Dear Dooliners,
Dare I say it but there’s a grand stretch in the evenings, the boats below at the pier are running islandwards again and there’s music seven nights pouring out into the night air from all the pubs and hostelries. Everyone’s out with the paintbrushes and the lawnmowers and the cattle are back grazing in the fields. Here at Hotel Doolin, we’ve been busy all winter preparing for another season and we’ve loads of news for you.
First off, let me introduce you to our new Executive Chef Jamie Hagan. Jamie is a classically trained chef with over 20 years’ experience in 5-star hotels and quality restaurants in Ireland, Australia, Turkey, Jordan, GCC and Montenegro. He has a broad experience in ala carte, banquets and fine dining in various cuisines. He has been involved in 4 hotel openings over the past 15 years. He believes strongly in focusing on the best quality local food and suppliers to create partnerships and relationships to deliver healthy, quality food selections and guest satisfaction. Jamie has been working hard on new menus for the season for Fitz’s, Stonewall & Glas. Glas especially is a passion project for Jamie and Glynn. This season we have developed a Thirty Mile Menu, which means that every single item on the menu is sourced from within thirty miles of the hotel. We are passionate about Glas becoming one of the most sustainable restaurants in the country.
On June 10th-12th we’ll host the tenth annual Doolin Folk Festival, headlined by Christy Moore. Tickets are nearly sold out, check out the line-up here. Don’t miss out and book your weekend ticket before they’re all gone.
This year we have set-up our own non-profit organisation called Doolin Arts for supporting the Arts in North Clare. Doolin Arts runs the Doolin Folk Festival, Hedge School Doolin and regular events in The Attic venue at Hotel Doolin. We will be releasing albums, publishing books, supporting theatre, live music and literature and loads more projects locally. To keep up-to-date with Doolin Arts goings-on, check out the website at www.doolinarts.ie
In February we won the Tourism & Entertainment Award and the Green Medium Sized Organisation of the Year at the annual Green Awards and we have installed 100kwh of PV panels on the roof space at Hotel Doolin. The PV panels will supply 25% of the hotel’s electricity needs annually and is our first step on our journey of becoming energy self-sufficient by 2030. We also continued our tree-planting project onsite, planting 500 trees in February. We aim to plant 700 more trees in 2023 bringing the amount of native trees planted onsite to 2500 over the past two years.
We can’t wait to see you this season, check out our website for the best offers online or sign up to our newsletter and we hope to see you soon for some summer foolin’ in Doolin.
Slán go foill,
Dónal
