Last Minute Rent a Car, with its large international audience, has embarked on a quest to feature the most interesting businesses around the world, with a focus on creativity and modern business practices. We aim to promote passion and creativity in various fields.

As our first feature in this series, we are delighted to introduce Mr. Declan Quinn who runs Irish House Party, a unique Dublin establishment providing a unique cultural and gastronomical experience.

1. Tell us about your beginnings. How did the unique idea of the Irish House Party emerge? Was it first a theater-like performance that added fine dining to its repertoire, or did you first start it as a pub/restaurant and added the music later?

My name is Declan Quinn. I play traditional Irish flute and tin whistles. I would have been playing traditional Irish music at sessions in pubs and at house parties around Dublin 15 years ago.

At one of these pub sessions I met my now business partner Gerry Nolan, who plays the guitar and sings. We thought it would be a great idea for people who come to Dublin to be able to experience what a real Irish house party with traditional Irish music and dancing is like. Proper authentic traditional Irish music can be hard to find in Dublin so we set up The Irish House Party.

2. What venue did you first use for this?

We started upstairs in a small pub in Dublin called Toners pub on Baggot street. As the popularity of the show grew, we moved it down the road to a lovely 18th century town house called The Lansdowne Hotel. We added the traditional Irish 3 course dinner option here which guests can enjoy before the show and is very popular.

3. Irish House Party manages quite incredible ratings among reviewers from all over the world, with 4,8 on Google Maps and 4,6 on TripAdvisor. We were especially amused to see several reviews praising your establishment as "the very opposite of a tourist trap". What, in your opinion, is the key to achieving such a consistently positive experience among your audience?

Yes, our reviews are very good, and we really appreciate the feedback from our guests. In fact, many guests come back to visit us again so that must be a good sign. It takes a lot of hard work from our staff, musicians and dancers to keep up the high quality.

We think the key to achieving such a consistently positive experience among our audience is primarily that Gerry and I take a hands-on approach with providing the experience. We are there ourselves most nights, performing in the show, and it adds a nice personal touch.

We also keep the experience as an intimate one for our guests where we would never allow more than 80 audience members on any date. This is different from a lot of other generic 'Dinner/Show experiences in Dublin which often have busloads of tourists creating that 'tourist trap' that you mentioned.

Finally, our musicians and dancers are of the highest quality in Dublin. Many of our musicians are All Ireland champions performers and our dancers have danced all over the world with shows like Riverdance and Lord of the Dance.

In relation to the food, we offer freshly cooked traditional Irish food, which is cooked on site every day and all our ingredients are sourced from local suppliers which guests really appreciate.

4. What advice would you give to Croatian and other European businesses looking to produce a similar experience in their countries?

I would say that the main thing is that you must really enjoy and have a love for what you are doing. Myself and Gerry love playing traditional Irish music with our friends and it’s such a big part of the culture in Ireland. We want visitors to really get up close to experience this and when they see how much enjoyment our musicians and dancers are getting from the performances, they simply can’t help but feel happy and uplifted when leaving the show themselves. You have to remember that people who are on holidays want to have fun. If you can give them a wow factor and put a smile on their faces, they are usually very happy.

5. As you know, there is quite a large Croatian diaspora living and working in Ireland. Do you have any employees or contractors from our country?

Yes actually, one of our chefs comes from Croatia! His name is Bartos, and he is a brilliant chef. He has been living in Ireland for 20 years. Dublin and Cork actually have the largest Croatian communities in Ireland. Both Ireland and Croatia obviously have a deep sense of national pride after struggling for their independence, with traditional music and storytelling very important in both. We have our Céilís, jigs and reels and Croatia has Klapa singing and tamburica music.

6. Considering the prominent cultural aspect of your business, do you receive any support from the City of Dublin or the national authorities?

We don't receive any financial support but we do receive lots of good educational and learning support from Fáilte Ireland, the tourism body here. They are regularly putting on courses and meetings, and also their online learning options are very good for businesses like us in the tourism sector

7. What's next in store for Irish House Party? Given the unique art aspect of your business, would it be possible to expand to other cities in Ireland, or possibly abroad?

It’s funny you ask that question, actually. We have just signed with a promoter in the UK and we will be doing an extensive theatre tour in England and Scotland next year with the show. We are really looking forward to this.

Our main focus will always be on the show at our home in Dublin and this will also continue running next year and beyond hopefully. We look forward to welcoming visitors to Dublin to The Irish House Party and know they will have a wonderful time!

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It was an absolute pleasure to interview the Irish House Party team, and we wish them all the best in their future endeavours!