Irish entrepreneur success stories

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Cathal Gaffney – Brown Bag Films

Cathal Gaffney of Brown Bag Films has made the journey from college dropout to feted CEO by virtue of hard work, self-reliance and an endless passion for animation.
Tom Kearney – Spice O'Life

Corkman Tom Kearney travelled the exotic historial spice routes of the East before coming home and setting up his own spice company Spice O’Life in Dunmanway.

Bernard Walsh - Hot Irishman

This company has gone from being about 40pc to 90pc export-based in five years.

Finding the best locations is one of the secrets of John Boyle's success.

In the space of ten years, Voya has achieved impressive export growth.

Over the years Edmond O'Reilly has established a number of different businesses.

In 1995 Sahar Hashemi c-founded one of the UK's original coffee brands with her brother Bobby.

In the past seven years Irish Dog Foods has grown from a turnover of €3m to €30m.

John McNamara and Barry Murphy
Interactive Mobile Marketing

Entrepreneurs may discover they are learning new skills during the launch of their business, as John McNamara found himself doing when he launched Interactive Mobile Marketing in November 2008 with Barry Murphy.
Anthea Newburn
Awaken

When Anthea Newburn first went to see a life coach back in 2005, she was so impressed with the impact it had on her own life that she decided almost immediately to train as a life coach herself.
Alan and Valerie Kingston
Glenilen Farm

Farmers’ markets in west Cork gave the owners of Glenilen Farm, Alan and Valerie Kingston, the confidence they needed to take their artisan dairy products into the mainstream retail domain in 2002.
Jonathan Mulligan
OfficeMetrics

Jonathan Mulligan and Damien O'Brien founded Dublin-based OfficeMetrics in 2006 and are now at its helm as CEO and technical director, respectively. OfficeMetrics strives to help organisations maximise their staff's productivity through software designed to enable workers to track, analyse and compare personal, team and organisational productivity – and it appears to be working.
Liza Crotty
ClapHandies

Liza Crotty, founder of ClapHandies, a company that provides a range of courses to parents, warns against having unrealistic expectations when you are starting your own business from home.