{"id":524869,"date":"2026-06-29T23:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T23:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/524869\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T23:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T23:02:11","slug":"from-raunchy-greek-parties-to-roches-stores-these-are-the-summer-jobs-that-taught-us-about-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/524869\/","title":{"rendered":"From raunchy Greek parties to Roches Stores, these are the summer jobs that taught us about life"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, Leaving Cert pupils and university students have been swapping uniforms and crusty jeans for suits and overalls and going in search of summer work.<\/p>\n

The luckier ones will take to the skies and head abroad, while others will remain and likely serve us our coffees and stack our shelves in restaurants and shops up and down the country.<\/p>\n

Whatever job they find, it is unlikely to turn into a career, but for most, the experience will be invaluable.<\/p>\n

\u2018All about confidence\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had some really strange jobs in my time,\u201d says Newstalk\u2019s Henry McKean. \u201cI went on a J1 to Hawaii. I was probably in the most beautiful place in the world, surrounded by stunning beaches, and I ended up working in a coffee factory on a conveyor belt, putting coffee into bags. That was pretty awful, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKean\u2019s career before Newstalk was varied to say the least. A stint in McDonald\u2019s, where he earned a whopping \u201c\u00a33.20 an hour\u201d, was followed by summers on Greek islands selling pub crawls.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThat was a bit crazy,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIt involved organising rather raunchy games with pineapples and bananas and squirting concoctions of 90% alcohol with orange concentrate into people\u2019s mouths and persuading them to come into your nightclub or on your booze cruise.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

McKean admits that it was a bit like getting people to talk on the radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to throw yourself out there,\u201d he says. \u201cHalf of life is all about confidence, and even if you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, if you\u2019re confident, you\u2019ll get away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he remembers those summers fondly, they are tinged with some sadness. On both trips, the broadcaster was accompanied by his younger brother and best friend, Charlie, who sadly passed away unexpectedly earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharlie was the heart of the party,\u201d says McKean. \u201cHe was so charismatic and the girls loved him. He was always making new friends or hosting cocktail parties just to make people smile. He had your back and he loved to travel and loved being on the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember that trip to Hawaii so well. He took up surfing over there and took to it like a duck to water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A flavour of reality\u2019<\/p>\n

McKean\u2019s former stablemate and RT\u00c9 Liveline\u2019s new presenter, Kieran Cuddihy, kept many of his summer jobs closer to home.<\/p>\n

\"KieranKieran Cuddihy: \u201cThe first summer job I had was working with C\u00fal Camps coaching hurling. It was just herding cats, really.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first summer job I had was working with C\u00fal Camps coaching hurling,\u201d recalls the 48-year-old. \u201cI don\u2019t know how much of a job it was to be honest. It was just herding cats, really. I did that for a couple of summers and then I got a job working with the Corpo\u2019, as we used to call it. These were the best jobs in Kilkenny. Everyone wanted them. The pay was brilliant. This was back when minimum wage was like \u00a32 an hour and you were getting double that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuddihy\u2019s tasks for the Corporation varied. When he wasn\u2019t scuffling Kilkenny\u2019s medieval lanes and betting on snail races on the side, he was working at the water treatment plant just outside the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had these big pools of water that went through filters of sand and gravel and the sand had to be replaced over the summer,\u201d says Kieran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was too awkward to get a digger in. So a few young lads were always picked to dig it out and wheelbarrow it away. In hindsight, it was really hard work but it was some craic because we were up the hill and away from everyone. So when our supervisors weren\u2019t around, we\u2019d have races around the compound in the dumper. When it was sunny, we\u2019d go swimming in the water.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cNow, that probably sounds terrible but it was actually still river water. It hadn\u2019t been filtered yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it was raining, we didn\u2019t have to do anything and we\u2019d spend the day playing cards. I always remember rooting around for coins in the morning if I saw it was going to be wet.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of an over-indulgent summer, Cuddihy would often find himself rooting around for coins just to get the bus or a sandwich.<\/p>\n

While he says working summers taught him \u201cthe value of money\u201d to a certain extent, other life lessons were more to the fore.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect they\u2019re often a waste of time for the employer and I\u2019m not sure how industrious any of us were at that age, but it absolutely has a value for the kids themselves,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt teaches you the obvious things around responsibility and resilience and that when you commit to something, you have to see it through. It also gives you a flavour of reality.<\/p>\n

\"KieranKieran Cuddihy during his summertime work days, around 2002<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI was brought up in a comfortable middle-class world, and I guess you get conditioned to think that\u2019s just the norm.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cWorking exposes you to the whole kaleidoscope of the world and there are lots of other human experiences out there. It\u2019s actually a lot like Liveline.\u201d<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t a single official tally for summer jobs because the CSO categorises them as seasonal work. However, statistics show that seasonal employment makes up roughly 12.6% of all jobs in the country, with young people aged 15-24 accounting for the majority of workers, with more than 38% of all seasonal work.<\/p>\n

\u2018Work meant freedom\u2019<\/p>\n

For Ireland AM host Muireann O\u2019Connell, professional life began at the local Raheen Food Stores near her home in Dooradoyle, Limerick.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where all the penny sweets were,\u201d recalls the presenter. \u201cSo to get a job there, it was the thing. I started to work there the summer of my 15th birthday and that was my job throughout school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muireann\u2019s experience in retail no doubt helped her make the jump to what she describes as her \u201cmost iconic summer job\u201d in the long-gone but fondly remembered Roches Stores in Limerick.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI got that job through my mother,\u201d recalls the 43-year-old. \u201cIt was a full-time summer job working with a bunch of incredibly brilliant women in the gift department, advising people what they should be getting for wedding gifts. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d ever been to a wedding at that stage in my life.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cI learnt so much working there and from those women. The biggest thing was confidence. They could talk to anyone. You could have a manager who was 20 years younger than them but they knew better and they had confidence in their ability and what they did. They loved their job and it was a career.<\/p>\n

\"MuireannMuireann O’Connell had summer jobs at a local sweet shop, then at Roches Stores in Limerick. Picture: Leah Farrell \/ Rolling News<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were in these jobs with a great company that treated them so well. But they also had great lives outside of work and they enjoyed life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though she appears relaxed and at ease on screen, O\u2019Connell has a reputation for a strong work ethic. Getting up at the crack of dawn to get to work is nothing new to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always got something out of working when I was younger,\u201d she says. \u201cWhether that was getting up early and gathering turf on my uncle\u2019s farm in Kerry and discovering that you\u2019re enjoying yourself without realising it, or like when I was babysitting at 12 or 13 and had the sense of having my own money and responsibility. I enjoyed that and the freedom of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always found that work meant freedom. You were away from your family, away from everyone knowing what you were doing, and you could find out who you were as a person.<\/p>\n

\u201cI reacted well to work because I knew that work would take me to where I wanted to go. So I think it stands to you. Once you get your own job, you find out who you are outside of your parents. For your own sense of purpose, it\u2019s a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In recent weeks, Leaving Cert pupils and university students have been swapping uniforms and crusty jeans for suits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[101911,72,61,60],"class_list":["post-524869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-summer-travel","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524869","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=524869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}