bedrooms,
consider renting out her apartment,
and focus on how to attract tourists.
But she's struggling with our advice.
Four years ago, Ciara O'Brien gave up a successful corporate career
to build and run a B&B in her hometown
of Mitchelstown, County Cork.
Her plan was to open in summer 2024, offering four bedrooms,
then adding three more at a later date.
But we advised her to build all seven upfront.
In my experience, you will never open the three rooms
if you don't do it now.
You know, I really respect their opinion
and that they think that I'll do a good job at this, you know,
when I... you know probably feel a bit of fake-it-till-you make it.
I suppose the recommendation to go to seven bedrooms, I get it,
and I really appreciate their ambition,
and I really appreciate their kind of positive sentiment,
but, I mean, it just feels overwhelming.
I'm doing this on my own.
I'm completely maxed out.
Yeah, it just feels
kind of an overwhelming thing to think about now.
And Ciara has many other things to consider,
one of which is the cost
of the extra three bedrooms, which has absolutely rocketed.
We've just had the engineer out to look at the barn, and
the roof is full of asbestos.
Because there's asbestos in the roof, it's incredibly expensive
to get this changed and I actually don't know what I'm going to do.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to do this now,
because there's so much money to be spent
just taking the roof off, ever before we actually start
doing any construction work.
So it's very disappointing...
yeah, to find out that actually
the dream of doing Phase Two might not be possible.
For now, Ciara has been spared a difficult choice.
It seems the old barn has made that decision for her.
I'd probably be looking at somewhere in the range of,
you know, a quarter of a million more of spend.
I'm doing this on my own,
I'm completely maxed out,
between, you know, mortgage and spending all of my savings.
Yeah, I just don't really feel in a position to
take on more risk right now.
I don't think I would want to be in a place where I feel
so financially exposed that...
yeah, it's the only thing that's on my mind
rather than, you know, giving nice hospitable service to people.
So, yeah, for me right now, that kind of taking on more debt,
you know, hundreds of thousands more debt, is just not something
that I want to do.
Francis obviously made the suggestion that I
might choose to rent out my
apartment that I'm building for myself and instead live
in one of the outbuildings.
Felt a bit superficial, maybe sensationalist.
I hope he didn't sincerely mean that.
You know, I have made a lot of sacrifices.
I've been living with my parents for four years now,
saving up to do this.
And so, yeah, my investment in a
relatively small studio apartment to live in, I feel
is my right... (laughs) to have, so that I can be
the best person I can be running the business.
Well, it's hard to argue with that.
Still, turning a decent profit with only four bedrooms
and no apartment rental will be a real challenge.
It's time to revisit Ciara's business plan.
So now we've decisions made, I hear. Yeah, I do, yeah.
You're not going to do the three rooms?
Not at the moment, no. Okay. That's absolutely fine. Yeah.
And I fully understand the reasoning behind it, okay?
So now I suppose the biggest challenge for us is
to make sense of the whole thing on four rooms. Yeah.
Okay. The first thing that jumps out at me here is
the occupancy, okay? Which you're predicting at 60%.
I think that's vastly optimistic for year one.
I'd be thinking it should be 40, 45%.
Even at 40%, don't underestimate this business.
This business goes from breakfast from 7:30 in the morning.
That means you have to be in at half six. Mm-hm. Okay?
You'll have someone coming back from a wedding,
and they won't be until two o'clock, three o'clock,
four o'clock in the morning.
That's a ferocious day...
for the person in the house to be there,
not necessarily working. Yeah. But you are consciously on
at all times. Mm-hm.
So even at 40%, it is a very big ask for you to do everything.
But there is cost lines in here, like interiors,
and linen wear and tear, bedding, replacement of sheets,
so on and so forth. Mm-hm. Like,
they're not going to be incurred year one.
And your 150 per room, your average rate? Yes.
Yeah. Now, what's that based on?
Yeah, so say for a hotel in Mitchelstown,
or a nice B&B in Mitchelstown, they would average
about 140 to 150, up to 180 a night. Right, okay.
The worst thing you can do is go in too cheap.
