This weekend, Jurys Ballsbridge Hotel serves its last guests before its contents are auctioned off. Catherine Foleymeets three of its longest-serving staff.
On Monday morning, the staff of Jurys Ballsbridge Hotel and Towers will say goodbye to the last guests, strip the beds, bring down the shutters on the serving hatches and shut the doors for the last time.
"It's part of your life, you grew up with it from a very young age," says Tom O'Flynn, a hotel concierge with 22 years of service behind him. "It's sad. People say you won't be affected but it will be a wrench to drive by here and see it closed or knocked down . . . I've spent all my working life here."
O'Flynn and his colleagues Willie Rooney and PJ Ward have 82 years of service here between them. It's clear how these last days of the hotel are affecting them. Their voices are choked; the men are close to tears.
Such is the nostalgia and sadness in the hotel that many of the employees, who number almost 400, are hoping to purchase something when the entire contents are auctioned next Friday.
"It will be nice to have a memento of the hotel," explains deputy general manager Ruth Harrison. "There's a huge attachment and a fondness for the building and the people."
There will be over 2,300 lots in total in the sale, including the furnishings of the luxury bedrooms and suites, the contents of the hotel's lobbies, offices and kitchens, the crockery, cutlery and laundry equipment, the contents of the conference rooms, the gymnasium and all the fittings, fixtures and furniture from the grand ballroom. Everything is to be sold. According to Mark Flynn, of British auctioneers Pro Auction, "this is the biggest auction sale of an entire hotel in Europe". Sold to developer Seán Dunne, t he site is expected to be redeveloped and replaced with apartments, restaurants, shops and, ironically, a hotel.
In the meantime, the staff is trying to come to terms with the fact that their hotel is closing down. They have gathered at breaks and some have broken down in tears. The camaraderie and the fun, the professionalism and the pride, the satisfaction of serving and helping guests, is nearly at an end. They feel it is their service that has earned the landmark hotel its iconic position in people's minds.
"I think I'm going to sit down and write a book about this," jokes PJ Ward, supervisor of the Towers' ground-floor food and beverage areas. He came first because his mother worked here, retiring only a few years ago after 22 years of service.
"She loved it. She used to come home and say, 'I'd work in there for nothing'. I've great memories here. I never thought I'd see the day this place would go. I feel choked up. Jurys better supply tissues on Monday," he says, smiling. "All the people I've worked with over the years, the banter we've had. I love going to work. If I didn't like the job, I wouldn't be here so long. It will be a black day in Ballsbridge on Monday."
WARD RECALLS SOME of the famous guests who have stayed at the hotel, including the late King of Jordan, who needed a toothbrush and toothpaste one morning. Ward, quick as a flash, dashed across to the hotel shop, bought a Jordan toothbrush and presented it at the door of the suite, delighted at the lucky coincidence of the toothbrush's brand name. It helped break the ice for the managers and waiters who had all been standing stiffly to attention nearby, he recalls. And when the king's butler noticed, "he started laughing", recalls Ward.
He relates how room 848 was used to film a scene for The General, and how a trainee manager who had to knock on the door was given a cameo role.
In suite 750-754, he served Yasser Arafat breakfast, and recalls how intrigued he was to see the Palestinian leader eating his Rice Krispies with a teaspoon rather than with the customary dessert spoon.
Film star Mel Gibson stayed there too, he recalls, but kept largely to himself.
"John Hume has been coming for years," adds Ward, who has also served David Trimble. He has met all the soccer managers. Looking after all the VIP rooms, he says, is "all about presentation. We built this [ hotel] with standards."
Ward says he "broke all the rules" for Dana Rosemary Scanlon and her family on the last day of their stay at the hotel over the course of the presidential election, when he served them a full Irish breakfast in their hotel suite, which is not usually done. "I think it was a nice little touch," he says.
Jurys Hotel Ballsbridge became the flagship property of a newly formed company, Jurys Hotel Group Ltd, in 1972. It was one of three hotels acquired from the former Intercontinental Hotels. Then the Towers Hotel on the same Ballsbridge site opened in 1986.
Tom O'Flynn, a concierge, who is the current president of Les Clefs D'Or, the international society of professional concierges, says he's grown up with Jurys Hotel. "I am sad," he says simply. "It's been in my family all my life. My father, Paddy O'Flynn, was head concierge in Jurys in Cork. We were brought up with hotels. I remember when we were small, it was Daddy's hotel." He joined Jurys in 1985, and has worked in Jurys Ballsbridge since 1995.
Does he remember famous people who stayed in the hotel? "What does famous mean?" he asks philosophically. But he obliges and describes as "gentlemen" Arnold Schwarzenegger, who stayed with his family during the Special Olympics, Colin Farrell, who is a regular visitor to the restaurant, and Jack Charlton.
O'Flynn's wife was a Jurys employee and their romance was carried out under the gaze of hotel staff. "Everybody knows your business. It's great to have someone who understands . . . when you are in the hotel trade you don't just switch off when you finish. You see it through until the task is done."
He says he's determined to stay on in the trade. "I hope to go back into the hospitality industry in some shape or form," he says.
Willie Rooney, in his commissionaire's wine-coloured jacket, says he has "only 41 years" of service at the hotel, going back to when it was known as the Intercontinental. He came as a lad of 15 from Ballyfermot and began as a commis waiter. He remembers American tourists queuing out the door to get into the restaurant. And he recalls the head waiter, who took him under his wing.
They've all known the end was coming for about two years, Rooney says, "but in the last few weeks, there are quite a few that can't believe it themselves".
Like Rooney, a lot of his friends "started very young and some are still working. We would have grown up together. I've grown up here. I've reared a family through it. It's going to be very sad."