No secret to this millionaire's success

THE SOCIAL NETWORK:The hotelier John Fitzpatrick threw a party at Residence on Tuesday to celebrate his 21st year of business in New York.

In Ireland, the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel has been family-run since it was founded, in 1971, by Fitzpatrick’s late parents, Eithne and Paddy; his sister, Eithne Scott-Lennon, continues to run the hotel with her family. David Doyle from Shrewsbury Road, son of the late hotelier PV Doyle, was among the guests at the party. “I was David’s best man,” Fitzpatrick told me. “We made a pact when we were younger that we’d be each other’s best man.” Doyle is still waiting for Fitzpatrick to sow his wild oats.

Fitzpatrick – who was on soda water and lime because of a 6.30am flight to London on Wednesday – took part in the recent RTÉ series The Secret Millionaire and went undercover in Dundalk. He told me that RTÉ is making a sequel. One of the kids he met while filming, Joel Maguire, who sang Billionaire, had an ambition to be a singer. Fitzpatrick told me that he has since arranged for Maguire to meet Louis Walsh and for Sharon Corr to take the young Dundalk singer as a VIP guest to The Voice.

Corr was at the party on Tuesday evening with her husband, the barrister Gavin Bonnar. He was preparing to go on Prime Time a couple of hours later to talk about copyright law. He told me that he usually brings the couple’s children to the Helix for The Voice rehearsals on Sundays, then collects them and puts them to bed before returning for the live show.

Rosanna Davison took some time out from celebrating her 28th birthday to attend the party. She could only stay for a few minutes, as she was driving down to the Naas Court Hotel for the launch of the Punchestown Festival and to help pick Miss Punchestown 2012.

Alison Canavan was heading to L’Ecrivain for a fashion show organised by Sonya Lennons Dress for Success, but she popped by to wish Fitzpatrick well. Christy O’Connor jnr, the former rugby player Malcolm O’Kelly and Senator Eamonn Coghlan were huddled together in a corner.

Dave Fanning left early to travel out to RTÉ. His wife, the solicitor Ursula Courtney, told me that she was heading to the Mansion House the following evening with her children. Fanning was one of the recipients of the Lord Mayor’s Awards, along with the Dublin senior football manager, Pat Gilroy, the founder of the Aisling Project, Sr Malen del Valle, and the founder of Rothar Anne Bedos.

Who we spotted: Morah Ryan, who was accompanied by her children Lottie, Bonnie, Elliott and Babette; Kathryn Thomas; Ronan Collins; Wayne Cronin of Quintessentially, who had just put the finishing touches to a "guide to the season"; Margaret Allister from Clontarf with her daughter Maeve O'Reilly, who is a student at DIT; RTÉ's Sandra Byrne, who is expecting her first child in early summer.

What we drank: Cosmos, Manhattans and Sauvignon Blanc