Paul Gallagher had an unusual ringside seat to some of the political bouts that were fought out in Leinster House, across the road from his Dublin city centre hotel.
“I probably witnessed a couple of heaves before the taoiseach of the day knew they were happening,” says the general manager of Buswells Hotel in a soft, matter-of-fact voice.
Sipping coffee in an empty bar in the storied hotel that he is preparing to leave for good, he recalls some of the back-room political manoeuvres he caught a glimpse of.
“There were times when I would walk in here and there would be a table with nine TDs sitting around it and I would know something was going on because nine TDs never normally want to sit together,” he says.
The hotel, at the intersection of Kildare Street and Molesworth Street, has for decades been a popular press-conference venue, meeting point and watering hole for politicians, lobbyists and journalists.
[ Buswells Hotel: ‘The third house of the Oireachtas’Opens in new window ]
In his 27 years as manager of the most political hotel in the State, Gallagher has witnessed close-up a chapter in the story of modern Ireland – and sometimes he has had to play a more direct role in it.
Gallagher took over the “Hotel of the Heaves” in 1997, two years after it was bought by the Fermanagh industrialist-turned-speculator Sean Quinn. He walked its carpets as the optimistic boom years of the late 1990s became the pre-crash party time of the Celtic Tiger in the early 2000s.
Then came the collapse – of the economy and the Sean Quinn empire. The hotel was taken over by the undertaker of Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish Banking Resolution Corporation. Gallagher still reports into the State-owned bank liquidation vehicle through a group of independent directors, although a sale of the hotel looks imminent after several false dawns.
Gallagher watched the black cloud of austerity fall over Kildare Street and the subsequent slow recovery, before the Covid-19 pandemic brought more upheaval and another slow recovery, only for the subsequent cost-of-living crisis to change the rules again.
Almost as soon as he started, he understood why Buswells was known as the third house of the Oireachtas.
We are observers of what happens in Irish politics but from a different point of view. We see the good and the bad side, the stress they are under
— Paul Gallagher
While the bell that used to ring in the hotel bar to alert TDs of impending votes vanished before he arrived, Gallagher grew accustomed to looking after those in power and those who dreamed of it.
“It has been a really colourful experience because not only are you running a hotel full of journalists, TDs, senators and everybody else, in the blink of an eye you might have 5,000 people protesting outside,” he says.
“During the financial crash, we had pensioners outside giving out about the loss of their pensions and then an hour later, we had students giving out, while their grannies and grandads who had been on the march were in here sipping tea. There’s just that unique energy around this hotel.”
Over his time in the hotel, he has served six taoisigh.
Bertie Ahern was “very comfortable in the hotel; he’d have been in a lot. Then we’d John Bruton, although not for long and he wouldn’t have come in as much”, he says.
“Brian Cowen was in quite a bit. He was a nice guy. And then we had Enda. I remember him coming in as a TD with a broken leg and sitting up at the bar with the cast resting on a table.”
Things have changed and the appearance of senior politicians is more infrequent.
“We are observers of what happens in Irish politics but from a different point of view. We see the good and the bad side, the stress they are under. Since the financial crash those who work in politics have had a much more difficult time with the public at times, and I have seen a definite change in attitude.”
The Covid pandemic nearly closed Buswells for good. In the spring of 2020 the hotel had to shut, with only a handful of staff minding it. It was permitted to reopen partially after the first lockdown. For months TDs and senators working in Leinster House who needed a place to sleep were its only customers. They kept the lights on.
“We had them in 35 rooms, three nights a week. There was me and 10 staff working here. I cooked breakfast every morning and I cleaned the rooms,” says Gallagher.
[ Ireland ‘turning a corner’ on hotel room shortage, says tourist bossOpens in new window ]
“There was a real risk the receivers would decide it would be cheaper to lock the hotel up, board up the windows, turn off the heat. And if they did that, this hotel would never have recovered because once you turn off a heat in a hotel, it just disintegrates. I worked hard to make sure we stayed open and had it not been for those 35 rooms, three nights a week, the other option might have come into play.”
As he prepares for a role with the Irish Hotels Federation, Buswells, like every hospitality business in the State, is dealing with the cost-of-living crisis.
Gallagher bristles when asked about sky-high hotel prices and points to a dramatic spike in the cost of everything from food and energy to linen and laundry.
He doesn’t believe most hotels are overcharging.
“I’m not saying that, in some cases, there isn’t an insane price for a room but that is just bringing the industry into disrepute and we are all being painted with the same brush. That’s unfair,” he says.
He is looking forward to the election result as the votes are counted this weekend and the energy it will bring to the hotel, even though he is leaving at the end of the week.
He has no idea if he will meet another taoiseach on his watch. That depends on what happens this weekend and whether there is yet more political upheaval.
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