Queen of the castle

When Eithne Fitzpatrick got her first glimpse of the hotel she would one day own, she was disgusted.

“It was a dreadful place,” she said. “It was a rundown, old ramshackle place. I remember driving up one winter 's night . It was like Wuthering Heights or the house of horrors.”

Her father, legendary hotelier Paddy Fitzpatrick, wasn't deterred. Having started out peeling onions in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, Fitzpatrick bought what ...