{"id":596928,"date":"2026-08-18T10:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T10:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/596928\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T10:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T10:26:10","slug":"men-dont-cry-tackling-mental-health-on-the-building-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/596928\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Men don’t cry’: Tackling mental health on the building sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

For former Republic of Ireland soccer international, Richie Sadlier, football and construction have much in common. Both have traditionally been male-dominated professions where machismo has been encouraged, and where talking about your deepest emotions has been frowned upon.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the cultural elements in this business, whether to talk or not to talk and what the costs of talking are, are similar to the world of professional football that I was in,\u201d says the 47-year-old. \u201cSo I\u2019m really drawn to conversations about the obstacles we need to overcome and why they are there in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that in mind, Sadlier has teamed up with builders\u2019 providers Chadwick\u2019s to promote How\u2019s the Head?, a campaign aimed at raising awareness of mental health among tradespeople and those in the broader construction industry.<\/p>\n

Sadlier has been through his own tough times. As a young professional at Millwall, he found it hard to express himself off the pitch, often using alcohol as a mental crutch. He quit drinking in 2011 and has spoken frequently about feeling low and lost post-football. Rather than dwelling on those feelings and doing nothing about them, Sadlier went into therapy and learned they were \u201call normal, healthy emotional reactions to what [he] went through\u201d. Instead of turning those emotions into an enemy, he leaned into them and trained to become a psychotherapist.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m now in a lovely place in my life where I go to AA meetings where I can talk openly,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a great wife and friends I can talk to.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Sadlier says a campaign like How\u2019s the Head? would have been most welcome when he was playing football and could have at least \u201cnudged [him] into focussing a little more on how to improve [his] mindset\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat How\u2019s the Head? does really well is normalise mental health,\u201d says the RT\u00c9 pundit. \u201cA conversation about your mental health doesn\u2019t have to be me telling you the heaviest stuff I\u2019m going through or my deepest thoughts. \u2018How\u2019s the head?\u2019 is a breezy phrase we all use and it\u2019s about having a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Results from Chadwick\u2019s survey released to support the campaign lend weight to that idea. Of the tradespeople surveyed, 81% agreed a quick chat with someone during the day has a positive impact, and 83% agreed staying connected with friends and family was important for their overall wellbeing. However, given almost half of the respondents said they spend at least four hours of a typical working day alone, making that connection can sometimes be tricky.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m very fortunate that I have a long list of people I can call for a cup of tea,\u201d says Sadlier. \u201cNot everyone has that. So getting the message out to those lads that there are real benefits to taking action is really important.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Taking that action proved to be life-changing for electrician Jonny Fitzpatrick. The 28-year-old from Co Down eagerly began his apprenticeship straight out of school, but within months he began to notice he wasn\u2019t making the same progress as others.<\/p>\n

\"ElectricianElectrician Jonny Fitzpatrick: “I\u2019m still on medication and also go to counselling and it\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve ever done”<\/p>\n

\u201cThe others were flying it,\u201d he says. \u201cSo it got into my head that maybe I wasn\u2019t good enough. Self-doubt began to creep in but I didn\u2019t want to talk about it. I soldiered on, but it began to snowball and it got to the point where I was looking in the mirror and telling the person on the other side that I hated them.\u201d<\/p>\n

One sleepless night turned into months of insomnia as negative thoughts raced through his mind and kept him awake.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, of course, all the doubts I had became reality because I wasn\u2019t sleeping. The boss started seeing it and asking me what was wrong, and me being a man, I brushed it off and said nothing. I began to ring in sick, telling them I had a cold or a flu, anything to avoid telling them what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick\u2019s only relief from insomnia came when he put a pillow over his head and cried himself to sleep. One night his mother heard him. They spoke and eventually agreed he would write a letter to his boss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up with a full three pages and felt good after that,\u201d Fitzpatrick says. \u201cBut for three months, I couldn\u2019t hand that man that letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day I lost it on site. I broke down and locked myself in the toilets crying. I drove up to my boss\u2019s house that evening expecting to get a bollocking from him. I handed him the three bits of paper, and while he was reading them, I just stared at the ground for what felt like an eternity. The last thing I expected was to look back up and see him crying his eyes out. That was the first time I opened up to anybody in construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it turned out, his boss\u2019s wife was a GP and she managed to find him an appointment to see a mental health specialist the very next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was eventually put on my first course of tablets for depression and anxiety aged 19,\u201d says Fitzpatrick. \u201cI\u2019ve been dealing with it ever since. I\u2019m still on medication to this day and I also go to counselling and it\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick has been helped in his journey by Lighthouse, a UK-based charity that also operates in Ireland and has, for 70 years, offered free emotional, physical and financial support for construction workers and their families.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe industry I\u2019m in is very male-dominated, and there\u2019s a stigma around mental health,\u201d says Jonny. \u201cMen don\u2019t cry. I never had a role model in my life that did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never saw sadness, and so you had this idea that it wasn\u2019t normal. But it is normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cLighthouse have been brilliant. I\u2019m going through counselling with them at the moment and I have a monthly debrief with them to see if there\u2019s anything else I need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonny also advocates on their behalf, acting as an ambassador and speaking at workshops where he encourages other men in the industry to talk or seek help. He now looks back at the 18-year-old apprentice he once was and begs him not to be so hard on himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is going on their own journey; you\u2019re not going to know everything straight away,\u201d he says. \u201cSo ask as many questions as you can and if you\u2019re ever in doubt, don\u2019t have self-doubt.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAnd if you are struggling, ask for help. It will be the hardest thing you ever do, but the best thing you ever do. If I hadn\u2019t asked for help, I wouldn\u2019t be talking to you now.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For former Republic of Ireland soccer international, Richie Sadlier, football and construction have much in common. Both have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[38459,103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-596928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health-mind","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596928","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=596928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}