Bill Wolsey

A Taste of Ireland

Sunday, 25 July 2021 - 38 minutes

By any stretch of the imagination Bill Wolsey OBE is a remarkable man. Born to socialist parents in Belfast in the 50s, He now has a portfolio of pubs, restaurants and hotels including, the five star Merchant Hotel in Belfast where we are coming to you from this evening.

“Give people a product or service your staff are proud of and you’ll keep both your staff and your customers” he claims. This interview looks at Bill’s amazing journey and shows a man that hasn’t forgotten where he came from. Bill believes in the importance of helping people that didn’t have the start he had in life.

When he bought the dilapidated building that was to become The Merchant Hotel, the Tourist Board advised him that Belfast wasn’t ready for a hotel of such splendour. Now, it’s championed as one of the great hotels of the world…. Recently Bill's Belfast-based Beannchor Group has been granted planning approval to build its first hotel in Dublin. The €30 million (£25.6m) project will redevelop the Victorian-era Boland’s bakery and biscuit factory off Dublin’s Capel Street into an eight-storey 98-bedroom hotel.