It is John and Francis Brennan’s fourth time arriving at Barnahown in Mitchelstown. Each time, they bound out of their car with more enthusiasm than the last. Francis takes a dramatic pause, looks at the property, puts his blazer on and, as though talking to himself, says, ‘I can’t wait to see what she’s done with the place.’
Really, though, he’s talking to the cameras, two of them pointing at him to capture different angles. And by default, he’s talking to us, his audience.
We join the Brennans on the set of their hit series At Your Service. Now into its 14th season, it’s one of RTÉ’s water-cooler TV shows. Like Dermot Bannon on Room to Improve, the Brennans have the ability to reignite ailing social media platforms as people dissect their advice, and the properties that are overhauled.
We are on set for the big reveal. This will be the end of the show. Ciara O’Brien has just opened her stunning Barnahown in Mitchelstown. She walked away from years in corporate boardrooms to return home to transform a local property into a sustainably focused B&B. John and Francis approve. And how could they not? Sleek concrete floors, classic yet homely furnishings, local produce only for breakfast, and, as a the gateway to the Galtees, this will be a sure hit for walkers on the B&B market.
Not that she took all their advice.
They told her to go bigger, to transform the outhouses into living accommodation for herself and make the studio extension she had built additional accommodation. Ciara followed her gut. Determined to start small and build and expand, she has four high-end rooms on offer, with plans for three more when the time is right. She is genuine in her admiration for Francis and John and the support they have given since their first visit to the property a year ago. Usually there are six to eight visits for each programme, which explains why there are just four episodes in each season.
They are on call for her, regularly phoning her too with tips and thoughts. “They opened up their contact book to me,” she says.
This a very different season of At Your Service for Francis and John — this is the first time they have filmed without their own Park Hotel.
They sold it last November to entrepreneur Bryan Meehan.
John says: “I have no regrets and sometimes I just think it’s very strange.”
Francis says: “I’m a great man to compartmentalise, to say that’s over, that’s it. My mother said I was always like that, that I could walk away.”
“I walked into reception,” John says, “and it didn’t bother me in the slightest.”
Francis talks about the art collection that has seen the Park be described as the Kenmare Tate. “The art — there’s a whole new dimension, it has created a buzz, people going in to look at it,” he says.
Johns adds: “If we’d sold to a corporate group, the ethos would change, no doubt about it, but we sold to a family who are very nice.
“They are as involved and imbued with the place as we were and the staff love that.”
Francis says: “You’d want to help him, he hasn’t come from a hotel background, he’d tell you that himself. I get read-outs from magazines in the UK and, if it’s of interest, I’ll send it to him.”
John has retained Dromquinna and his spectacular glamping, run with his wife Gwen and son Adam. Breakfast — a hamper with pastries, yogurts, juice, and coffee — is delivered to your tent. The communal area has also been upgraded with an open fire primed for s’mores and singsongs. Overlooking the water, with the nearby Boat House as a dinner option, this is five-star glamping. Experience it and you understand just why John is advising hospitality owners on best practice. It’s flawless.
Even with the Park and its responsibilities gone, there are still no plans for huge expansion at Dromquinna. “We will never open bedrooms in the main house,” says John — though there is talk of a sauna and gym by the water.
Francis, on the other hand, is done with hospitality. He will continue his successful line with Dunnes. But hotels?
“Oh I’m finished, oh for God’s sake. With hospitality, I’m finished,” he says.
You can feel the sense of relief they both share. John talks of the old days, with 260 staff to cater for. Now he has just six full-time on the Dromquinna team.
There is quality of life too.
“We don’t have to get up at a quarter past seven in the morning, which is marvellous,” says Francis. “There’s time for yourself now. If someone says Tuesday for dinner, you can, which wouldn’t have been the case before. You can also take extended time abroad, which I’m doing.”
You’ve learned to relax, Francis, I tell him.
“Is that what it is?” he responds.
