In his role as the official barber for the Ireland men\u2019s national football team, Cork hairdresser Ciar\u00e1n \u2018Kiwi\u2019 O\u2019Sullivan gets to rub shoulders with the cream of the crop in Irish sport, writes John O\u2019Shea\n <\/p>\n
While Cork hairdresser Ciar\u00e1n \u201cKiwi\u201d O\u2019Sullivan was the official barber for golfers and caddies at the Irish Open, he also has another feather in his cap \u2014 he\u2019s the official barber for the Ireland men\u2019s national football team.<\/p>\n
Ciar\u00e1n began his career by working with multi award-winning stylist Wayne Lloyd in his city salon after finishing his Leaving Cert. In 2018, the Corkman opened his own business, KiwiCutz.<\/p>\n
He is tasked with making sure all the players, from stars such as Chiedozie Ogbene, Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher to Troy Parrott and Evan Ferguson, have fresh and slick-looking haircuts for match day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are definitely \u2018pinch me\u2019 moments with it,\u201d Mr O\u2019Sullivan told The Echo.<\/p>\n
But, he says, at the end of the day they are just normal lads excelling in their careers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is nice to catch up with them and have the chats with them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On top of getting the Ireland players looking sharp ahead of the crucial games, Ciar\u00e1n gets to know the players fairly well as his casual chats help them to switch off from the rush of the everyday madness of footballing life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t talk about training or anything like that, just chit chat about life.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s obviously nice for them to have someone to chat away with and take their mind off everything that is going on.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cBeing in camp is obviously hard on them as well. The majority of them have families that they\u2019re away from.\u201d<\/p>\n
At present, Ciar\u00e1n is surrounded by plenty of Cork natives when he is on duty in the Irish football set-up.<\/p>\n
He also has regular local clients in Cork GAA inter county footballers and hurlers, and has been cutting hair for the Irish football team since giving fellow Corkman and Ireland footballer John Egan a haircut in 2018.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cJohn came in to me in Cork city and asked me would I be interested in coming up to the Ireland soccer team and that a few of the lads wanted haircuts. There\u2019s a decent number of Cork lads to be fair.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve always been supportive. Even off-season they do pop into the salon.\u201d<\/p>\n
S\u00e9amus Coleman recently departed Everton after more than 17 years, closing a remarkable chapter as one of the most dedicated captains and players in the history of the English Premier League club.<\/p>\n
Ciar\u00e1n knows him well.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSeamus is just an absolute gent of a man. He is so down to earth and supportive. He is a leader. There are very few people that have his leadership skills, his understanding and passion.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
One of the perks of the job is that it brings Ciar\u00e1n to so many different locations around Europe and the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first away trip was Malta. I have also done the likes of Amsterdam, Portugal and Greece. But, at the end of the day, you\u2019re going there to work. You are there to do a job.\u201d<\/p>\n
He admits that getting the opportunity to attend games is also exciting.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it is nice to feel you have played some part in making the lads look fresh for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, for Mr O\u2019Sullivan, being the hairstylist for the team brings immense enjoyment to this skilled Corkman.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also lovely to get out of the salon and head up the road to Dublin,\u201d he smiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his role as the official barber for the Ireland men\u2019s national football team, Cork hairdresser Ciar\u00e1n \u2018Kiwi\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4257,79,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-507902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-business","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}