Dining out in style for charity

A butler in top hat and tails and a bevy of maids in lace-trimmed caps and aprons serving afternoon tea — is this Downton Abbey or Dunmanway?

Dining out in style  for   charity

That’s the question for the hundreds of visitors to the West Cork town for afternoon tea, overseen by a butler and served by an army of uniformed parlour maids in a candle-lit, lace-curtained dining room.

Over this weekend, hundreds of visitors will be greeted by Jeeves at the door of Cox’s Hall in Dunmanway, before being led by Rosie, the chief parlour maid, to tables dressed in the finest lace and brightened by antique china, tall candlesticks, and traditional flower arrangements.

Visitors can browse displays of precious bone china, some of it dating back 400 years, as well as the most delicate of Victorian silverware.

Visitors will dine on fine sandwiches and home-made cakes served on antique china, and enjoy the attention of a maid who will serve tea and coffee to the background strains of a cello.

This is the second year of the Victorian Tea Party. Last year it attracted some 700 guests from the Munster region and ran for three days, raising nearly €5,000 for Dunmanway Community Hospital.

“We’re recreating the ambience of long ago,” said hospital matron Catherine White. “The atmosphere will be sociable and unhurried and guests can relax and enjoy the kind of service the gentry would have been used to all those years ago,”

* The Victorian Tea Party takes place on Friday and Saturday, from 12pm to 6pm. Entry is €10 per adult and children free.

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