EMILY NAPERof Loughcrew Gardens and Adventure Centre
I’VE BEEN here for 30 years and the Plunketts, the family I married in to, have been here almost forever. St Oliver Plunkett grew up here. I live in a lodge on the estate. We moved out of the main house after the boys grew up. We also wanted to make the place pay for itself, so now we rent the main house for events.
I’m up each morning at 7am and spend 10 minutes meditating and 10 minutes on my Chi Machine, it’s a great way of keeping muscles fit in a quiet sort of way. For breakfast I have my porridge, Manuka honey, flax seeds and apple, and then it’s on to the office. I used to work from home but it’s too hard to slow your mind down in the evenings if you do that. My office has beautiful views out over the countryside.
This morning I had a meeting with the producer of our opera event and the stage manager. Then my secretary came in to talk through plans for the next few days and to make sure we have enough staff organised. In the middle of that meeting a bus of school children arrived.
Yesterday TV3 was here to film our new adventure centre, but I was off receiving an arts and culture award from Meath County Council.
By profession I’m a gilder, so I might have a commission to work on too. I did the ceiling in City Hall and the gates in Powerscourt and I do frames. I love gilding, it’s a very ancient craft and it hasn’t changed at all. It’s about the only thing that can’t be computerised. Gold is very healing and I love anything natural and anything beautiful, which is why I love opera and I love our gardens.
I have my own little garden on the estate that I try to get to but it’s hard to find the time. I run a tourism business in Wales too, renting out an old Norman castle that was in my family.
I’ll have lunch at the coffee shop and talk about things that might need to be sorted there. Everybody who works here is amazing, we’re very lucky, and visitor numbers are on the increase, which is great, because we need what we’re doing to work commercially.
I’ll finish up by about 6.30pm. I might write but it’s getting harder and harder to find the time to be creative so I’ve rented an apartment in Italy that I plan to escape to for weekends, from time-to-time, just to have peace to paint and write. That’s the plan anyway.
- loughcrew.com
- In conversation with Sandra O'Connell