NEW LIFE:Mary Delargy's career has been very varied, but now she feels happy working as part of a team again, writes LORNA SIGGINS
MARY DELARGY grew up believing that if she was thrown in a river, she’d emerge holding a fish. It was a remark that a friend had made to her mother, Rose, when Mary was a child.
“I suppose I internalised the message that I would have good luck in life!”
And she and her family certainly needed it.
Burned out of their home in Belfast after a number of attacks, they were forced to move to stay with relatives in Ballycastle, Co Antrim.
Delargy makes light of this, as if it was something that everyone on the island experienced at the time.
“We were living on Craigie road, which was Protestant, and our surname was Graham. My grandfather had been an Orangeman.
“It was only when we began to wear the school uniforms that people knew we were Catholic, as a result of mixed marriage. It was always our Protestant neighbours who took us in,” she says.
“I suppose my mother’s attitude was also important,” she says. “She was Derry-born, and she felt that no matter what hand you were dealt with in life, you got on with it.”
However, Mary didn’t just “get on” – she had no fear of trying something new, and has had many “new lives” as a result.
“Well, I did have fears at times,” she says, smiling. “They tended to be about things like not sleeping without a light on in the room till I was 14, and not being alone at home.”
Outside the four walls, her sense of adventure was boundless. Having trained as a nurse in Belfast and at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London, she married an artist, Fergus Delargy.
“We met when I was 15, as his family used to holiday in Ballycastle,” she recalls.
When he secured an award to work in New York, she went with him and worked in paediatrics in Mount Sinai hospital.
Their daughter, Aoife, was born in North America, and they then moved to New Mexico, where Fergus took up a university teaching post.
“For an artist, it was a wonderful environment – and I knew that I would get a job in a hospital there, as paediatric intensive care unit nursing professionals were like hen’s teeth,” she says.
Settling in there proved to be a little more challenging, but far more rewarding.
“In New York, we really had become part of the Irish community, because that tends to happen when you are away. However, there was no Irish community to speak of in New Mexico!”
One day she took her daughter out to find a present for a friend – opting for a ceramic studio in Santa Fe where children could paint pottery objects.
She sat down and began painting herself, and was so impressed that she took Fergus back to look at it several nights later. Both agreed it was something that Ireland was ready for.
And they were ready for Ireland again. Moving home, they implemented their plan almost immediately, opening two studios in Galway and in Temple Bar, Dublin.
‘Hey! Doodle doodle’ took off, with children and their parents selecting their own unglazed earthenware to paint in situ. The studios then glazed and fired the finished work, to be ready for collection in several days.
The family opted to live in Galway, having had no previous connections there, and Fergus began lecturing at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. “We put all our savings into the business, and I commuted between the two in Galway and Dublin.
“We found that 50 per cent of our turnover was in June and July, in other words, during the school holidays, and during the rest of the year it was very tough.”
She also found the change in her own work environment challenging – “in hospital, I was always part of a team, whereas now I was very much working by myself”.
At some point, she completed a diploma in Montessori teaching in Dublin. It was almost as if she knew she was ready for the next move.
They wound up the paint studios – though the idea lives on. “We actually opened before the concept hit London!”
In 2000 she set up her new venture – a creche and Montessori in Craughwell, Co Galway, with a grant of £40,000 (€50,800).
“We moved house to Craughwell, and we could see a need, with many couples commuting into the city to work. Margaret Cawley, a good friend who has now gone back to nursing, set it up with me. We have 55 children on the books, including Montessori and our ‘breakfast club’ and after-school service.”
Ballymore Cottage Creche in Craughwell is now one of three – for she opened in Ardrahan in 2006, and plans a third creche for Athenry this summer.
“Athenry will be the first purpose-built creche there, and we will take babies. Many places don’t take babies, and to be honest, I don’t quite know why.”
Mary taught Montessori for the first few years, but now has a managerial role.
“After the experience of commuting between Dublin and Galway, I was determined that any journeys I made would be short – and so all three creches are within 20 minutes of each other.”
Staff also need lots of support, she believes.
“They have a very responsible, but very rewarding, job.”
Opening a third creche in a recession may seem like a bit of a gamble, but once again Mary Delargy’s optimism is unbounded. “Galway has many quality creches, where the standard is very high, and HSE regulations ensure this.”
She also loves children, loves that environment – and she feels she is part of a team again.