Mm. Because you're doing no one any favours selling too cheap.
Mm-hm. Maybe you could go in at 160.
Mm. Because your product is going to be really, really nice. Mm-hm.
I don't think you can go in at the top
if it's 180 is the highest rate in town.
I don't think you can go there, now... Yeah.
But you can go a little bit less than that, but above others.
Your product is going to be better than the average.
There is going to be a very difficult
first twelve months, I think.
(Ciara laughs) Yeah, as long as you keep smiling
in twelve months' time. (Ciara laughs) But after that,
I have every faith in you and in the property and the style
and the whole thing of it that it's going to work.
One of the things I'm a bit worried about
is his insight on what the occupancy rates will be,
you know, 40% year one feels so low,
and it just means I have to rethink a lot of the costs
that I was hoping to invest in the business year one, so...
that makes me nervous, yeah, that things will be very tight
in year one.
Back on site, there's still a huge amount of work to be done,
and Ciara is feeling the squeeze.
I feel a lot of pressure now at the moment.
I guess, you know, the build continues on,
and we have very tight timelines
that we're working towards, and now at the same time,
other things are being introduced, like getting organised about
linens and cleaning supplies...
So there's a lot of decisions to juggle
and things to think about every day...
My building contractor,
he has an awful lot of tradespeople to coordinate.
We needed to choose shower trays the other day suddenly because
a tradesperson was here, a plumber was here,
and we had to get that done.
So yeah, just trying to keep on top of all the decision-making
is kind of the most stressful, chaotic thing at the moment.
To take Ciara's mind off how things are,
I want her to get a taste of how things could be.
Now, here we are in Cahersiveen... Lovely!
We're going to go visiting Quinlan & Cooke.
It's run by Kate, a great friend of mine who's
been in the hotel business all her life. Yeah.
She just put rooms in here, like,
originally, it was a big restaurant,
but now it has rooms, and... doing very well.
Hi, Kate! Hi, Francis! How are ya? Ciara...
Ciara. Delighted to have you here.
Now, don't worry about down here, Ciara, 'cause this
is the bar and the restaurant which is not of interest to us today.
We're more interested in the rooms upstairs and other things.
Follow me! Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Now, Ciara, here we're in the red room....
Now, so. Oh, it's beautiful! Wow! Thank you.
Yeah, now, we just... the finishing touches here...
Yeah. Before the guests come in, like, so our books
belong over there, so if you wouldn't mind
placing them up there. Yeah.
I noticed you're quite sparse on furniture here.
Was that an intentional sort of design? Yeah, Ciara,
I don't have any wardrobes. I don't have any drawers.
So we've made things like... I got these pegs made,
so people hang their clothes off there. Oh, clever, yeah.
And most people are only with you for one night or two nights. Mm-hm.
You know, so they don't need
the whole walk-in wardrobe space or whatever.
So when people leave the room,
they can see exactly that they have everything in their bag. Yeah.
And we're not chasing them afterwards with postage
and trying to contact them, and you know...
But the furniture is quirky. Yes.
Which is nice. Quirky and functional.
You know, it's all very about... relaxing in your room.
From a cleaning point of view, fantastic. 100%.
Just like Ciara, Kate started small.
In the last 24 years, she's grown her business to include 11 rooms,
each one filled with clever, quirky innovations,
that I hope will inspire Ciara, like these soaps
made for the guests from recycled coffee grounds.
Do they get fresh fruit? They get fresh fruit.
Kate also has a really fresh take on breakfast.
Our whole breakfast concept is a little bit different to
the normal bed and breakfast, so it's in-your-room experience.
And these are put in the night before in the fridge? Exactly.
Everything is there, so, Francis, you can have your breakfast
when you check in if you want to. Yeah.
You can have your breakfast before you go to bed. (laughter)
Well, there you are.
Food for thought on a cold morning.
But it'll be another six months
before anyone has breakfast at Barnahown.
It looks very... trendy from this angle! (Ciara laughs)
I'm just hoping the place hasn't gone into hibernation.
