Jennifer Horgan: The comfort of Cork's finest hotel lobby takes the edge off all that's wrong with this country

Some people, the tiniest minority, live in the grandeur of our most spectacular hotel lobbies every single second of their lives. Meanwhile, we’re all queuing like idiots for toilets that haven’t been cleaned in hours and pouring taxes into a system that doesn’t seem to function

Maybe the bustle of a city cafe appeals to some. I don’t know, maybe some people enjoy the challenge of a crumby toilet with a daily code and no toilet roll. Picture: Thinkstock/PA

We’ve started re-watching Cheers, the 1980s classic. I’m happy to report it has aged pretty well. And there is still something relevant about it — the importance of having a home away from home, somewhere you can go, to take a break from all your worries, to experience genuine warmth and hospitality.

Such places are few and far between these days — but they exist.

I certainly know where I go when I’m in need of comfort in my city — straight to a hotel lobby. I’ve four favourites in Cork, one smack bang in the centre of the city, and three close by, across the river. They’ve a lot in common: tasteful furnishings, a healthy splash of marble, high ceilings, good service, and (maybe most importantly) spotlessly clean toilets.

Real life is only a few steps away, right outside the window, and yet, in a hotel lobby you’re suspended in this lovely, liminal place, where everyone is on the cusp of something else; they’re arriving, leaving, meeting an old friend, a new acquaintance. They’re saying a final, sad goodbye, or maybe starting a brand new chapter, an exciting project.

It’s like a film set. A glowing bride wanders into the foyer. A newborn is introduced to his adoring aunts and uncles. A mother and daughter hold hands across a table, tearful in the corner. It’s all drama; all the stuff of life, swirling and swirling, until it thickens.

And there’s an etiquette to a hotel lobby that you won’t get elsewhere. A hotel is also a residence so it has that intimate, homely air about it. Your privacy is protected. You can look but you can’t look too long, and you certainly can’t stare. 

Gabriel Byrne walked past me in a hotel lobby in Dingle last year. I have adored the man for 30 years, but I knew to only glance. Everyone, no matter who they are, is left to their own story; we simply get to share the stage.

I may live to regret this column, best kept secrets and all, but seriously, I can’t understand why our beautiful city hotels aren’t absolutely buzzing. Nowhere else will you find the same level of comfort.

Customers are so often herded around like cattle without bladders these days. Maybe the bustle of a city cafe appeals to some. I don’t know, maybe some people enjoy the challenge of a crumby toilet with a daily code and no toilet roll. 

Not me. If I’m too far from one of my trusted hotel lobbies, I’m gliding up the escalator in Brown Thomas. It’s a trek and there’s often a queue, but there is also a clean toilet at the end of it, and (not to be under-valued) plenty of soap.

Small decencies like soap make me think of the old man I watched in Waterford City recently, being told he could certainly have his "pot of hot tay" so long as he didn’t mind drinking it out of a paper cup. I could tell he simply didn’t know how to respond to the young woman when she explained they didn’t use cups and saucers anymore.

Watching the poor man tremble towards his seat with a small silver pot and a crappy paper cup killed me. An elderly gentleman asking for tea should have it served in a bloody cup and saucer, no question. I nearly spat out my coffee when he was asked to pay something stupid like €7 for the pleasure. For what? For the insult of a takeaway cup he had no intention of taking away?

The scene was indicative of a general deterioration in customer service. We’re all paying more to get less. On a recent trip to Kildare Village, I was offered a device to pay my bill. The device bothered me enough, but on the screen were three options for tipping — 15%, 20% or 25%. The meal had been OK at best, and yet the option to tip 10% had left the building.

I also notice I’m being asked to pay a tip at the counter of coffee shops now. What is the tip for? I’m happy to tip for good service but I gave a 10% tip in a cafe in Kinsale last weekend for a watery coffee in a far too small paper cup. 

And I can’t even say I was served it. The girl behind the mammoth coffee machine did nothing other than shout that it was ready to collect. It looked pathetic and was too hot to hold — and yet I tipped her.

Something doesn’t add up. I know small business owners are squeezed because I know small business owners. I know workers are also being squeezed because I know workers. Our latest budget sees a 79c increase in the minimum wage, which will bring the current rate to €14.94 per hour. That’s an hour’s work for the cost of a short taxi ride. It’s an increase, but how much will workers feel it?

It’s the same with the benefits I’m promised as a parent in a two-income family. Will we actually feel it? My take will always be the same: stop the small improvements for individuals, the giveaways, and invest in infrastructure and services. Costs are bonkers anyway. Even with the change in tax brackets, people pay a lot of tax here. 

For people like me, working full-time and trying to bring up children, life is expensive. I have no problem paying tax. I take pride in it, but I would like to see it being invested wisely. I’m tired of tiny nips and tucks. 

I want deep and long-term investment. I mean, seriously, will every parent getting an increase of €6 on child support payment achieve anything? Plenty of us feel numb to these little adjustments.

I want the Government to inject any and all surplus money into reducing waiting lists in hospitals, while improving housing and public transport. I want the Government to concentrate on the collective, not the individual.

There is a throughline to all of this, and it leads right back to my hotel lobbies. Everything is being so pared back but the money and the comfort, the softening around the edges of everything, it’s going somewhere. Ireland's 11 billionaires are wealthier than 66% of the country's population. 

That’s worth thinking about — that some people, the tiniest minority, live in the grandeur of our most spectacular hotel lobbies every single second of their lives. 

Meanwhile, we’re all queuing like idiots for toilets that haven’t been cleaned in hours. Meanwhile, we’re all pouring taxes into a system that doesn’t seem to function.

What is to be done? Very little, perhaps. But I do love a good hotel lobby. It takes the edge off, Cheers me up a bit. At the very least, I know I’ll never be handed a paper cup there, and I value that. Just as I value the little complimentary biscuit I sometimes get on my saucer, reminding me I’m worth it.

And I am worth it. We all are.