Paul Stenson, the charmless proprietor of publicity-hungry north Dublin hotel Charleville Lodge, got some more media attention this week with yet another fabricated controversy. A quick glance at the hotel's accounts shows that his tiresome PR guff appears, rather depressingly, to be working.
Stenson’s previous publicity wheezes included offering discounts for ripped down referendum posters and telling customers to sleep in homeless shelters if they don’t like Charleville’s pricing.
This week, it posted CCTV footage of customers “horsing” into food, as part of a campaign to bully a customer who had left a negative review of the hotel’s White Moose Cafe.
Recent accounts for Celestine, the company behind the hotel, show accumulated losses of €1.6 million, but it was just about profitable last year after making losses in previous years.