Hotelier and TV presenter Francis Brennan has told RTÉ One's Life & Soul Christmas Special that he lost "close to €10 million" over the years but doesn't "obsess about the past".
The Park Hotel Kenmare owner makes his comments in an interview with Life & Soul's Colm Flynn which airs on RTÉ One on Sunday, December 29 at 11:00am.
While discussing his faith, Brennan also opens up about challenges he has faced in his professional life.
"I didn't have a good recession, no," he laughs.
"I took a very hard hit because I was involved in all sorts of things, which were for my pension, which were for going forward. But, when all that fell apart, as it did, I still had a job here, with a cash flow. I wasn't like a poor developer who was building offices and when they stopped being built he had no money."
"But you still lost nearly everything you'd had and built up," says Flynn.
"But, you see, I don't obsess about the past," explains Brennan.
"I'm very lucky. I don't look [back], I always go forward. And I never say... Like, I lost, I don't know... I'd say I could've lost close to €10 million, in cash now, over all the years that I put into things that I lost. So that's loss."
"How can you not get upset about that, Francis?" asks Flynn.
"No, I don't," Brennan replies. "I don't. I don't get upset. We had difficult years with the banks alright? Here at the hotel as well because business dropped and people weren't [staying]. And I didn't let one employee go. I stayed with the staff; they worked with me, fantastically. We all managed to take holidays at times when we wouldn't have before, just to keep the things right.
"So we were lucky like that. But I don't look back and say... And I think that's a blessing - again from God, I believe - that I didn't have that within my mind because it would put you [under].
"Listen, for all the money that I lost there isn't a bridge high enough to jump from, God bless us and save us, do you know what I mean? Because it was a big amount."
"So I just never looked back, I moved forward," Brennan concludes.
"We'd rob Peter to pay Paul - we did all sorts of things. I got a media career in the middle of it all, which was brilliant, because it was good for the hotel and also good for cash flow, which was good. So you don't have to live at the high level at all times."
The Life & Soul Christmas Special, which also features presenter Áine O'Neill's interviews with world boxing champion Katie Taylor and Irish hockey player Elena Tice, airs on RTÉ One on Sunday, December 29, at 11:00am.
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
