Margaret’s goal is to make House a home

City Lives  – Bernie Ní Fhlatharta hears that working in the hospitality business is in Margaret Jenkins’ genes

It’s probably ageist to say that Margaret Jenkins looks far too young to be a hotel manager but she is and yet she’s the right fit as the boutique House Hotel must be one of the hippest in the city.

And if first appearances are dominated by her age, it is not long into the conversation that you discover that hospitality and business is in her blood as she comes from one of the oldest families in the Latin Quarter, the McDonaghs.

Margaret remembers folding napkins in her aunt’s Martine’s Wine Bar when she was just eight and years later clearing tables in The Quays Bar (then owned by her uncle Seán) and in the Spanish Arch Hotel when her aunt, Easter owned it. Her grandmother of course was in her day, the doyenne of Quay Street when she operated McDonagh’s fish shop. And her relations, the Finns operate the House Hotel too.

The fish shop is still in the family and is one of the oldest establishments in the city. So, Margaret (named after her grandmother) comes from just the right family to be now running the House Hotel, as she knows almost everyone in the immediate neighbourhood and further afield!

She is a powerhouse of energy. Not one of those people who soaks other people’s energy but one who creates it and energises others. She is just out of a team-building meeting when we meet so she is beaming with motivation.

Such is her approach to everything that she has been preparing for the interview – only she thought it was for another slot elsewhere in the paper, In Profile, and had been thinking about her answers to questions like ‘what would be her last meal’ etc. She laughs when she realises her mistake but isn’t fazed. Oh and she’s a self-confessed foodie so there are many options for her ‘last meal’ choice!

Margaret studied business in GMIT but branched into tourism marketing, which stands to her now. After a post-grad degree in PR and event management in Dublin (again good choices for her particular career choice) she worked with the international agency, Hill & Knowlton. One of their clients is Samsung and once they realised Margaret spoke Irish, she became their Irish language spokesperson, which resulted in good sound bytes on TG4 and Irish radio stations as they introduced different products to the market. They were the first to introduce a mobile phone that could text ‘as Gaeilge’ so Margaret was the obvious choice to front that promotion.

And though she enjoyed every minute in Dublin, she jumped at the chance to move home to Galway.

“Yeah, I’m one of those people who returned home almost every weekend for the social life!! You can’t beat the buzz around Galway,” she says.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.