By Irishexaminer.com,Ruth O’connor

Copyright irishexaminer

The first thing I’ll do is take the dogs out through the front door of the castle – it’s a chance to see what Mother Nature is throwing at me that day.

It’s a beautiful spot with a view over the Boyne – it’s nice to take a breath before everything kicks off.

We do a lot of events, so in the early morning on a Saturday it can be quite busy.

Because we live on site, and because the team might have worked late the night before, we might be letting in the marquee company or the hairdresser for a bride – there’s often access meetings and facilitating people getting set up before the main team arrives.

Then we try to do a family breakfast with eggs from the farm, a quiet catch-up and plenty of coffee.

Saturday still tends to be about sports and matches so often it will be about packing the boys – Caspar (13) and Rory (15) – into the car and heading off to Gaelic, soccer or rugby depending on the time of year.

Our eldest, our daughter Laragh (16), has a condition called Rhett Syndrome, so on Saturdays she will come around to the matches with us – Saturday is a big sports day for us as it is for many parents.

Saturday is my day to do a check on the livestock.

We have Dexter cattle, we keep pigs and chickens, so I’ll do a walk around the farm and make sure everything is all good.

My father died recently, of course, so I’m farming organically about 300 acres of the estate of 1,500 acres.

We try to use our own produce as much as possible in our food and beverage operations – both at Slane Castle and at Rock Farm Slane. Both businesses are wedding venues but we also host festivals and events.

We have been heavily involved in operations for a long time, but, since Dad died of course, we take on even more responsibility…

We are widening the business which will hopefully include the big gigs that we are hoping to bring back so there’s a good bit of planning going on at the moment.

We are currently hosting CAIM, an exhibition featuring the work of 19 Irish and international artists – encouraging a dialogue between them on the theme of ‘sanctuary’.

It’s about using the castle and estate as a blank canvas to push the boundaries of the cultural realm at the castle beyond music into other artforms.

It’s a really exciting exhibition featuring contemporary art against the backdrop of the 18th Century castle and we hope it will become an annual event that will bring in international artists and buyers each September.

In the afternoon I might also get roped into doing the odd whiskey tasting with a group of distributors or bartenders from the US at the distillery.

I do try to make myself available for that when I can and have been known to sneak in an Irish coffee with some visitors.

We might do a family walk with the dogs or it might just be my wife Carina and I.

If we are lucky we might get in a swim and a sauna – we now have a natural pool and sauna at Rock Farm Slane as well as two guesthouses, six yurts and two shepherds huts.

In the summer we’ll have weddings and corporate events on most weekends but we try to sneak our moments when we can.

We also love to go to festivals ourselves – if we are not working at an event and we’re off over the summer we will be at a festival like Another Love Story or the Festival of Writing and Ideas.

When you’re in the middle of a busy hospitality business sometimes you need to go and have fun at someone else’s event. It’s important to escape sometimes because we are running a seven days a week business and it can be difficult to switch off.

For dinner we might treat ourselves to a night off cooking and order a takeaway, and yes, delivery drivers have been surprised to bring takeaway food to the door of a castle but most of them know us by now!

We might have some friends around for dinner, a glass of wine and a few whiskeys.

We don’t do as much entertaining as we would like, but, as the kids are teenagers now, we try to have some of their friends around as well.

We have opened up accommodation in the castle now so the five bedrooms below our quarters are open to guests.

I will do a final check on them, and if they’re all good and we are not entertaining, the five of us might jump up on the big bed upstairs and watch something together.

I’ll try to be asleep by midnight on Saturday. I’m lucky that I generally sleep well – I need to when I get up so early every day.

The inaugural CAIM exhibition at Slane Castle continues until September 30.
Curated by Jenn Ellis and Matilda Liu, it features immersive installations, sculptures and multimedia works by both emerging and established Irish and international artists.
See caimatslane.com