Clowning Around!

Please join us next Wednesday December 8th at The Castle Hotel where we will be 'Clowning Around' once again. This fun charity day embraced by all the staff, raises much needed funds for our chosen local charity, Macroom Senior Citizens.

Getting Ready For Christmas

At The Castle, we're very busy getting ready for Christmas, with decorations going up this week and the kitchen very busy with Christmas Puddings! Here's a sneek at Sarah's secret recipe:

Prepare your pudding early so the flavours have time to develop. On Christmas Day simply take it out of the fridge and steam away.

Ingredients: 1 1/2cups sultanas (golden raisins),1 1/2 cups chopped raisins, 3/4 cup currants, 1 cup pitted and chopped prunes, 3/4 cup (145 g) chopped dried apricots, 1/2 cup brandy, 1 cup (100 g) all purpose flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp ground Mixed Spice , 3/4 cup firm butter, 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar, 2 cups fresh breadcrumbs, 1 green apple, peeled, cored, grated, 1/4 cup golden syrup, 3 eggs, beaten.

Method:

1 Combine sultanas, raisins, currants, prunes, apricots and brandy. Cover and let stand overnight.
2 Sift flour, baking powder and mixed spice into a bowl. Add butter, sugar and breadcrumbs. Rub the butter through the dry ingredients with your fingertips.
3 Add apple, golden syrup, eggs and fruit. Mix well.
4 Spoon into a greased and baselined pudding basin. Cover with a greased sheet of baking paper, aluminium foil and another sheet of baking paper. Secure with wetted string. Place in a saucepan of boiling water (ensure the water is one-third up the side of the basin).
5 Cover pan and gently boil for 4 hours (check water every 30 minutes). Carefully remove pudding basin from steamer. Cool 15 minutes before turning out.
Cool and wrap in plastic film and store in the refrigerator.

Christmas Day: allow pudding to return to room temperature, then steam for 2 hours. Serve with custard.

A Little Light Relief!

After a day of bad news in Ireland yesterday, I though we might need a little light relief! The hotel world is abundant with funny tales and laughs. Here are a few I found:

This request reached a Mountain Resort, St Moritz, Switzerland: 'I would very much like to bring my dog with me. He is well-groomed and very well behaved. Would you be willing to permit me to keep him in my room with me at night?' An immediate reply came from the hotel owner, who said, 'I've been operating this hotel for many years. In all that time, I've never had a dog steal towels, bedclothes, silverware or pictures off the walls. I've never had to evict a dog in the middle of the night for being drunk and disorderly. And I've never had a dog run out on a hotel bill. Yes, indeed, your dog is welcome at my hotel. And, if your dog will vouch for you, you're welcome to stay here, too.'

At the Savoy in London, Rudi Schreiner, reception manager in the 1970s and later general manager in Vienna, remembers a particularly attractive singer who was on stage during the days of supper cabaret at the Thames Foyer. When she began a particular number from Cabaret, all the guests would stare at the stage. When she came to the bit which requires a fair degree of upper torso movement while singing ‘Money money money . . . money money money . . .’ followed by a sound on the cymbal denoting an imaginary silver coin falling into her juggling cleavage, everyone was spellbound… Absolutely everybody, including the young waiter who was serving a large table of fourteen right next to the stage. Unfortunately, although he hadn’t put out any plates, he calmly started to serve the main course straight onto the tablecloth. Apparently no one noticed until the gravy was poured!

Our Very Own Priest!

As you may know by now...........'We Love Weddings' at The Castle Hotel. The red carpet......champagne on ice.......music filling the lobby.......candlelight hallways.......but above all..........we even have our own priest!

There are so many jobs to tick off a bride's To Do List, but finding a priest is one The Castle can do for you!

His name is Fr. Timmie O Connor, a retired missionary priest, born about 7 miles from Killarney in Co. Kerry near the world famous Gap of Dunloe. On finishing school, he worked with us as a bar tender for six years in the Castle Hotel, from 1961 to 1967. Since then he has remained a very close friend of The Castle and The Buckley Family.

On leaving The Castle he completed nine years of study to enter the priesthood, two of them in Scotland and two of them in Cork, where The Rochestown Park Hotel is now, and the remainder in St Patrick’s Seminary Kiltegan Co. Wicklow. He was then ordained a priest with the St. Patrick’s Fathers and worked for some years in Sao Paulo in Brazil, learning to speak Portuguese and then worked as vocations director for the St. Patrick’s Fathers. At the invitation of the Missionary Co-op, he visited The US and preached for about ten weeks each year for five years along the East Coast and the mid west and up into Canada.

For about the last twenty two years Fr Tim has worked in three different parishes in Ireland, in Kilsheelan outside Clonmel, for two years; then in Killavullen near Mallow for nine years and finally in Coachford for ten years. Now retired, he is concentrating on Pastoral work including weddings and renewal of wedding vows; mostly but not exclusively in St. Finbarr’s Oratory Gougane Barra and is on the solemnisers list with the civil registrar. Fr Tim really enjoys the marriage ministry as it’s always a joyful and happy occasion and trys to express that happiness in the religious ceremony.

Sam is coming to The Castle!

The Castle Hotel red carpet will be waiting next Monday November 8th to greet The Sam Maguire Cup! Join us between 1 and 2 pm as we welcome 'Sam' to The Castle.
Since returning to Cork, The Sam Maguire has been busy touring the County and Monday is Macroom's Day! See you all there!