A New Life:As her children got older, Regina Cunnane decided she needed a new job but she just wasn't sure what to do, writes Michelle McDonagh.
When Regina Cunnane was "made redundant" from her position as full-time mother of three after 20 years, she decided it was time to go out and do something different with her life.
Although her new career as owner of a designer ladies fashion and interiors store is very different from any of her previous jobs, as the daughter of a tailor and a dressmaker, Cunnane had inherited an eye for style.
"Clothes were the main focus of our family life growing up because they provided our bread and butter. There was always loads of fabric and boxes of buttons in the house and my father was also very interested in interior design," she explains.
Originally from Co Mayo, Cunnane started her own creche in Galway in the early 1980s, but she gave it up to rear her own three children.
"The main thrust of my adult life has been childcare, raising my own children has been my main job for the past 20 years. Having owned a creche myself, I knew what my kids would have been missing out on and I wanted to be there for them while they were young."
Cunnane describes her child-rearing years as "great fun" and she has wonderful memories of walking in Barna Woods with the children and bringing them to the beach. Having friends who were also full-time mothers at the time made a big difference to her life as it meant she always had plenty of company.
It was while working as a volunteer with Fr Ned Crosby, in organising a creche for Traveller mothers on the Carrowbrowne halting site in Galway, that Cunnane became interested in the area of counselling.
She spent four years in the mid-1990s training at the Institute of Counselling and Psychotherapy in Dublin. It wasn't easy travelling to Dublin two days a week while her children were still young, but she was fortunate to have had a very supportive husband.
"The counselling course was really a journey of self-discovery, but I knew half way through that it was not a job I would be able for as a full-time career even though I was fascinated by and loved it. It's a hugely demanding job," she says.
However, since Cunnane completed her training, she has done a lot of voluntary counselling on a part-time basis for the Galway Rape Crisis Centre and Console, the organisation for people bereaved by suicide. She completed the year-long training course provided by the Rape Crisis Centre in 2003 and she still sees clients of both organisations on a voluntary basis.
It was when her youngest daughter started secondary school that she decided it was time she went out and got a job. In 2005, she bought Design House Barna and became an exclusive fashion retailer.
"I was doing a weekend of training in Gestalt therapy through existentialism when my sister Aileen texted me to tell me that the shop was for sale and she had our future sorted out. It was so ironic, I was supposed to be concentrating on existing in the here and now, not thinking about the future or the past."
While Cunnane runs the business and works on the floor part-time, her equally clothes- mad sister Aileen works in the store which stocks a selection of exclusive French, Italian and Danish labels, which, they say, cannot be found elsewhere.
Although she does sell dressier clothing for weddings and other occasions, Cunnane tends to mainly stock smart-casual wear which is the type of clothing she herself likes to wear.
Six weeks ago, she opened an interiors shop at Design House Barna which is where her own interest really lies. She is in her element flying off to shows in London and Paris and searching out new and different lines, such as the 2005 young British designer of the year, Andrew Tanner, and Danish porcelain designer Ann Black.
"I love finding small designers and suppliers who are not big brand names. It means the shop always has a little bit of something special along with the big names as well," she enthuses.
Dealing with customers and the financial side of the business has been a learning curve for Cunnane, but she is thoroughly enjoying the freedom of being her own boss and, of course, she is still always on call as a mother.
