{"id":4456,"date":"2025-08-17T08:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T08:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/4456\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T08:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T08:13:09","slug":"my-favourite-room-growing-up-gay-in-rural-ireland-and-being-bullied-is-what-i-figured-is-at-the-root-of-my-alcoholism-inside-noel-cunninghams-renovated-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/4456\/","title":{"rendered":"My favourite room: \u2018Growing up gay in rural Ireland and being bullied is what I figured is at the root of my alcoholism\u2019 \u2013 inside Noel Cunningham\u2019s renovated childhood home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nBroadcaster, hotelier and author Noel Cunningham spent many years living in luxury in plush hotels here and abroad, however he\u2019s delighted to make his base the house in Donegal where he grew up with his five siblings, now furnished in a riot of joyful colour\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Hotelier, TV personality and author Noel Cunningham outside the cottage in which he was born and which he moved into again eight years ago following renovations. Photo: Tony Gavin\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1ae59e20-9ef7-41fd-b171-dd7162d35070.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Hotelier, TV personality and author Noel Cunningham outside the cottage in which he was born and which he moved into again eight years ago following renovations. Photo: Tony Gavin<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Half doors used to be a common sight in the Irish countryside, and while they were designed for ventilation, an open half door also meant the occupants were at home and welcoming. So, it seems fitting that Noel Cunningham put a half door on his family cottage when he took it over nine years ago. Noel, the second most famous hotelier in Ireland after Francis Brennan, has spent his life welcoming people in his professional capacity as a hotel manager.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">He\u2019s worked in hospitality since his teens and he\u2019s spent many years with Jurys Doyle Hotels (now The Doyle Collection), Trust House Forte in England, then with Harvey\u2019s Point in Donegal. He retired some years ago but because he has such an engaging personality, colourful way of dressing and eloquent turn of phrase, he\u2019s been in demand ever since for TV, radio and charitable activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broadcaster, hotelier and author Noel Cunningham spent many years living in luxury in plush hotels here and abroad,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,4746,4850,1181],"class_list":{"0":"post-4456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-life-magazine","13":"tag-mary-osullivan","14":"tag-rte"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}