A special visit
An American family had a very special experience when they visited the Village of Adare this summer.
Yancy Lewis Naughton together with his wife Gabriela and their three boys, Yancy Armagh, Celestyn and Elias Adare, met with one of Adare’s most treasured senior citizens Ms. Dollie O’Neill (pictured here earlier this year with JP McManus at Adare’s Team Limerick Clean-up day).
Dollie enthralled the Naughton family with their ancestral history. This included a visit to the family homestead – a shop on the main street of Adare, now trading as Draíocht, an established art gallery and gift shop.
Dollie subsequently brought the Naughton Family to the Adare Heritage Centre where they met with the manager Maeve Martin-Kelly and receptionist Kathleen Crowley (pictured above).
A special moment occurred when Yancy discovered a photograph of an original receipt from the Naughton shop displayed in the historical exhibition, housed within the Centre.
Yancy Naughton informed Maeve that “these are the experiences that make family holidays so memorable and I am very grateful to everyone who made this possible. Thank you”
What a special visit for this family.
Meitheal 2016 – Irish Tourism Workshops
Meitheal 2016 at the RDS [credit: Iain White/Fennell Photography]
Every year Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland showcase Ireland to overseas tour operators. This year over 13,000 business meetings took place. International buyers from China, Canada, Australia, Germany, France Great Britain, New Zealand and the U.S. attended.
Dublin was the venue this year and the anticipation and enthusiasm that abounded the RDS was palpable. On behalf of the Adare Heritage Centre I present all the facilities and rates that are available at the Centre, and attend this event every two years.
I always enjoy this part of my job as it is wonderful to connect with the trade and discuss the latest tourism developments for Ireland.
From my viewpoint this year’s event was especially effective as the responsibility was put on the product providers such as my company to make their appointments with tour operators. While this presented a challenge to ensure the business to business matches were relevant – the operation of ‘speed dating’ came to mind – but all in all the concept worked!
I understand that last year this revised format of the ‘speed dating’ was introduced, which allowed the product providers to sit at tables and the suppliers (tour operators) to visit the tables at appointed times, whereas before this procedure was the reverse.
I absolutely congratulate whoever was responsible for this change as I had one of the most effective workshops ever and I appreciated this new initiative.
Wishing everyone a very successful season and see you in Adare!
Team Limerick Clean Up 2016
Adare enjoyed a very clean environment this Easter with everyone coming out to support Team Limerick Clean-up 2. This very innovative project was supported by J.P. McManus and another Limerick man, rugby great Paul O’Connell – its current ambassador.
Adare Tidy Towns committee took their lead from their own warriors to lead their troops into battle to ensure Adare was looking its finest for the community, and the numerous tourists who visit the Village every day.
This community project, which was part of the county-wide initiative was a huge success and created enormous good will among the over 200 people who participated in the Adare clean up this Good Friday. It is proposed that this momentum will be kept up throughout the year as it is part of the wider 2016 programme under the Adare Tidy Towns that includes striving to achieve the coveted national tidy towns award once again.
Well done to all involved and head over to our facebook to see more pics from the day and make a comment!
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.978040012250111.1073741940.157632090957578&type=3
Irish Restaurant Awards 2016
2016 RAI Munster Awards in the Malton Hotel, Killarney, Co Kerry.
Picture: Keith Wiseman
The Dovecote Restaurant here at Adare Heritage Centre was nominated recently for the prestigious annual Irish Restaurant Awards sponsored by the Irish Times and the Irish Restaurant Association. This created enormous excitement and pride throughout the restaurant staff and indeed among all the people working within the Adare Heritage Centre.
Nominations had been sought from the public to select their favourite restaurant and the Dovecote appeared on the list. As this was the first time to be included in the awards we were all a little unsure as to what the criteria were in relation to achieving an award. Apparently, after the public nomination a panel of judges then decide on a shortlist to go forward to the awards.
We all headed to Killarney last Tuesday evening on the invitation of the Munster regional awards ceremony organisers. It was a terrific evening with lots of local food demonstrations and specially created cocktails to honour the occasion. Unfortunately we did not receive the award in our category on this occasion but it was a highly entertaining and enjoyable night, and the restaurant team gained from the experience.
As Spring sunshine arrives, the Dovecote is gearing up to welcome the thousands of visitors new and old over the season ahead, keeping the standards high, and hopefully gaining another nomination next year!
Dovecote Restaurant award nomination!
Hello,
I am delighted to let you know that the Dovecote Restaurant at the Adare Heritage Centre has been
nominated for a fare award through the Restaurant Association.
The Restaurant Association joins up annually with the prestigious Irish paper, The Irish Times to
recognise and reward restaurants around Ireland who have exceeded customers’ expectations. This
is the first award the Dovecote has been nominated for and the excitement among staff and all
involved with the Heritage Centre is palpable!
The Restaurant Association has informed us we shall know if the restaurant goes through to the next
stage by this time next week- I shall keep you posted, in the meantime enjoy dining!!!
Limerick Gospel Choir
There was great excitement in the Adare Heritage centre recently when the Limerick Gospel Choir visited the Dovecote restaurant.
The Choir had performed on the day at the wedding of local businessman Conor Fitzgerald who married beautiful Galway woman Aislinn Connolly.
The Musical Director of the Limerick Gospel Choir, David Idioh agreed to help us out on the day, and to much applause drew the winner of our January competition we participated in at the Woodlands House Hotel Wedding Fayre – congratulations to our winner Ms Aoife Griffin.
What we were not aware of at the time was that David is a current member of Bressie’s team on the popular T.V. programme the Voice of Ireland.
We are delighted to join David’s many fans to wish him best wishes and good fortune in his forthcoming endeavours in the national competition. We are following David closely and we shall keep you up to date on his progress…
Till next time…
Adare Heritage Centre’s 21st Anniversary at The Mustard Seed
2015 marks the 21st anniversary of the Adare Heritage Centre and as part of a few celebrations we’ve had this year, the Company hosted an anniversary dinner at the award winning Mustard Seed Restaurant in Ballingarry.
The evening commenced with a lively prosecco reception and a slideshow of pictures from the last 21 years delivered an appropriate background to the event. The occasion provided the staff, board members, and all those involved with the centre throughout the years a great opportunity to catch up with each other. The reception was followed by a delicious meal of which The Mustard Seed is famed for, everyone was impressed with the presentation and of course the calibre of the food.
All in all, the Mustard Seed was fantastic venue and the dinner was a lovely way to close out our 21st year anniversary celebrations.
Here’s to many more years…….