So great progress, we've just finished first fix,
so electrics, plumbing, and so on. Oh, great!
And also we've almost finished the external plastering,
and we're starting to slab the walls internally.
To help Ciara keep her cost down, Mam, Dad, and Zoe the dog
are more than happy to give her a dig-out
with a bit of light landscaping.
Well, you're very brave coming out in weather like this. (laughter)
Are you thrilled to have the daughter back
in the country, having been in the corporate world for years?
It's great to have her back near us again. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, she was away for so long.
She was away a long number of years.
She was away for 20 years.
And there's great support behind her,
I must say, and you're great yourselves,
giving her the aul' boost.
It was a dream she's had for many years.
She often, when I was out in Singapore with her,
she was often talking to me about this old farm place, and
she'd like to do it up, and...
Now she's bringing it to fruition here, and it's...
it's fabulous to see everyone involved in it. Yeah.
If you want to breathe new life into an old building,
you need to strike the right balance
between modern and traditional decor.
Enter Ciara's friend, interior designer, Catherine O'Flynn.
Hi, Catherine. How are you?
Hello. How are ya? Lovely to meet you. Nice to meet you.
And you, too. Your hands are cold! (laughter)
So everything we've chosen for the project project is
inspired by nature.
From the minute you enter this beautiful house,
you're going to see all the colours
right from the front door to the back door.
Blended all the way through. Blended all the way through. That's lovely.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we've lots of pinks and green...
And that's a very good hard-wearing fabric.
Really good, yeah. I know by feeling it.
Now, what about flooring?
What are we doing there?
We have a terrazzo floor, don't we, throughout?
Yes, a beautiful polished concrete floor. Polished concrete, yeah.
And the lampshades, are they for bedrooms or public spaces?
So this is for just the wall lights that we're showing you today.
And now, if I'm reading the newspaper at breakfast,
will I have a good light? You will.
You'll definitely have a good light. I'll hold you to that now.
Okay! (laughs)
So we've chosen this fabric for the headboards
in the front two bedrooms. Right.
We're going to use some velvet as well on the headboard, as a border.
That moss green is the very same as I have at home! (laughs)
Very good! So bonus points! Alright.
So this is the floor tile we're using for the en-suites.
Yeah, and they're non-slip. Non-slip, yes.
So we've gone with the vintage-looking tile.
And then this is the wall tile? Yeah.
They're lovely. Yeah.
And there's what I call a wobble in them...
Okay. Which is very handy for two things.
One is it catches the light... Yes. And number two, then, it just...
then if you get a watermark on it, you don't see it. That's right.
Ciara knows were worried about her setting up a B&B
this far from the beaten track.
But if she can connect Barnahown
to the charms of the surrounding area,
it will benefit her business and also local tourism.
And why do people come here, specifically?
So this is a very renowned hiking area.
There are lots of beautiful, well-marked walks and trails
for all different levels of hiking.
Right. And obviously, it's an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Sure, listen, that'd do your heart good
just to stop and look at that. (Ciara laughs) Exactly.
We're out in a very rural area,
so I'm hoping in Barnahown to be able to offer people
a package, you know, so you'll come to do some hiking.
I'll help you plan your trails, maybe where to go for dinner,
where to see a show in the evening,
how to visit some heritage in the area.
It's stunningly beautiful. Absolutely.
It's great to see there's been a lot of progress on site.
We're at a really nice stage of the project now.
All of the walls have been insulated and plastered.
We have people working now on polishing the concrete floor.
This is one of the biggest investments we're making
in the project, and it's one of the biggest jobs
that we have to do. So I'll be delighted
to see it when it's finished.
You can kinda really see it coming together now,
getting ready for the second fix and all the finishes
and the decor inside.
Outside, however, there's been a major setback.
We had a problem with the roof,
so that's meant I've had to juggle the budget around,
and I had to eat into my landscaping budget
quite a lot to pay for that.
So that's putting us under quite a bit of pressure now.
I had hoped to open the first week of June.
It may now be the third or fourth week of June.
Four years ago, Ciara O'Brien was a successful corporate accountant.
