28 BUSINESS
THURSDAY, OCT 10 2019
Ready to blow away competition
SIXTEEN schools from County Clare attended the first event of the 2019-20 Student Enterprise Programme at induction days in the Armada Hotel, Spanish Point and Tracey’s West County Hotel, Ennis. Over 800 Clare students will represent their schools during the course of the programme that culminates in a National Final at Croke Park on May 1, 2020. The Student Enterprise Programme is an initiative run by the Network of Local Enterprise Offices of Ireland. It’s this country’s largest and most successful student enterprise programme, with over 26,000 second level students taking part each year. Aimed at developing students’ business acumen and entrepreneurial skills, the eight month programme focuses 1st to 6th year secondary students on initiating a business idea, developing their sales and marketing skills and formulating an effective business plan that will yield results in a modern business environment. Pictured braving the winds of Storm Lorenzo is Declan Meaney, Local Enterprise Office Clare with students from St John Bosco Community College Kildysart. Pic Arthur Ellis.
Ballymorris Pottery - Celebrating 25 Years in Business
T
UCKED away neatly between Bunratty and Cratloe lies the workshop that allowed Hannah Arnup and her husband John Egan to realise their dreams. The story of Ballymorris Pottery is one that stretches from modesty to modernity, where Hannah tells of moving over in 1990 with the hope of breaking into an exclusive market for functional wear, an opportunity that wasn’t available in the UK at the time. “We have seen huge changes in the market over the last twenty-five years. We were working on the kitchen table to start off with. In 1990, after moving over I tried setting up an architectural ceramics business. My husband had been
working in a pottery in Bunratty during the eighties. It took us a few years for us to have the confidence to say, this is a good business.” In 1994, the Local Enterprise Office gave Hannah and John a capital grant, which was used to build the workshop which provided the duo with a space to ply their trade, satiating a shared desire to unify both passion and profession. Nowadays, the workshop houses a range of pottery and sculpting classes taught by Hannah, with the intention of actualising “a new awareness of the wellness and mindfulness of people looking after their mental health. I feel this is why they have gotten so popular. It does people so much good to work with their hands
and to work with clay.” Hannah credits the creativity that influenced and absorbed her early life, admitting that “I learned a lot from my family. My father was a painter and a potter and my mother was a sculptor. I went to college in London, which is where I met my husband. I am twenty-five years in business but I am still learning all the time. You do it because you love it. I know I’m very good at seeing an opportunity. That’s one of my strengths.” Ballymorris Pottery’s repertoire is both wide ranging and all encompassing, with once off commission pieces being highly coveted from corporate and individual buyers. Hannah and John have produced
commission works for the likes of the University of Limerick and special pieces for companies like Kerry Group, who requested a sun dial to be made, something which required great care and nourishment from Hannah’s artistic cadence. As a final note, Hannah spoke of the communal attitude amongst potter’s in County Clare as well as her hopes for the future, “It’s never stagnant, we all know each other, and we are all so different. It’s very supportive as there isn’t a vast amount of us anymore. Going forward, I want to be sure that everything is sustainable. Products that encourage people to be sustainable. I feel that it’s certainly enabling and good for everyone.”
Photo by Ruairi O'Brolchain