ALISON COMYN
THE glorious weather was due to break the day I met Patrick Hanlon and Russell Alford, AKA the Gastro Gays, in Scholars Townhouse, but even if the sun hadn’t made an unscheduled appearance, the exuberance emanating from them both would have lit up the hotel.It’s been a just over a month since the duo attended their beloved Eurovision song contest in Lisbon - the first time out of their three annual trips to earn them proper wages - but they are still walking on cloud nine!
As food and travel bloggers, the boys have made the host countries of the annual music competition their niche theme.
“It was an amazing trip for us, and one of the highlights had to be when we were in the back row of the arena, in amongst a sea of Finland fans, when Ireland was the last country to qualify,” says Russell, who is originally from Balrothery.
“We were so ready to start giving out about the injustice again, but when we got through, naturally I started crying and screaming! For once, we didn’t have to pick another country to support.”
They both feel our man Ryan O’Shaughnessy was robbed, but for them, their travel guide for the capital city, written for RTE, was the real winner.
“Most guides tell you where to eat, but when it’s a Eurovision city, you are busy in the evenings, so we tell people where to get the fast, quick, street or good value, all tried by us,” explains Drogheda-born Patrick, whose parents live in the Hill of Rath.
“This year, if you looked up Lisbon guides on the internet, ours was the fourth most popular in the world.”
The pair cut their Eurovision teeth with a
“THIS YEAR, IF YOU LOOKED UP LISBON GUIDES ON THE INTERNET, OURS WAS THE FOURTH MOST POPULAR IN THE WORLD.”
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“We spent six weeks in Stockholm, one of the world’s most expensive cities, but managed to sell a few articles to the Independent,” explains 27-year-old Russell.
“No one really wanted anything from the Ukraine, but we thought it was an amazing city, and everyone was really surprised by our reviews.”
It was the couple’s common love of the song contest, a firm favourite for decades in the LGBT community, which initially brought them together, personally and professionally.
“We first met about eight or nine years ago, and I was nearly afraid to ask Russell if he liked it, and I was so relieved when I found out he did,” says Patrick, who is one year old than his partner. “Next year in Israel is still up in the air a bit, as they are still not sure if they are hosting it, but we really hope we get to travel there.”
It was around 2013 when both men decided to leave their jobs in Dublin and expand their horizons in London, if they were going to make their blogging a viable business.
“We had both studied in DCU and were both working in the creative food industry but wanted to spread our wings to try out a bigger market first,” explains Russell.
“By that stage, one of us - we will always argue which - came up with the name Gastro Gays, and it really took off after we started posting on our personal social media.” Fast forward to five years later, and the name is now firmly established as a respected and entertaining blog, which has a large and loyal following in Europe and beyond.
“It was when it started to branch out from just eating out to featuring our own adventures with food and our lives, our audience in UK and Ireland really grew,” adds Patrick.
“Food and travel are so perfectly aligned, it was a natural progression, and we like to think people can trust us and our opinion – it’s our authentic voices - and it’s for our followers, not just to show off our lives.”
The future is looking bright for the Gastro Gays, with regular appearances on TV3 catching television producers attention, and a Podcast about to start in the coming weeks.
“This is now our full-time job, which we never imagined it could be,” adds Russell, “and we are passionate about promoting producers in the Boyne Valley, so will feature them heavily in the first few podcasts,
“We have so many places we want to visit – can you believe we have never been to Italy – so we are hoping this adventure can take us to there and more.”
You get the feeling, as long as there is food in the world and the ability to travel, the sky is the limit for the Gastro Gays. photo credit Andres Poveda