Now, she's about to open her own four-bed bed and breakfast
in Mitchelstown, County Cork.
Ciara is all about sustainability, so today I'm bringing her to see
a business with serious eco-credentials.
Next stop, Hotel Doolin in County Clare,
and we won't be arriving by car.
Just over the bridge here, we're on our way then.
Ooh! I wasn't made for an electric bike, I'd say.
I'm not sure I can get on here now. (Ciara laughs)
I have to push the bike up the hill! (Ciara laughs)
Now I'm grand.
Oh, it's at that... the extra kicked in! You got it?
(Ciara laughs)
Arrah, I'm pedalling like mad, nothing's happening. (Ciara laughs)
Will you hold on there, for God's sake? (Ciara laughs)
You're 10 years younger than me.
You have to allow for my age!
Hotel Doolin has made a name for itself for its sustainability,
and we want Ciara to find out how they did it.
Wow, look at this. Isn't it nice?
Beautiful, yeah. Isn't this area so nice?
It gives me a great idea
for connecting my house to the outdoor dining. Absolutely. Yeah.
I see you have solar panels.
Yeah, these solar panels
provide 30% of our electricity over the year.
So they'll pay for themselves in three and a half years.
Weddings hosted at the hotel's Eco Barn aren't just white.
They're also green.
Today, we've a wedding at four o'clock,
and we like to encourage our couples to use living centrepieces.
So here you see that these are potted plants.
It's local heather. Yeah. They can take them away with them
afterwards, and they can plant them at home.
You must have rows over that, do you? (laughter)
Very good.
So food-wise, now, what do you offer that's more sustainable than others?
So it's a 90-kilometre menu, so all the food on the table
will be from within 90 kilometres.
We also have our vegan menu here, which we won awards for,
so we're the first hotel in the country to
do a fully vegan package
right through from the starters to main course, desserts, cake,
wedding cake, evenings...
For every wedding, we plant 10 native trees.
We do up to 100 weddings a year.
So that's a thousand... That's a forest.
That's very handy as well for offsetting carbon.
We're also Ireland's first certified carbon-neutral hotel.
These are made from reclaimed wood that we had in the yard.
Right! I just got the steel frame for them.
Yeah! So we made the furniture ourselves.
I couldn't help noticing on the way in, these beautiful baskets.
What's the story behind them?
Yeah, so a friend of ours who was the architect here, spotted them
in Galway and they're eel baskets, so... From the fishermen?
Yeah, from the fishermen. So he thought they'd make
lovely lamps for over the bar. So here they are!
I noticed on the front of the bar here, are they barrels?
Yeah, so we had old whiskey barrels,
so again, we decided to reuse them.
We took the timber from them
and put them at the front of the bar
to make the bar front.
Donal you've some beautiful features here.
I can't believe that you have fresh flowers in every room.
And I love the wooden signs, the handmade signs.
They're absolutely stunning.
This is based on kind of the inside of a curragh.
Oh, yeah, the curragh! Yeah, yeah!
As I look around the room now, I don't see any artwork.
This is art enough! Good man, yeah! (Ciara laughs)
By the yard rather than by the picture. (laughs)
So one thing we've no shortage of around here is the rain.
Yeah. So what do we do with the rainwater?
So the rainwater falls in the roofs,
goes into the gutters, comes down in here,
and right under our feet here
is a six and a half thousand litre tank.
Oh! So we use it for washing windows, power-hosing...
We use it for our polytunnel. Right.
I couldn't help but notice this beautiful symbol.
What is Doolin Arts?
It's a non-profit for supporting arts and artists in North Clare.
We run two annual festivals, the Doolin Folk Festival,
Doolin Hedge School...
We run gigs and events throughout the year for local artists.
Alright. We publish books, we release records and music,
help produce films and plays as well.
I'm really keen to be part of the community and integrated.
Does that work with the hotel?
We want to be the centre of the community,
do you know, as I'm sure you do with your own business. Yeah.
You know, so it's a great way of bringing life into the business
as well, you know, and spreading it around.