The responsibility is gone, adds John. “We’re filming today and, if we decided to stay tonight, you can stay tonight, which is a luxury we have never had before. Very few people understand you never lock the front door of a hotel. It’s open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Shops, offices, everything else closes — hotels don’t. It’s a very different world and it’s relentless. So all that is gone.
“You miss the buzz and looking after guests and meeting people and all that.
“But I don’t know about you,” he says, looking at Francis, “I don’t miss the responsibility of it.”
As the show settles in for its 14th season, what do they think is the magic behind its success?
“The magic is himself,” says John, modestly nodding over to Francis. “It’s a very safe show. There’s three elements — there’s us, there’s the property and the property owner, and one of those three could be out of kilter and that makes some of the shows more interesting than others.”
Francis says: “When people apply… a lot of work goes in to making sure they can perform on camera. We have had situations where people just freeze. It needs personality.”
John explains: “They get the applications, send us [the] final 15 and then they go to RTÉ. We don’t suggest something on the show that we wouldn’t do ourselves. We don’t lead them up the garden path for TV. If they don’t take our advice, well that’s a better TV programme.
“Like with Ciara here — you’d create a friendship, but we don’t actively get involved after we finish the show. It’s kind of a decision.”
The programme began after Francis did a one-off show for RTÉ — and station bosses wanted more.
“I had done a programme in Kenmare and it went grand, I was just myself. Waddell [Media] went to RTÉ with a concept. RTÉ said yes — if you do it with Francis Brennan.
“The thing about it is that I don’t even know the camera is there — that’s what they like. I said I’ll do it, but I won’t do script, I’ll be myself. If they said ‘the cat sat on the mat’, I’d do ‘the mat sat on the cat’.
“I won’t do anything if I open that drawer and a mouse jumps out. It is brilliant TV but I’m not putting the mouse back in and opening it again for camera.”
John famously came out in defence of Ryan Tubridy when the pay scandal erupted last year.
“To be fair to RTÉ,” John says, “nothing was said. I felt that at the time no one was standing up for Ryan, he had never a bad word to say about anyone, he had given an awful lot of people their break in business, never offended anyone on air. I felt the way he was butchered…”
It was a very public affair. But has fame changed their own lives?
“I wear a baseball cap,” says Francis, “and it works 80% of the time. This week in Majorca, I’m togged out in shorts, baseball cap and the glasses, and someone says, ‘Are you Francis Brennan?’ and I said, ‘How the feck did you know it was me?’”
“I hate it,” says John definitively. This week he spoke movingly about living with dyslexia in a new RTÉ documentary, Lost For Words. He’ll help other people by talking openly about his own childhood days and struggles, yet this is a man who doesn’t want fuss. He brushes off questions about his health and cancer diagnosis over a decade ago.
He’s open, polite — he simply doesn’t want the attention. “I was back in Cork with a ‘diddly doo’, but I’m grand. I had all the sorts of scans that you could possibly want in the world a month ago and I’m fine,” he says.
I ask if he ever complains. With trademark John pragmatism, he responds: “Sure what would I complain about? What’s that going to do for you?”
There’s a lot of waiting around on set as scenes are set up, interviews repeated to secure the right close-ups. The hoteliers are used to being busy. They remain patient for retakes, joking and chatting with the crew.
What you see on screen is exactly what you get in real life. And explains perhaps most of all why At Your Service is a mainstay on our screens – it’s the magic of the Brennans.
Where to stay in Ireland, according to John and Francis:
“There are superb properties and suburb hospitality owners in Ireland.
“The Blue Book — you have 40 or 50 places there that you can mostly rely on.
“In Cork alone, Ballymaloe is gorgeous, the Hayfield Manor in town, Dunowen House.
“From a restaurant point of view, there’s the Chestnut in Ballydehob, which is just glorious — a couple doing it themselves, it’s an experience that’s special.”
There are great places in Cork, John concludes with a grin, “but it generally gets better as you come to Kenmare…”
At Your Service returns to RTÉ One at 7.30pm next Sunday, September 29
