10 years of The Dean - the Dublin disruptor that 'made hotels cool'

“Hop in. I’ve been waiting for you.” There’s a chilli-red note on my bed at The Dean in Cork.

I’ve been waiting, too. It’s an icy night, and the pitch-black hotel rises over Horgan’s Quay like something out of Gotham. But inside, it glows.

Locals and guests work out in a streetfront gym. A group of young women chat over cocktails in the rooftop Sophie’s. I check in under a scrawling neon sign (‘Non-stop beauty’), and make my way through now-familiar interiors of timber panelling, exposed concrete and vibrant Irish prints.

I pull a water from the Smeg fridge in my room, and drop the needle on some vinyl. “People’s houses have improved so much over the last 10-15 years,” says manager Shane Fitzpatrick. “They expect so much more.

The hotel room has to, if not be better, at least match that. It has to keep evolving.” It may not sound game-changing today.

But when the first Dean opened in Dublin just over a decade ago, developed by Paddy McKillen Jr and Matt Ryan’s Press Up, it absolutely was. It was a genuine disruptor..