Francis, that was excellent. Yes, did you learn a lot?
Yeah, it was really informative.
Yeah. They were great. That's good. That's what it was all about.
But listen, I still don't know, why did we come by bike?
(laughs) There's a reason.
If you arrive at Hotel Doolin on a bike, right... Mm-hm...
You get 10% discount. Okay. And also you get a free cup of tea!
Ahhh! So we got the tea, we didn't stay, though. (Ciara laughs) Right.
Perfect!
Come on, hurry up! Oh!
I got the whoosh!
So it's working!
You'll help me, will you? (child's voice) Yes!
We have to put these up here.
Can you stack them for me? Yes.
Inspired by Hotel Doolin's art enterprise,
Ciara is keen to integrate her own business into the community.
So she's joining forces with her friends
Bernadette and Mikey to host a photography exhibition
at their café in town.
And I have my two sales assistants here. Lovely!
Who are going to support me in my sales.
Oh, hello!
Are you going to do some?
On show today are photos of Ciara's favourite Cork landscapes
captured by her friend, Tommy McDonnell.
So we're here setting up for Tommy's photography exhibition.
Tommy is a very prolific photographer
around the Galtee Mountains,
and he really specialises in nature and wildlife,
and this is his first formal exhibition.
When Ciara opens Barnahown in the summer,
Tommy will have a permanent display for his photos.
I think what would work best for Barnahown
is the Galtymore at sunset with the person taking a step.
I guess it shows the iconic cross on top of Galtymore.
Local collaborations like this are great for enhancing tourism
and attracting visitors.
But we think Ciara might be taking on too much.
After all, she'll be doing everything on her own
with no hospitality experience.
Hi, Lucy! How are you?
We've arranged a visit her Bridge Street Townhouse
in Kenmare to meet Lucy O'Sullivan.
This is my twin room.
And how many twin rooms do you have?
We have six in the house.
Lucy owns and runs this guest house all by herself and gets
consistent five-star reviews.
You've gorgeous plants around. Is that a lot of maintenance,
or...? Yes. And they are my babies. (Ciara laughs)
My very first boss, he told me to always have plants
'cause people know you care.
Your art, actually, I noticed. It's lovely.
How do you go about selecting that?
I try and buy all local.
So I'm kind of trying to work out at the moment
how long it might take to either clean a room or change over a room.
Say for a bathroom like this,
how long would you allow time-wise for cleaning?
About 20 minutes. 20 minutes just for the bathroom?
But I Hoover all the doors and everything, like.
Okay! I would die if someone found a hair.
I'll tell you what, it's kind of like a system.
When people leave and you run around, you change all the beds.
Yeah. Then you run around, and you do all the bathrooms. Mm.
And then you run around and you do all your dusting or whatever,
and then you Hoover and mop. Okay. The last of all.
But it actually, for me, it takes longer to do one room
individually from top to bottom as opposed to
Following the process. Following
the process. Okay, that's really interesting, actually. Yeah.
'Cause I probably would have gone one room at a time.
But you're saying better to do everything in a batch.
'Cause you just get a big long extension lead for your Hoover.
As we know, B&B is nothing without breakfast.
Fortunately, Lucy is a self-taught expert.
I started off with a continental, a cheeseboard, fresh pastry,
some charcuterie, and it didn't cut it.
In a very short period of time, I went on to a hot breakfast menu.
Okay. But I have to say it's the winning factor in my business.
It's actually a great way to get to speak with your guests
and build a relationship with them, too. Yeah.
I don't think I'd have the business today without it.
As you think then about, say, pricing and occupancy rates,
and do you vary your prices through the year, high season, low season?
Actually, because I'm a one-ma n band,
I put up a lot of minimum two nights,
because, to keep out... Yeah.
a party crowd because I wouldn't manage them by myself. Mm-hm.
Consistently throughout the year, I am the same price, really.
Okay. You know.
Great to see you! Bye! Bye bye!
It's April, and the site is buzzing.
Despite a few worrying setbacks along the way, a lot has been done.
But we want to make sure that every cent
of Ciara's half a million Euro budget is well spent.
