Breda is a ‘blow in’ to Killarney. That’s Irish for – she wasn’t born here! She grew up in North Kerry and I met her while
checking in to Marion’s B&B which she runs.
She gave us a wonderfully warm welcome and I knew instinctively we would
get on. She had a bubbly warm
personality and made us feel at home straight away.
The difference between staying in a B&B and a hotel is
that you get to experience a slice of the country you are in, if you take the
time to do so. People let you in to
their homes and sometimes their life. We
had incredible discussions about current affairs, the state of the economy, the
Celtic Tiger years and how so many people were compelled to buy bigger and ‘better’
homes…but the most interesting discussions were the stories she shared of her
life…
Breda is in her forties now and decided she really wanted to
be doing what she loved rather than be trapped in a job that was highly
demanding and left little time for living.
She had started life as an adult like most of us going to college to
study a profession considered ‘good’ by her family and society rather than one
she was truly passionate about. She
loved cooking and art but the people around her convinced her there was no
career in that. Breda applied for many
subjects from nursing and marketing to accountancy and gained acceptance in all
of them. However, her parents were keen
for her to study accountancy and so she enrolled in this course.
While she graduated in accountancy she could never visualise
herself as an accountant and certainly her personality was far more geared
toward an industry that dealt with people rather than numbers! She felt she was going around in circles
trying to figure out what she wanted to do and eventually fell in to the hotel
industry business quite by accident when she was offered a job while at a
funeral. She has 10-years of experience
in the hotel industry but she was working 80 hours a week as a manager and
commuting for 2 hours a day and was searrching for something different in
life. She came to Killarney having got a
job in the National Park. She works as
an office administrator but needed to find another source of income to supplement
her wages, as Killarney is an expensive town to live in. The opportunity to rent and run the B&B
has been a wonderful opportunity for her and something that she is truly
passionate about.
The B&B is a seasonal job that runs from April – October
giving her some free time in the winter to indulge in other interests. She mentions that the winter is a time of
hibernation for most people but she loves this time of year and has used this
time to obtain a degree in HR (Humar Resources) which introduced her to a whole
new circle of friends and colleagues and involved travel to Dublin.
Breada also feels she is a bit of catalyst for her guests,
providing a setting that enables them to make friendships amongst
themselves. She knows of guests who are
still in contact after meeting over breakfast in her B&B.
Ideally, Bretta would love to give up her desk job at the
National Park and do this full time but things are toughening up in Ireland so
expanding this line of work may not happen immediately. She feels alive when working at the B&B
but acknowledges that while you may wish to only do the things that make you
tick it isn’t always financially sustainable.
She now uses the website HelpX which is similar to the Work
Away site we use to find volunteer opportunities. It is a wonderful opportunity to reduce her
costs but also give young people a chance to see the world by providing them
room and board in exchange for helping out at the guesthouse. While there, we meet two French girls who are
helping Breda with reception. The girls
are studying Engineering but have taken the chance to travel to Ireland and
improve their English during the summer break.
It is a great program, which works both ways as long as the volunteers
are happy to make a contribution and the host shares something of their culture
and gives the helpers a chance to experience a new place.
We’ve been chatting for a few hours again but it’s almost
time to say goodnight. It is our last
night here and we don’t have the energy to stay up till one in the morning two
days running. Breda says in wrapping up
that the moral of her story is that one must not be afraid of change, be
adaptable and evolve with time. She has
seen the unhappiness in the lives of people who live very regimented lives, too
afraid to rock the boat. She has been in more than 10 jobs already and
says that if you are in your forties and still doing what you started out in
your twenties you probably wouldn’t have grown as much as the person who has
experienced change. She says the people
she has met and the experiences she has had which have been amazing have made
her what she is today and led to an interesting life. There
will always be that pressure from society, to keep up with your peers and
colleagues but if you have the courage to live your own life, make the
decisions that are right for you, you will then truly find the peace and
happiness we are all searching for. I
couldn’t agree more with Breda and we say goodbye, having made another
connection with a kindred spirit. Breda,
I wish you all the best in the rest of your journey…
“I don’t want to be that kind of person…so afraid of making a wave that I never swim at all.”
- Chloe Kayne, Spotlight
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