Munster rugby legend Peter O'Mahony: 'People are very interested in gardening these days'
Peter O'Mahony, co-founder of Active Brewing. Picture: Joleen Cronin
Munster and Ireland rugby star Peter O’Mahony met his new business partner after bonding over a “mutual love of Range Rovers”.
About a year after retiring as a professional athlete, he is “still finding” his feet and getting used to a new routine as a businessman.
O’Mahony co-founded Active Brewing with Pat Falvey, in association with Blarney Brewing, and the pair launched their first products — a line of zero alcohol beers — last February.
“I sold Pat a Range Rover about three years ago, and we kept in touch. He texted me and said he was thinking about doing a zero brand.
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"We sat down and spoke about the opportunities and how the market was growing hugely,” he told the .
O’Mahony said there was a “functional side” to beer these days, as people grow more conscious about their health.
“I've always enjoyed a few beers, but obviously, given my career, it wasn't like you could have a beer whenever you wanted to, so we used to have to pick and choose our dates.
“When I first started playing, there were one or two options [zero alcohol], and they'd probably be hard to find. It has changed a lot these days.
"I think everyone is a bit more conscious about the effects of alcohol and intake levels.
“But at the same time, people want and need to be social, they need to be out meeting people. I think the zero zero options are a good option for people who want to do both,” he said.
Towards the end of his rugby career, O’Mahony was interested in dabbling in business but never had the time to get “fully stuck” into it.
When Paul O’Connell retired from the players' representative body, Rugby Players Ireland, in 2015, O’Mahony was appointed to the board.
Ten years later, he was appointed president of the association, and says he has gained “great experience" into how things are run.
Alongside his wife Jessica, he is hoping to launch another venture in June, a gardening business.
“Jess does her interior stuff, I do a bit of the gardening and we're putting our heads together to come up with some products and services,” he said.
Growing up, O’Mahony used to borrow his father’s lawnmower to cut people’s grass “for a few quid here and there”.
But his passion for gardening came from his grandmother, Maura Conroy.
“She had a nice garden in Cork City. I used to love spending time in it. She used to teach me a few things and give me a bit of responsibility looking after the place. I have a lot of great memories from her garden,” O’Mahony said.
“We bought the house here, it was a beautiful old cottage garden in itself but I've changed pretty much everything now.
“It was a great passion to have while playing rugby because it took your mind off the stress and the intensity of the game, and the environment that I was in, it was very beneficial.”
During the covid pandemic, O’Mahony started sharing snaps and videos and gained a lot of followers “from the gardening content”.
“There’s a big chunk of it from the rugby, but people are very interested in gardening these days.
After following a strict pro-sports regimen all his playing life, he is getting accustomed to a slower pace of life and “getting to grips” with structuring his own days.
“Since I’ve been 17, I've had a schedule. I had to be somewhere at a certain time, wear the same clothes, very strict nutrition, all that kind of stuff. Schedules, I'm very comfortable with.
“It stopped overnight, that was probably the hardest thing,” he said.
While O’Mahony is starting new ventures, he is also enjoying the benefits of being at home a lot more.
“Prioritising family now is very important to me. I spent a lot of time away from home in hotels and abroad in Limerick and Dublin, not being able to go back home to Cork for big chunks of the week.”
Looking back, he always had a huge passion for his sport.
He said getting capped for Munster and Ireland and playing for The Lions was a dream come true, “from start to finish”.
He was also lucky to have been “relatively injury free”.
“When you're young, it's hard to see yourself playing alongside some of the people that I followed for a long time.
"The club that looked after me for such a long time, Cork Con, they bred a lot of very good rugby players, so I had a great path to give myself the best shot of becoming a professional,” he said.
At times, he might have taken it for granted — but every day remained a “pinch me moment” as he was doing the thing he loved.
“I never struggled to get up in the morning because I loved it, I was always looking forward to work.
"Not everyone does what they really, really love and when you’re looking back, everything was special,” he said.
He has been dabbling in some coaching with Con — and his son Ralph, aged five, has started his junior rugby journey already.
“I'm going to do a bit of consulting with the senior team in the club next year, some recruiting, and to give the senior team a hand with some line-out stuff.
On Saturdays, he cheers on his former teams with the kids, gets to catch up with old colleagues, and those he once played with.
Not long out of the game, he is still “very invested” in all the clubs he played for.
“Watching games, I struggle with because you don't have any effect on what's going on anymore. But as a fan, I enjoy watching and seeing the teams do well, I'd be one of their biggest supporters now,” he said.
While he is active on social media and leads a “fairly public” life, O’Mahony said lines have been crossed too regularly on some platforms.
According to him, people need to be more conscious of what they put online and how they comment about athletes.
“All these young men and women are doing their best sport-wise, they're trying hard. They have families, friends, and kids who can read this stuff."
Throughout his rugby career, he never paid much heed to online commentary. However, he considered himself lucky as people were “very positive” for the most part.
“There were a few who were hard on me, but they were never the people I cared about. The people I cared about were the people who were close to me,” he said.
He concedes it’s “easier said than done" to block out negative messages.
“Whether it's looks, health and fitness, lifestyle, there’s pressure on young people these days to be a certain way. It’s probably even more so for athletes, because you're more in the spotlight, and it's tough for them.
O’Mahony still describes himself as passionate, a trait expected to feature in a new biography, which he has been working on with Dion Fanning over the past four years. At the moment, he is reading through the second half of the book, due to be published in September.
“We’ve been meeting now biweekly for two or three hours at a time. We'd sit down, chat about the past, chat about what's going on now.
“We’ve gone back through a lot; it's been a very enjoyable process. It’s nice to have something that the kids will be able to read, and to go back through stories with the guys,” he said.
Like many, O’Mahony is hoping to attend the Ryder Cup 2027, which will be hosted in Adare, Co Limerick.
He might even get to catch up with Shane Lowry, to whom he has become very close in recent years. After sharing the same management company for years, the pair have been holidaying with their wives in Portugal — and in West Cork.
“I'm good friends with Shane, who hopefully will get picked for that. It would be great to be able to get out there, but I'd say tickets will be difficult to come across.”
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