My Saturday with Kieran Walsh: Glengarriff is one of my favourite places in the world
National Distribution Beauty Kieran Of Walsh
I’m usually up at 5.45am midweek and I try to be relatively consistent with that at the weekends. My home base is in Blackrock, Cork, but I’m lucky enough to have a small house in Glengarriff, West Cork. When I’m there, I allow myself to sleep in a bit — it’s hard not to do so with the peace and quiet there. Glengarriff is one of my favourite places in the world, and I feel incredibly lucky to be able to go there so often. It’s such a wonderful part of the country with miles of walks along the coastline and forests to explore.
The first thing I do is head out for a 6km walk. That time on my own, is when I do all my planning for the business. I’ll use the time to call colleagues in Australia and swap ideas of what’s working in each of our markets. I have learned so much from people I’ve met who do what I do in other countries. I love listening to podcasts: , , and . They make me think about how I can positively shape the National Beauty business and brands including LUNA By Lisa Jordan, Bare by Vogue and LUNA Professional Haircare.
I’ll pick up some eggs, bacon and pastries and the I’m a big fan of Tommy Barker’s writing in the property section. I’ll normally get on the laptop for an hour or two. If I’m travelling, the emails pile up so I use the weekend to get on top of things. One of the advantages of being up early is that I still have lots of time before friends or family might call for lunch. So much of my job is planning for the future and that requires headspace. I’m lucky to have a brilliant senior leadership team so I’m not stuck in the weeds like I used to be.
At the weekend I enjoy making brunch at home. If we’re in the city, we might take our French Bulldog, Stella, for a walk and grab brunch in Salt or Arthur Maynes. Relaxing for me means feeling fresh and energised. I think that’s largely found in what you eat and how much you move. Like many business owners, I find it difficult to fully switch off from thoughts of work, but right now, everything is going very well, so I’m not carrying much stress.
I’ll have a light homemade lunch around noon. When the weather is good, the barbecue is going all weekend. My midweek is consumed with work or work dinners, so the ideal Saturday is time spent with Georgina and our families.
Walking is a big part of how I stay healthy, but I’m also lucky to have a small gym at home. My wife, Georgina, and I have started to lift together. We’ll put on a movie and chat while working out. I also sneak in a Peloton spin classes sometimes.
If we have guests, we could rustle some food up and even slip across to the bar for a pint or two. If it is just us on our own, we’ll stick on a movie or a TV series. We’re loving The Jackal — Eddie Redmayne is tremendous in it. We’ll often open a bottle of wine and maybe get a pizza in. The food in Cork City is fantastic and, as we live so close to the Marina Market, we’ll often stroll down there for food. I fancy myself as a TikTok-inspired chef so I’m often in the kitchen cooking too.
We used to go to the cinema a lot more before the pandemic — it feels like there isn’t the same quality of movies being made now. I’m pretty good at getting to most of the bigger concerts but wish there was more on in Pairc Ui Chaoimh on the music front. We’ll occasionally go to some sporting events like the rugby too. These days, I love spending my weekends with Georgina, our dog Stella, and close family and friends. My work is very social so it’s nice to have downtime from that. I’m just back from a week in Hong Kong at a beauty industry exhibition which was pretty intense. During the day, it’s meeting after meeting and in the evening, it’s dinners and drinks with industry friends and colleagues. I’m happy to come home.
There’s almost a race in our house to get to bed first and we’re normally never up past 9.30pm. I prioritise sleep wherever possible.
- Kieran Walsh is the CEO of National Beauty Distribution. Based in Blarney, Co. Cork, the group handles the distribution, marketing and PR for brands such as Kevin.Murphy, ELEVEN Australia, Aveda, K18 and Color Wow to over 2,000 stockists in Ireland, as well as Irish brands such as BARE by Vogue and LUNA by Lisa Jordan.