2024 Award Winners LONG HAUL HERO 2024

Mary Wall Hanora's Cottage Nire Valley Co Waterford

It’s been a tough time for Irish hospitality over the last few years - but the resilience of the industry is extraordinary and the way that businesses have dealt with the many challenges they’ve been faced with has put the spotlight on the wonderful people who run them, undeterred, through thick and thin, sometimes for very many years. Mary Wall, of Hanora’s Cottage in West Waterford’s beautiful Nire Valley, is one such ‘long haul hero’. Mary and her late husband, Seamus, first set up home here in 1967, in a little church-side cottage that had been built for Seamus’s great-grandparents John and Norrie (Hanora) O’Gorman. Today - many carefully-planned extensions later - it is an exceptionally comfortable ten bedroomed guesthouse and destination restaurant, run by Mary with her son Eoin and his wife Judith, who are both chefs and enthusiastic supporters of the small local suppliers that give ‘a taste of place.’ Seamus was a great baker and it was his early morning work that first got people noticing the delicious breakfasts at Hanora’s – a speciality that is especially appreciated by the many walkers who stay here, and remains a special point of pride. The way this family works together is remarkable – and Mary’s sense of hospitality is as keen as ever. We should raise a toast to Mary, and her like – we owe them a lot.