Summer jobs: How the young people are earning a few bob
Left: Órlaith Fallon and her cousin Aoibhinn on her Communion Day; Centre: Breffní Walsh on the trampoline with some of her her day-care dogs; Right: Emmet Gulliver
Breffní Walsh’s mother, Aine, runs Aine’s Kennels & Grooming in Stradbally, County Waterford. She says her daughter is “obsessed with animals and sport”.
“She had so much energy that she could run the kennels by herself between cleaning and sweeping and walking dogs,” says Aine.
“She’s like a dog whisperer. I see her sometimes with 12 dogs — she’ll walk them and do agility exercises and then she’ll have them jumping on the trampoline — they all adore her.”
“I run the kennels but her own little business is the ponies. She also minds the elder dogs who are too old for a kennel setting. It’s like a nursing home for dogs — she gives them their medicine and takes them outside.”
“I love working,” says Breffní. “I hate being bored sitting inside doing nothing.”
She spends the small amount of money she makes on new items for her pony. She recently bought a new bridle and is saving up for a saddle as she participates in tetrathlon events.
With Aine on hand to supervise, this summer Breffní has already looked after five ponies and has more on the way while friends are on holidays: “I set my alarm for 5.50am, get up at 6am and I’m ready to ride. I get the ponies out of the field, ride them and jump them over a few fences at the sand arena for about 30 or 40 minutes.”
Next up are the dogs: “I love going out with the dogs and playing with them,” says Breffní.
“There are 10 to 14 dogs every day. It takes a while to get used to some of them — especially if they’re snappy. At 8am I take the day care dogs from the customers. I take that gang up the field, have a good chat with them and sit under the big tree at the top of the field. It’s not challenging at all — it’s grand.”
Would she like to work with animals when she grows up?
“Of course,” laughs Breffní. “I’m going to take over this place from my Mam!”
In early 2020, as lockdown restrictions were lifting, Órlaith Fallon set up an Instagram account showcasing her love of baking. She didn’t expect anything to come of it but now she has turned her passion into a successful pocket money earner.
“I quickly gained followers and the word spread fast,” she says.
“Within a few days I was selling ‘treat boxes’ which included cookies, cupcakes, and brownies. Over the years my cake decorating skills have improved enormously and I now focus on celebratory cakes and cupcakes though I still make treats.”
Órlaith says that her parents have no interest in baking or cake decorating so it’s surprising that she picked up the hobby: “While my parents were always supportive of this venture it really was a case of the business evolving over time with a steep learning curve in relation to me figuring out costs, advertising and sales. My skills in baking and decorating were key to my business — so I focused on perfecting these.”
Having learnt many of her techniques from YouTube, the young baker says it was a case of trial and error until she found methods that worked best for her. She has appeared on RTÉ News and on the RTÉ’s news2day show thanks to her fundraising efforts which have seen her raise €4,720 for Down Syndrome Ireland with the help of Eoin Kennedy — her “little pal who loves to bake”.
“I’d say the hardest thing about running the business as a Leaving Cert student is to accommodate everyone while keeping up to date with schoolwork,” she says.
“I also work part-time baking in a local shop, so fitting everything in can be a little hectic but it’s all worth it when I see how much joy a cake can bring to an occasion!”
Now studying for an MA in Business Management at the University of Edinburgh, Emmet Gulliver says that running a small gardening operation in his local community was a great experience as a secondary school student.
Having worked in a local construction company, Emmet realised that he enjoyed working outdoors and doing physical work. In the April of 5th-year he printed out 500 business cards and distributed them in his local area.
“Before I knew it word of mouth spread and I was soon very busy,” he says.
“Because my family is big into gardening, I had all the tools at home so I didn’t have a big financial outlay. Having initially started by cutting people’s grass I then got into doing some landscaping — clearing people’s gardens, replanting, laying down gravel or bark or whatever people wanted and it took off from there.”
For Emmet it was a case of being able to work outdoors, choose his own hours and earn a bit of pocket money. “It helped me to realise my time management skills, my organisational skills, and to work with other people,” says the young university student who has just finished a work placement in London.
“At the outset people were a bit sceptical as to whether a young teenager could deliver: “I didn’t mind that — I just gave it a shot. I did feel that I had to prove myself at the start.”
Emmet kept up the work until the Autumn of 6th-year before giving it up to concentrate on his studies.
“It is interesting to look back on the experience,” he says. “It’s nice to come back and help out people who supported me at the time - it was a community-based thing.”
Would he recommend that other young people establish their own small enterprises to earn some pocket money over the summer holidays?
“It can certainly be easier to get a job in a local shop but it’s nice to be able to work in your own way and to put your own stamp on something. It is harder at the outset to start your own thing but it can be rewarding. Or it can go belly up! It can go both ways,” he says.
“I would say to other young people that you're never going to have as much freedom as you have when you’re young so take a leap of faith — if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work. At the end of the day, it’s all experience and it can teach you a lot — you have nothing to lose!”
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