Paul Callaghan on cooking, gardening and surviving recession depression
Take a sharp economic nose-dive, followed by a helping of fully-fledged recession, add the earth-shattering loss of your successful company and a generous dollop of depression. Simmer gently before adding a heart-to-heart with your big sister. That should do it.
Back in early 2008, 29-year-old Paul Callaghan was a self-employed plasterer running a successful company employing several tradesmen. “I started as a plasterer at the age of 18 and set up my business around the age of 24. There was plenty of work,” recalls the Armagh native, now 34.
“We were working in an area between Monaghan and Cavan. Everyone in the area was building and everyone wanted us. We did good work and didn’t charge scandalous prices.”
Work flowed in and he was forced to turn down jobs on a weekly basis. Until March 2008 when the phones stopped ringing as Ireland’s economy imploded.
“Dublin shut down overnight and workers returned to their local areas so there were more people looking for the work,” he recalls.
Between March and October of that year the company didn’t get a single job-related call. It was a massive shock.
“In October we did our last job.”
He closed the company and moved to Co Clare, where his sister Louise lived and set up a handyman service.
“It was an awful shock. I had thought this was to be my career.”
Small jobs trickled in. “I did everything from washing windows to gardening.”
But his troubles followed him. When he moved in November 2008 he had a lot of debts mounting up. “I was burying my head in the sand and ignoring everything,” Callaghan admits.
Depression set in. “Anything I was earning was going to pay off these debts. I was getting threatening letters. I kept it all pretty much bottled up,” recalls Callaghan, the youngest in a family of nine.
“I was in that dark place for about 18 months. I didn’t tell anyone and I didn’t get treatment, which I should have got.”
One day things came to a head.
“I got about five different calls from people demanding money.” In desperation, he rang Louise.
“That was the first time I opened up about it.”
Louise encouraged him to be less defeated about it all, and to take things day by day.
“It was such a weight off my shoulders to confide in somebody.”
The sound advice from Louise got Callaghan moving again. “I made arrangements with the banks and the credit card people and started making payments out of my earnings from the new handyman service.”
The handyman service became busier because, he thinks, he was re-energised.
“Before that, although I was getting calls from people who wanted work done, I didn’t want to get up and go out.
“I was depressed and I had lost all motivation. But following the conversation with my sister I started working again.”
Some time later, Callaghan saw a doctor for his depression, and started a course of treatment which has been very successful.
In 2010 he took a notion to plant vegetables — he chose potatoes, onions courgettes and peas for his fledgling an 8’ x 6’ plot.
“When I was able to see past my clouded eyes and the depression had lifted a bit, I started gardening in the house I had rented near Clarecastle.”
“Up to then I was one of those guys – breakfast roll men,” he says. “Food was something that I put into my mouth and that I’d no great passion for.
“But once I started growing my own vegetables I began learning how to cook.
“I got books out of the library to show me how to grow vegetables and then I borrowed cookery books to learn how to cook them.”!
One of the first things he cooked, he recalls, was a potato and leek soup.
By the beginning of 2011 Callaghan had tried and typed up about 70 recipes.
Someone suggested he upload them to the internet and he started a blog, The Sustainable Larder.
The blog contained information about his experiences of growing and cooking vegetables.
It started to get a lot of hits and was soon spotted by Alan Swan, a producer on the RTÉ 2fm radio show Breakfast with Hector. “He asked me to go on and speak about growing my own vegetables and cooking them.”
Callaghan did, and the radio show brought his blog a lot of very positive exposure.
Fast approaching 90k hits on the blog, lets get it up there today, its Friday and I'm feeling lucky http://t.co/HoDid5yV44 Please RT
— Paul Callaghan (@calsocooks) January 17, 2014
Soon he was growing more than 30 different varieties of vegetables and fruit and baking — his new business is now also offering a range of homemade cakes for birthdays, First Communions, anniversaries and other big days.
And he finally opened up about the depression:
“I began to talk on Facebook and Twitter and I got a good response from people.”
The response was so good that by 2012 he’d decided to run a series of half-marathons to increase awareness of the condition and raise money for the mental health lobby group AWARE.
“I did a half marathon in every county in Ireland over 12 days. In all it was 419 miles,” he recalls, adding that in the process he managed to raise about €4,000 for the organisation.
Then a fellow blogger, Sheila Kelly, suggested he approach Mercier Books with an idea for a cookery book.
In November of that year, he did — and the response from the publisher was enthusiastic.
The resultant book, Calso Cooks — since his youth, Callaghan has been known as Calso to friends and acquaintances — was launched earlier this month, while Callaghan got on with putting together his second cookery book, running the handyman service, growing his vegetables and expanding his food business.
So, who has picked up a copy? #Calsocooks pic.twitter.com/ChmwigP6eF
— Paul Callaghan (@calsocooks) January 13, 2014
He also has a column in EasyFood magazine, and contributes to the Breakfast Show on 2fm as well as Clare FM.
Callaghan’s Christmas present to his mother was a no-brainer – she received “a very early copy” of Calso Cooks.
“She was very pleased with it,” he says.
“For me it’s onwards and upwards.”
* Calso Cooks: Real Food Made Easy by Paul Callaghan, (Mercier Press) at €19.99. See Calso Cooks on Facebook and @calsocooks on Twitter
