A New Life: Paddy and Joyce O'Keeffe tell Adrienne Murphy their ice cream business gave them renewed taste for life
Through the dramatic change in their careers over the past 15 years, Paddy and Joyce O'Keeffe - from the Vee Valley in Co Tipperary - know the truth in the saying, "necessity is the mother of invention".
Having worked in property development in both London and Bristol - where he got married to Joyce in 1966 and subsequently had four children - Paddy O'Keeffe, originally from Cork, spent £750,000 sterling ("all the money that I had") buying and developing Knocklofty House, a country house on around 105 acres near Clonmel in Co Tipperary.
"Knocklofty had an infamous past," recalls Paddy. "We bought it from the Earl of Donoughmore, who'd been kidnapped by the IRA in the 1970s."
The O'Keeffes moved to Knocklofty with their children in 1984, transforming the country house into a luxurious hotel and restaurant.
"The business went well," says Paddy, "until 1989, when I took in an investor who turned out to actually have no money.
"It meant that by 1993, we went bust, because we were on a big capital programme doing a golf course. I know it's common currency now, but at the time we had a good leisure centre, horse-riding, etc."
Mr O'Keeffe said a protracted court battle followed, involving a number of parties, including solicitors and accountants.
It lasted eight years and was finally settled. Mr O'Keeffe, however, said the professional fees involved, including legal costs, took up a very substantial amount of the money that could be recovered.
After losing Knocklofty, the O'Keeffes had to pull themselves together and find another way to make a living.
Ironically, the skills and knowledge they'd acquired much earlier in their careers provided a crucial bridge into a brand new business.
An engineering graduate from Cork university, Paddy had originally planned to follow in the steps of his father, who managed a creamery.
"I studied food technology and went to England, where I spent a couple of years with Lyons' Maid ice cream, and I became a manager there," says Paddy.
Meanwhile, Bristol-born Joyce had qualified as an accountant, unusual in the 1960s, when only about 1 per cent of qualified accountants were women. When she and Paddy married and started their family, Joyce followed her interest in cordon bleu cookery with enthusiasm, not knowing then how useful it would be later on.
After their enforced exit from the hotel trade, the O'Keeffes assessed their skills and decided to set up an ice cream business. They spent several months in Italy learning how to make Italian ice cream, widely considered the best ice cream in the world.
"We needed our business to be different," says Joyce.
"There was no point going head to head with HB Unilever, the main producer of ice cream in Ireland.
"We saw that luxury ice creams were doing well with the Celtic Tiger, and that health and environmental consciousness was on the increase," Joyce adds.
"So we decided to do organic ice cream, which would be 100 per cent natural with no artificial additives or colours whatsoever, and which would also be suitable for coeliacs."
The O'Keeffes called their new company Tipperary Organic Ice Cream, and started trading in July 2000.
"I had upgraded in accountancy after Knocklofty," says Joyce.
"I actually love accountancy, and I do all the accounts for Tipperary Organic.
"In the process of retraining I got very familiar with computers, and that's been of great advantage in the ice cream business, because you have to computerise the ice cream formula.
"The recipes are devised by myself and Paddy, but in fact Paddy already had the technological skill and experience in the ice cream business, and was actually qualified in food production, so simply had to upgrade what he already knew."
Now in its sixth year, Tipperary Organic Ice Cream employs three to five people, depending on the season, as well as Paddy and Joyce and several part-time workers.
The ice cream is made in a small factory in Clonmel.
"Because we learnt how to make Italian-style ice cream, we batch bake it," Paddy says.
"In other words, we don't mass produce. Thus besides the obvious basic flavours that we supply to the supermarkets - like vanilla, rich vanilla, strawberries and cream, lemon zest and chocolate truffle - we can do almost anything as special orders.
"We've done melon, black cherry, honey and stem ginger, chocolate orange, banana and cinnamon, apricot, blueberry and crème fraiche and, of course, brown bread.
"We even did avocado ice cream for one banquet, and basil ice cream for another.
"At the moment we're thinking about sorbets," adds Joyce, "because we feel there'd be a market for them now, with so much emphasis on low-fat."
The O'Keeffes are clearly hard workers, and when I ask about retirement, Paddys asks, "What's retirement?"
"We work crazy stuff - everyone knows it's no picnic running your own business.
"You have to be focused, but we love what we do. When you make good sales you just feel fantastic," he says.