So a big day this week now, John!
We have the electricity going on,
and that means underfloor heating on,
and we can put in the kitchen after that. Okay, fantastic, great.
Okay, so you'll get it dried out fully then.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So a U-shaped kitchen?
Exactly, U-shaped, yeah.
From the worktop, then, are you tiling up the wall or anything?
I'll tile halfway up. Halfway, now,
good splashback is great. Yeah.
Otherwise, you'll be painting the whole thing,
it's a pain in the neck. Yeah. And you've nothing
on the units on the top then?
No, I think I'll probably put shelving in
at the wall level once I know what I need.
No, it'll be very nice. Mm-hm!
So a person could come in here
and make a cup of tea if they wanted.
Yeah, I think I'll leave it open the evenings when service closes.
Yeah, yeah.
An honesty teapot. Exactly, exactly.
Now, there's a lot to a project like this, isn't there?
There is.
I suppose the biggest challenge we had was
with the rear roof, the corrugate roof.
That wasn't performing as expected.
It was condensating and weeping,
and in the end, we had to take the call to take it off
and put a rubber, more like a flat roof material on there.
So that's solved now, but it was time and hassle... And money.
And some money. And some money.
And talking about money now, where are you on budget?
I've had maybe 10,000 to overspend because of that roof.
So I'm down to kinda that tight
phase now where I have a certain amount left to spend
and I'm having to make choices.
So, like, window treatments I'm on now at the moment,
I was hoping to have them all done.
I won't have the dining room done
because I have to get the bedrooms done and the blackouts done.
Okay, now we're within that of opening,
which is a credit to you, okay?
When I came here day one, I was worried about you
'cause you were coming from a corporate life
into a developer's life and then into a hospitality life.
I'm a bit tired...
Yeah. It's been busy, but I'm excited.
I suppose I'm kind of ready now for the next phase to get going.
At times like this, it's easy to get hung up on the details,
but we have to keep Ciara's head focused on the big picture.
So now we're meeting Triona, who's the marketing officer
for the Munster Vales... Oh, great! ..who's responsible
for marketing the whole area, okay?
So what can Munster Vales do for Ciara?
We can put you in touch with the other businesses in the region.
We've a really strong tourism network.
We could introduce you to the different businesses
so that they're aware of your offering
and can send visitors to you and vice versa. Great.
Also, Pure Cork, covers Cork City and county is a great one.
Okay, just do me a favor.
Will you say that one again? The Cork one. What was it?
(in exaggerated accent) Pure Cork! (laughter)
Hidden Heartlands is beautifully named,
but we don't want it hidden.
So what can we do to unhide it?
By promoting the smaller hidden gems,
the authentic experiences that yo u don't get in the larger areas
where you're contending with big tour buses,
large crowds, high prices.
Here we have lower prices, less crowds to contend with.
You're describing promoting off the beaten track.
Yes, exactly. And that to me is key.
And that's the way tourism is going in the future.
They're looking for that authentic experience.
And I think you have an awful lot to offer here.
Marketing won't be the only challenge for Ciara.
To make sure her business runs smoothly,
there's an engine to be maintained.
So this is the plant room, and this absolutely It really terrifies me.
There's so much equipment in here.
I never realized how much I would be left to take care of.
It reminds me of being inside in, I dunno, the cockpit
of a jumbo jet or something.
Yeah, hopefully I'll get used to it over time,
but it's a lot to take on board.
Not too much more work to be done here.
Obviously, it needs to be tidied off,
but the main work is me trying to figure out
maintenance schedules and how to know if something's wrong.
That's actually the work I have to do now.
(laughs) Oh, my God.
All works!
Looks good!
Ciara's sustainable ethos is still to the fore.
Why buy new when you can recycle?
I love the colour.
The colour is so vibrant. I love it.
It's so cosy-looking.
So that's a hardwood kitchen
that I bought, and my dad and I disassembled it ourselves.
And yeah, one of our local joiners here sprayed it for me.
So it looks amazing. It looks like a new kitchen.
I can't believe it!
