Meet the first woman at the helm at Cork’s ‘Grand Dame’

Recently appointed as the new General Manager of Cork’s iconic Imperial Hotel, Lorraine Gavigan’s career in hospitality began over two decades ago with a summer job in the Faithlegg House Hotel.

That autumn, the Tipperary native started a construction management course in Waterford but quickly realised that it wasn’t for her.

“My dad said to me, ‘what are you good at?’” Lorraine recalls. “And I said, ‘I’m good at working in hotels’.”

So that’s what the then 18-year-old decided to do – dropping out of college and applying to three hotel trainee management programmes. When she was accepted by the Dromoland Castle scheme, she knew immediately that she was making the right choice.

“I’m not necessarily an academic person,” she says. “College just isn’t for me. I learn through doing. And so the trainee management programme at Dromoland was better for me. I was in the kitchens, I was in the housekeeping department, I was a cocktail waitress, I was a chef. You name it, I did it”.

Lorraine has carried this early experience with her throughout her career.

“It has stood to me because you really see the struggles that everyone is going through. You understand that when the dishwasher breaks down, it has a knock-on effect on the chef, the restaurant staff and then on the customers. You have a really good overview of how a hotel really works, and I’m not sure that necessarily translates through textbooks.”

After her three-year trainee management programme, Lorraine moved to Massachusetts to take up a hotel supervisor role. This was followed by time in London, where she got further experience under her belt, but felt homesick for Ireland. It was at this point that Lorraine started her first job in the city that she would come to call home, at the then-new Cork International Hotel.

“We were there in hard hats in a prefab writing SOPs (Standard Operating Procedure) for the hotel that was just about to be open,” Lorraine reminisces. “That was really exciting, being part of the opening team.”

She completed a year in Cork before the opportunity arose to co-open a restaurant in Mullingar. She left her heart, however, in the Rebel County.

“I had fallen in love with Cork,” she admits. “Just coming back from London and the busyness of it and the rat race. Cork city is nice and compact, and it felt like home”.

After a few years in Mullingar, followed by Dublin, the opportunity to return to Cork – to the International Hotel as Food and Beverage Manager – presented itself. Lorraine grabbed it with both hands. She stayed there for a further two years before moving to the Clayton, where she held a variety of roles and had the chance to spend a year in Düsseldorf.

After this latest overseas experience, Lorraine was keen to return home. She had bought a house in Cork and was looking for a General Manager role at a Leeside hotel.

“I saw that the Imperial had come up,” says Lorraine. “I thought, ‘it’s right on my doorstep. I’d be a fool not to apply’. It was the job I wanted.”

Lorraine’s application was successful, and the rest is history – in more ways than one, as she became, upon her appointment in August, 2025, the Imperial Hotel’s first female General Manager in its 210 years.

Lorraine describes starting her role as a “mixed bag” of emotions. It was exciting, but daunting too to be taking on the General Manager position of such a well-known Cork institution, known colloquially as the ‘Grand Dame’ of the city. The close-knit Cork hotel community has proved to be a great support as she found her feet in the new job:

“That’s what I love about Cork, that it does feel like more of a community... Even though we’re in competition with each other, we’re looking out for each other as well.”

Having spent a number of years working in the corporate hotel environment, the guest-focused approach and memorable little touches of a family-run establishment like the Imperial have been a real source of inspiration for Lorraine.

“After a few weeks of being in the role, I was like, ‘there’s so much I want to do, little things that will elevate the guest experience. And we have the ability to do that here because you sit down with the owners and they’re like, ‘yeah, absolutely’. I was shocked when I walked in here first and they were like, ‘we give free glasses of prosecco to everyone who checks in... Louis (Fitzgerald – of the family hotel group who acquired the Imperial in 2023) wants everyone to feel special’.”

Thanks to small initiatives like these – the prosecco, gifts at Christmas, treats for guests celebrating special occasions – the Imperial sees the same customers returning year after year. This is not something that Lorraine witnessed at other hotels, and she appreciates the difference.

“It’s an experience,” she notes of staying at the Imperial. “It’s not a hotel room that you’re just throwing your bag into and then heading out into the city. Guests go for afternoon tea, they go to the spa, they come down for a cocktail before dinner.”

Lorraine spent Christmas at the hotel – checking in herself on Christmas Eve and out again on St Stephen’s Day. She enjoyed building relationships with guests who chose to spend the festive period at the Imperial.

“On St Stephen’s morning, I was hugging people and they were saying, ‘we can’t wait to be back again next year!’ I had an older gentleman come up to me and say, ‘it’s my first Christmas on my own so I wanted to treat myself. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was just amazing and ye looked after me’. And I was just like, ‘my god, this is lovely’.”

With its spa, themed afternoon tea experiences and refurbished bar, the Imperial has kept up with modern market demands. It has, however, a famously long history at the heart of Cork city. One of Lorraine’s favourite stories about the hotel’s varied past has a royal connection that endures to this day.

“There was a royal visit in 1961,” she reveals, referring to Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco’s stay at the hotel. “And every year since, we have been sent a Christmas card from the Monaco Royal Family! I opened it this year and was like, ‘what is this?’ and the Sales Manager was like, ‘yeah, we get them every year!’ It’s a different picture of the family every year, and it’s beautiful, so nice.”

It’s clearly the case that nobody forgets a stay at the Imperial, and ensuring that this legacy continues is one of Lorraine’s priorities as General Manager going forward.

“Operational excellence is key for me,” she says. “I want to elevate the standards that we already have in place and to keep them there, and to keep the ties between the local community and the nostalgia that the hotel brings to a lot of families.”

Lorraine has brought on new managers since starting in her role, and is confident that this new team, combined with the pre-existing staff – some of whom have been at the hotel for decades – share the common goal of providing the best service they possibly can.

She has big ambitions for the ‘Grand Dame’ and a drive to achieve them, all the while ensuring that the hotel continues to feel both timeless and distinctly Cork.

As Lorraine concludes: “The Imperial is an institution. I want the hotel recognised for how great it is and for the landmark that it is in Cork city”.