Meet Sinead (Mc Carthy) Murphy General Manager at The Brehon Hotel & Spa
Sinead Murphy is a native of Drimoleague in West Cork
Sinead studied hospitality management in CIT and GMIT and following on from this spent 10 years with Choice Hotels in Cork, Dublin & Kildare, including Carton House Resort and Spa and Dublin’s Gibson Hotel. Throughout her time with Choice Hotels Sinead held various positions.
A year in Australia ensued where she worked with a premier events agency that specialised in high profile events.
Sinead joined the team at The Brehon in 2014 as Bar Manager and her hard working attitude and determination seen her progress to senior role of General Manager by 2018.
More recently, Sinead returned to education and received a Higher Diploma in Human Resources from University College Cork. In 2016, Sinead was awarded Hospitality Manager of the Year in the Food and Beverage category from the Irish Hospitality Institute. The panel of judges commended her hard work, leadership skills and her ability to implement strategies to achieve revenue growth.
Sinead is a member of SKAL Kerry and is also an advisor to the Killarney Tidy Towns Committee on green hospitality, she is currently an executive board member for Kerry’s Irish Hotels Federation and in addition to this serves on the IHF National Council.
The Brehon is a renowned and well established hotel and a leader in service excellence, it is an honour to spearhead a team that continues to maintain our existing standards and works tirelessly to increase our customers’ expectations.
Always thinking outside the box Sinead and her team have successfully hosted the many largescale events not refined to the confines of The Brehon itself, including a barbeque on The Brehon Lawn for over 700 conference delegates, the famous Cannonball Run, Meitheal’s Welcome Night and Shopify’s Employee Event each with over 500 delegates, DerTours international conference, Irish Hotel Federations Annual Ball and more.
“I love working in the hospitality industry and have learnt a great deal in my various roles. I love working with my team to deliver the best in class experiences that our customers expect, led by some incredible women of course!”
We have in incredible team of hospitality professionals and many of our management team are women, who, without their dedication to our hotel, we’d be lost without.
Our team have helped us to achieve some incredible awards over the past number of years including:
· Munster’s Wedding Venue of The Year in the prestigious
WeddingsOnline Awards
· Gold IASI Award which certifies that The Brehon has achieved
excellence in Accommodation Services Standards as set out by
the Irish Accommodation Services Institute
· Gold Merit Award from CIE, achieving 94% in customer
satisfaction surveys
· Finalist in the renowned Virgin Media Gold Medal Awards
· TripAdvisor Travel Choice Award in 2022, among other regular
TripAdvisor accolades
The patience and resilience of our teams allowed us to carefully navigate the past 3 years of the pandemic and I’m delighted to see the return to pre pandemic business. It will be a few years until the hospitality recovery reaches pre-pandemic levels, but we’re on an incredible journey and look forward to all the future holds.
“Every woman’s success should be an inspiration to another. We’re strongest when we cheer each other on.”
Any advice for someone wishing to pursue a career in the hospitality industry?
Where possible seek out industry leaders, work with them and learn from their knowledge and experience, if correct procedures are learned you will carry those with you throughout your career
The hospitality sector offers good prospects for early responsibility, so if you show a willingness and ability to learn, you can gain great experience.
Hospitality is a fast paced environment, if you have a love for delivering exceptional customer service and enjoy working with people you’ll excel.
Everyday offers new learning and this is what excites me most about the industry. It is continuously evolving and we can always do more.