So this life, obviously, is quite different to my corporate life.
When you're working, you have people
to do lots of different things for you, and specialists,
whereas here, I kind of have to do a bit of everything,
whether it's construction or interior design
or taking the bookings.
It's all on me now.
So, yeah, I suppose that reality is dawning on me now
that everything is kind of sitting on my shoulders.
And obviously, I think, then, combined with the time pressure,
you know, there's six weeks now to go,
and there's still so much work to be done.
Like, the outside is quite a mess still.
So, yeah, I feel a lot of pressure now,
I suppose, to make sure the things are good enough,
that, you know, I feel proud when we open that it's good enough
for the guests to come in.
By early July, Barnahown is ready to open its doors, and Ciara has
already booked her first guest.
And let's just say he's very, very discerning.
So Francis is on his way.
He's going to check in shortly,
and I'm trying to just get some nice fresh
Irish fruit ready for his breakfast in the morning.
So, yeah, I hope everything is to his standards.
(Francis) Well, now we'll see about that!
Hi, Ciara! Welcome back, Francis. How are you? Great to be here!
I thought you'd be pure grey by now. Not at all!
Come in. You're looking great.
Thank you very much.
It's a damp aul' evening. Awful, isn't it?
You'll be cosy here. Now, where am I going?
So this is your room key. Alright.
You're top of the stairs on the right.
I have arrived!
Well, initially, it looks very nice.
I love the floorboards.
And of course, this finish, the lime finish,
is forever and it's just gorgeous.
It gets nicer as it gets older.
And I love that wood finish.
I hope it doesn't stain on her now, but it's very nice, and it's
throughout the room, which is lovely. Her bed is lovely.
Her bed head is lovely.
Now, I love those.
We saw those with Kate down in Cahersiveen.
They're very simple, and it's all that people want
for one or two nights' stay.
Great sliding door, and I love that paint finish
because it brings the countryside in
to the bedroom, which is very nice.
And the bathroom is lovely.
I'm really thrilled.
The bedroom is absolutely lovely,
and everything in there looks lovely.
I'm looking forward to getting into the bed
for a good night's sleep.
Ah! That's lovely.
And the duvet is gorgeous as well.
Goodnight, sweetheart!
I had a great sleep.
Bed lovely, loads of hot water, lovely towels, everything.
And you know, it was very quiet,
'cause it's quite close to the road,
and I thought that might be a problem.
I didn't hear a thing.
But of course, the breakfast is very important,
so we'll see how that goes.
Morning, Ciara. Good morning, Francis.
I slept great. That's great.
You're ready for breakfast? I am. I'm famished now.
Now, Francis, here's your order. Oh, that's lovely.
Just what I wanted. Great. Enjoy. Thanks very much.
Mm!
Lovely sweet tomatoes, I must say.
They're lovely, and they're slightly burnt, which is gorgeous.
Well, Francis, how did you find the breakfast?
Everything was lovely, I must say, yes.
The bacon and the tomatoes was just lovely.
The one thing, I think the plate was a bit small.
Ciara, you know, if you have a cooked breakfast,
it should be on a bigger plate. Mm-hm. But you could work on that.
Yeah.
Delicious.
Four years ago, a certain corporate accountant
fell in love with an old farmhouse.
Since then, Ciara has reinvented this place and herself,
becoming the bean an tí of a fully functioning countryside retreat.
On the ground floor, the reception room has an elegant cool style,
and the same artisan vibe extends to the parlour.
Ciara has used recycled furniture
in the dining room...
and in the kitchen,
which looks brand new, but isn't.
Upstairs, the four bedrooms are ready for guests.
And just take a look at Ciara's new home,
the apartment adjacent to the farmhouse.
A cool combination of workspace and quiet retreat.
I can't wait to get a closer look.
It's lovely. Isn't it gorgeous?
There's lovely little touches here.
And are they our key rings? They are indeed.
Each of the rooms is named after a place that I love in the Galtees.
So this one is the Cush Room, the small room upstairs.
Fantastic.
So that's the parlour, John, the good room.
Oh, it's a fabulous room.
