‘I’ve led a good life here’: Maitre d’ on 50 years of working at Irish five-star castle estate

As maitre d’ in Ashford Castle, Martin Gibbons followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He chats about the hotel’s rich history, honoured traditions and some of its most famous guests

50 years of working at Ashford Castle

Chrissie Russell

Martin Gibbons can reel off the many owners of Ashford Castle with practiced ease. “There were the De Burgos back in the 1200s, the Binghams, then the Browne family, the Guinnesses, the Huggards, Mulcahy,” he pauses briefly, “then from 1985 we had the investorship, that included Chuck Feeney and Sir Anthony O’Reilly was part of it too. Then in 2008 it was bought by a local man, Gerry Barrett from Galway, went into receivership in 2011, and then the Tollman family bought it out of receivership in 2013.”

It’s a whistlestop tour through 800 years of history, but delivered by Gibbons it sounds personal, as if he’s talking about the previous owners of his own house, which, in some ways, is exactly what the magnificent five-star fairy-tale hotel is to him. “It does feel a bit like a family home, yes. If I was out of here, I’d say I’d miss it.”