It’s the little touches that make a difference. The man at reception in the Bush Hotel seemed to be really pleased that I was checking in. This mightn’t sound like much, but seeing as around me swirled a wedding, two small and pretty bridesmaids were being told (in no uncertain terms) about the perils of getting in the way, and the bride was trying to get her hands on a cup of tea, I thought it was nice to be made to feel so welcome. I didn’t linger to be in the wedding photos but scurried upstairs to find a large room (one double bed, one single), a small window and a bathroom where a rubber duck stared back at me in a friendly fashion. And strangely enough, for someone as picky as me, I was prepared to like it all. The Bush is an old established place. It used to be a coaching stop for travellers and horses en route to Sligo, and it feels as if it has been in the business of looking after people for a long time. It has been modernised (several times) in the 200 years since it opened, and while there are spots […]

It’S a tale of two counties – the cash-rich GAA in Dublin versus smaller counties struggling to keep their teams competing on the pitch. But hotelier Joe Dolan reckons he gets more bang for his buck sponsoring Leitrim GAA than communications giant Vodafone gets from its mega-deal with the Dubs.  “The association with Leitrim GAA is worth 25 GAA club dinners a year to the hotel,” the owner of the Bush Hotel in Carrick-on-Shannon told the Sunday Independent. It’s a world away from the Dubs, whose main sponsorship by Vodafone cost more than €3m over four years, encompassing an ultra-slick corporate relationship and carefully planned “development strategies to maximise commercial development”. The Bush Hotel, on the other hand, is a small, respected family business – “a meat and two veg” operation, as owner Joe puts it. His five-figure sponsorship means the Bush Hotel logo emblazoned on the county jersey has been seen all over the world, including by more than 19 million TV viewers in China and millions in the UK. “I was watching Ronnie O’Sullivan at the world snooker final on TV and there, near the front row in the Crucible in Sheffield, was a lad wearing a Leitrim […]