You'd get stuck in here for a day with a book,
and hide, close the door,
and you'd just be in an oasis. It's gorgeous.
The floor is just spectacular.
So now your website's up and running and it looks great.
Photography, you can't beat good photography.
But the most important thing is that you sell the rooms.
So I want to know, where are you on rate?
So I'm starting at a kind of market rate
around here, which is the 150,
which is for the smallest cosy room upstairs.
And then I'm going up to 160 and 170, according to bigger room,
mountain views, and so on. Right. Okay.
This is a premium product.
What you've done here is fantastic. It's unique.
It's not anywhere else, and that deserves a premium.
It is July, coming into August,
160, 170 wouldn't be out of the question.
But all those fivers and all those tenners
make a huge difference to you
at the end of the year.
Occupancy-wise, where are you on occupancy?
So for the month of July now, I will be at about 80%.
Wow. (laughing) Yeah!
So I don't know if it's because the middle of summer,
but, yeah, hopefully that's a good sign.
How can I knock the smile off your face? (both laugh)
So the combination of that high occupancy rate,
which is really fantastic,
and then to increase the revenue in the rooms a little bit over
the next couple of months.
Both of those things combined will help you greatly in the addition
of the new three rooms.
Because, you know, the majority of your costs
that you're going to incur in opening
these rooms are fixed already.
Your energy isn't going to go up hugely because there's only lights
and a bit of heat in next door.
So all of those things, your marketing,
your exposure, all of those
things are the same.
So the money you make in here
is only less the cost of the servicing the pricing
of the room on a daily basis.
That is great, isn't it? It's not too bad.
Now, all this comes at a cost. Yes.
So where are you on the budget?
So I'm about 5% over budget, and also now I've come to the point
of running out of money, so I've had to cut certain things like
the banquettes, for example, in the dining room. Right.
Well, you know, 5% in today's world,
where prices of everything is going through the roof
is to be commended.
Okay, she's got the occupancy, the online presence,
and she's managed her money extremely well.
So now we believe she's in a position
to tackle the asbestos in the barn.
I am keen now to go ahead with the plan for the three bedrooms.
I think maybe late winter, early spring next year.
Now that I see what my fixed costs and my variable costs are,
I really see how this will make sense.
We have no doubt this business is going to grow beautifully.
Now, Ciara, it's time for us to go. Would you believe it?
Okay, but we had a wonderful experience
we have had in our time here,
okay, so we're going to leave you a tree,
a tree grows forever,
so in that respect, life is going to be continuing.
So when I'm long gone, the tree will be up there somewhere
and you'll be 90 and thinking of me. (Ciara laughs) Alright? Okay.
So with that, we'd just like to wish you the very best.
Thank you.
Fantastic.
(applause)
Ciara's achieved something really special here,
and we're not the only ones delighted for her.
Something she wanted to do all her life,
and now you see it come into fruition.
(Ciara's mother) I never doubted that she wouldn't finish it.
When she sets her mind to do something,
she just does it and that's it.
There's no stopping her!
(Kate) We're all very proud of Ciara
and how she's turned this place around,
and how much hard work I was put into Barnahown.
I love the polished concrete floor, the view of the Galtees...
I think it will attract a lot of tourists.
So I think it will be really, really good for the town,
which is exciting.
I really enjoyed having John and Francis to help me
on the journey, and they've really given me food for thought.
Every time I met them, they had something new to provoke me on.
The pricing, the utilization, marketing,
it's been really helpful to me,
particularly because I'm on my own, and it pushes me to
make the best of what I'm doing.
Now! That's it now.
That was some experience from start to finish.
Wasn't it fantastic? Yeah, absolutely,
a joy to be involved here now.
When you think when we came here first,
and the derelict state it was in,
and we met Ciara, but you know, I knew she had it in her.
She had that go about her. And do you know something?
She has brought every element of herself and her locality into it,
and it just oozes passion, the whole thing.
It's a really credit to her.
You know, it's truly a B&B for the Ireland of today.
100%, yeah!
Subtitles: RTÉ 2024