Search Results for 'Dermot Murray'

Paschal Spelman may have been given that name at birth, but to the many thousands of people (especially old Galwegians) he entertained down the years, he was simply known as ‘Foggy’.

Our image today is of an original drawing done in 1958 by Belfast artist Raymond Piper (now deceased) of the beautiful staircase in the Great Southern Hotel. When one entered the hotel, the reception desk was to the left, there was a small corridor leading to the dining room on the left, and another leading to the bar on the right. Just past these was a comfortable lounge area, and at the end of this was this magnificent staircase leading to reception rooms upstairs, and directly to the station platform.

Emer Murray, crowned by food writer John McKenna as ‘the best baker in Ireland,’ was an unhappy law student at NUIG. She came from a business and insurance agents background, and the law just didn’t have the excitement she thought it would have. One day her mother Ena told her that John and Anne Sherry were looking for outside caterers. They had recently taken over Lydon House, and wanted croissants and Danish pastries for their breakfast menu. Emer, who had a passion for cooking, went into O’Gorman’s bookshop, bought a book on making breads and pastries, and, that evening called round to the Sherry household with samples. She got the job.