Trade NamesNow 94, Norah Devlin has been to the forefront of the Irish country house hotel scene for many years, writes Rose Doyle

Norah Devlin may protest that she's always been a behind-the-scenes person who has restlessly moved on, doing what had to be done, but the facts of her life put her in the vanguard of the Irish country house hotel scene for the second part of the 20th century. She is an innovator, a woman of influence, courage and imagination.

Her career began when she and her mother, "Lovey" O'Mahony, bought a pub in Co Meath in the early 1950s.

By the time Norah came to own and run Moyglare Manor, the 18th century Co Kildare mansion which is something of a beau ideal among country house hotels, she'd been responsible for getting a host of what are "institutions" in today's hospitality industry up and running.

Now that Moyglare Manor is for sale she's having to think about moving again, somewhere smaller this time. Her daughter, Ann, and granddaughters, Janine and Annalisa, are helping look after things in the interim.

Norah Devlin is 94 and quite beautiful. Sitting in the morning sunlight when we meet, immersed in one of the three newspapers she reads daily, she has an instinctive elegance and a great story to tell.

Sadly for this writer's curiosity but, like the best hoteliers, she's not telling tales about her guests. Just her own, which is a lot more interesting than most anyway.

She was born in Sheffield, where her father "was in the Theatre Royal. I remember meeting Noel Coward in his dressing gown when he was doing Private Lives. And seeing Vivien Leigh."

From memories of Leigh she moves to memories of her mother, another beautiful woman and Norah Devlin's partner throughout her adventures in the hotel trade.

"She was from Clare and married my father out of school. He died and left her with five children, the oldest boy in a wheelchair. Another was killed in the war and another went to the US. We spent all of our childhood holidays in Clare. I loved Clare."

Her mother's family name was Agnes-Chambers. Norah's father was Maurice O'Mahony, from Cork. Agnes O'Mahony ran the Albert Hotel, Sheffield, and Norah, when she was 16, got her first real hotel experience when she insisted on leaving school to help.

Norah married in time and came to live in Ireland. "I always wanted to come back," she says.

In the late 1940s, her daughter's marriage not working out, Agnes too arrived back in Ireland. Mother and daughter, living in Curzon Street, Dublin 8, "started in business together by opening an off-licence. We had to start somewhere!"

Change tended to come out of the blue in Norah Devlin's life, rather than as the result of any thought-out plan.

"There was a nearby boarding house in Curzon Street. A man staying there told us there was a pub for sale in Ballymadon, Co Meath, which might suit us. We went for about two years then moved to Birr and opened another pub. My mother was the one who really did it - she could go into the middle of a desert and get by! She was a wonderful character, not afraid of anyone or anything."

After a few years in Birr they moved back to Co Meath, this time to Ashbourne and a pub called the Royal Bar. The year was 1952, the pub was renamed the Hunters Moon and a Co Meath landmark was born.

"They nicknamed my mother 'Lovey' in Ashbourne," Norah says, "and it stayed with her. She was so very popular. When a house came for sale in the town I bought it for £3,000 and did it up. My mother went to court and became the first woman in the country to get a bar licence."

Another landmark, Ashbourne House Hotel, was born.

"It became the 'in' place; The Dubliners started off there. All the doctors would come out from Finglas and the farmers, on their way back from the races, would sit at the bar and have big steaks."

She thinks about this for a moment: "People have got very fussy nowadays about food," she reflects.

Norah Devlin and Agnes "Lovey" O'Mahony ran the Hunters Moon from 1952 to 1962 and both it and Ashbourne House Hotel for the next 10 years.

"Ashbourne House was a very successful business but I always had itchy feet," Norah says, "kept wanting to move on. In 1972 I bought Barberstown Castle in Straffan, Co Kildare, and turned it into a small hotel and restaurant. We built it up between us and it became very successful. You could attack any job with my mother beside you. Eric Clapton used stay there and eventually bought it. He was married to Patti Boyd at the time. He was very nice, sitting at the bar quietly all day long. Lord and Lady Carew used come in a lot and one evening Lord Carew said to my mother: 'How are you?' She didn't know him and said she was fine but for fact that 'that old bugger Lord Carew is coming tonight'.

"Bishop Casey used call on his way from Kerry and my mother would get him to sing a song. Joseph Locke used come, too, and gave us a box in the Olympia once. Lord Harlech and his wife used come and a bar boy said he knew he was a lord by the way he blew his nose!"

There were "set-backs" in the Barberstown Castle days, but she's not one to dwell on such things, briefly referring only to "electricity blackouts and the oil crisis. I left some very nice pieces there when I sold," she says, revealing her love of old furniture and objets d'art, "conversation seats, a Davenport, grandfather clocks."

Norah's daughter, Ann Devlin, married from Barberstown Castle and her husband, Shay Curran, became an important part of the business.

Agnes "Lovey" O'Mahony died in Barberstown Castle in 1978. "It was a terrible time; she had a stroke on the eve of her 90th birthday and was buried on St Patrick's Day in a little graveyard in Straffan. People came from all over to the funeral."

Norah Devlin says she was always looking out for places for sale. In the early 1980s a local auctioneer told her that Moyglare was for sale "and that it would suit a business if I did my usual antics".

She bought Moyglare Manor in 1982. "It was in bad condition but I got great builders in from Dublin and did what I'd done before all over again. Ann got a house nearby where she lived with her husband, Shay, and children. Shay became more involved in the business when we came here. He built it up and we carried on with the same style of thing I'd always had and which people liked. He died in 2005. He was 61, far too young. Everyone was shocked."

Moyglare Manor has given bed and board to an impressively eclectic celebrity list over the years. Gene Autry stayed there, and so did Pierce Brosnan, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, Robert Redford, Paul Hogan and Bette Midler. Helen Mirren stayed with her mother, Ronnie Woods of The Rolling Stones spent three months there with his family.

"Bob Dylan spent a month during which he used to walk and visit the local pub for a pint at night in a regular routine.

Norah's itchy feet settled in Moyglare. "I knew we'd never get a location like it again, so near Dublin. I've enjoyed every house, but I've always been behind the scenes. Shay was quite a character, he ran this place really well."

Ann Devlin says her mother is unduly modest, that she was "penniless when she started out. There wasn't a bank that wanted to know her; she walked the streets of Dublin alone trying to get a loan. In the end she had to sell her wedding presents to buy Ballymadun. The Provincial Bank in O'Connell Street eventually gave her a £200 loan."

When I ask Norah Devlin how she turned old houses into uniquely welcoming hotels she's non-plussed.

"I never ran an hotel," she says, "I always lived in a home that I enjoyed. I have my own quaint ways. I always had the house full of flowers. It's not the same without them. I always saw that we'd a good chef too."