Blooming 

While Aoibhín Garrihy is getting ready for baby number three, she is also preparing for the first post-pandemic events of her jointly owned wellness company Beo. She talks to Carissa Casey about sleep, health, motherhood, business and why she loves living in the west of Ireland.

For some who says she never felt broody, Aoibhín Garrihy is flying the flag for Irish motherhood. Her oldest little girl Honora is three in June, Liobhán is not yet two, and baby number three is due this summer. 

“We’re over the moon and feel so, so lucky,” she says. I’m one of three, John’s one of three and it’s a lovely dynamic.”

The expectant couple are both preparing for the reopening of their businesses. Husband John Burke runs the family-owned Armada Hotel in Spanish Point, County Clare. Aoibhín, with business partner Sharon Connellon run Beo Wellness, which until the outbreak of the pandemic were largely event based.

“We started here in the west, in Clare, and it kind of snowballed from there. We welcomed nearly 25,000 women across Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was that time when there was real momentum behind that movement for wellbeing in Ireland, among women in particular.  So many women I knew and loved were burning the candle at both ends. They were putting themselves down their list of priorities and then realising they can’t serve from an empty vessel. It’s not selfish to take a few hours here and there to recharge the batteries.”

They business was going from strength to strength and then came the lockdown. “We had a full series of sold out events. They all had to be postponed initially and subsequently cancelled,” says Aoibhín.

“We brought a lot of the events into the virtual space. We were very lucky in that we had a very loyal following, which we’d organically built up over the years. So they came along on the journey with us. So we had a range of offerings - Instagram Live series, podcasts from our bedrooms, all sorts of things,” says Aoibhin.

“To be honest, it’s not the same because so much of Beo is about shared experience. It’s about being able to have open honest conversations about primarily women’s issues. People feel like they can share, and laugh and cry. You don’t get that in the virtual world. You feel like you’re in a bit of a vacuum.”

So Aoibhín and Sharon have scheduled their first live events pos-lockdown for October of this year. “The numbers are significantly reduced to allow for restrictions and guidelines and social distancing. We didn’t know how people felt, whether they’d be nervous of events, but we decided to give it a try and people really responded. I think we are all craving that connection again.”

While the events will remain focused on wellbeing, Aoibhín believes we’ve all had enough of looking inward, this past year. “People have done a lot of reflection, and I think they’re done reflecting. They’re ready to get their glad rags on and have the craic with the girls. Whereas before we would have really focused on that internal work, with this new series I feel we just need to have a laugh. We thrive in community and a sense of society, we lean on it.”

Meanwhile John, who has managed to keep all his 96 staff on the books at the hotel, is preparing for reopening. “Yes things will be utterly hectic, I have no doubt,” says Aoibhín. “But we’re so excited and the time has really flown throughout this pregnancy. That’s possibly down to the fact that we’ve been kept busy with the other ladies. The baby is due this summer and, I cannot say we are organised ahead of the arrival date, but we’ll get there.

Aoibhín is a poster child for life in a rural west of Ireland. She’s upbeat, energised and glowing with good health, despite the rigours of the lockdown. Her wellness journey began after she left college and began making it in acting. She played Neasa Dillon in Fair City for three years and went on to star in the Belfast-based drama The Fall, with Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan. 

“There were a lot of bumps along the way,” she remembers. “Rejection - the industry itself can be quite trying. I suppose you have to develop a thick skin very fast. Your fate lies in other people’s hands. You can do every acting course under the sun but if it doesn’t go your way, or the part isn’t right for you, or you’re too tall, or too small, or too fat, or too thin, whatever, it’s kind of in the hands of the gods.”

“I struggled with that. Some people are great at picking themselves up and dusting themselves off. I do have good bounce-back ability but, at the same time, it started to take its toll and I realised I need to do something about this.”

She found headspace and solace in the great outdoors. “Growing up, holidays were always spent in the west of Ireland, on the Aran Islands. I was very much immersed in the outdoors but I slipped away from it when I was in college and lost my way a bit,” she says.

She also met John, who was on his own journey, having lost his Dad at a young age. “He was immersed in the family business, the hotel, being surrounded by people, the comforts of the hotel and the hotel food. So much of even your social life is wrapped up in your work. When he lost his dad, he started asking what’s it all for. Then he started to think he needed to start minding himself, doing something.”

When they met, John had set himself the goal of climbing Mount Everest (a feat he achieved in 2017). Their first date was postponed because John was climbing Mont Blanc. “I was like ‘what is he at’. But he took me along on the journey. We got out on the hills, up Carrauntoohil or Croagh Patrick, and I just loved it.”

“When I moved to the west from Dublin, it felt like a real weight off my shoulders,” she says. I loved the slower pace of life. When I was really honest with myself, I was happier pursuing this. Then I guess Beo happened organically.”

Aside from the events, Beo also includes a range of sleep products. “We live in the west of Ireland, myself and Sharon. The sea and nature has been our therapy. The Burren is breath-taking and being there is so therapeutic. So we engaged with a lot of local suppliers and everything is organic, ethical, sustainable and cruelty free.” 

The range now includes a sea soap, pillow-mist and overnight lip mask, along with a silk eye mask and pillow, pulse oil and candle.

“Around November 2019, sleep became a real focus at our events. We had sleep experts and we had doctors really honing on sleep being the unsung hero of selfcare. We tend to overlook it. We put all this energy into bedtime routines for our kids but when it comes to ourselves we just expect it to happen. But a lot of people were really struggling with it.”

“Then the pandemic arrived and all that that brought in terms of sleep disturbance. It really heightened and solidified for us that we needed to champion this message of good sleep hygiene.”

During the lockdown, people’s sleep was really disturbed. Stress, anxiety, the disturbance to our regular routines, not enough daylight – these all played a part. People didn’t have that commute. We don’t miss the commute but at least it gave us a sense that now work is over, now I’m into wind down period. Whereas during the lockdown everything was merged, we were doing everything from home.”

“It was a passion project and something we got really excited about,” says Aoibhín. Good sleep hygiene, is all about ritual, she explains. “It’s about creating those moments at home and little bits of luxury as well, because we’re missing our hotel breaks and spa breaks and retreats. It’s an opportunity for people to invest in themselves and do little things for themselves to create the atmosphere for a good night sleep.”

Despite the success of the products, it has been a challenging business year. Inspiration came from her husband. “With John, the hotel has been closed since Christmas. When this started, the outlook was so bleak. The wedding business - they were doing three or four weddings a week and it was really thriving - was essentially wiped out. And tourism, wiped out. Live events, wiped out.”

“John took a couple of days to process it. He sat on the couch and I was thinking ‘oh god, this is not good’ because I never see him sit on the couch. He’s a workaholic. But he took a couple of days and that was it. Nobody was laid off, there are still 96 people on the books. In a rural, family run business, that is no mean feat. It was an enormous challenge and a huge responsibility. But families were depending on this income, so he was determined to keep it going.”

The Armada began offering a home menu and cocktail boxes. There are now new outdoor offerings. “He was constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, to keep people in jobs and keep things ticking over. When you’re looking to someone like that for inspiration, you realise you need to keep going, the only way is forward.”

Both her parents are now vaccinated as is John’s mother. “By the time this goes to print John may be,” she says. “It’s finally a light at the end of what has been a very long and sometimes dark tunnel.”

Inter-county travel was a huge step forward for Aoibhín. “Being able to get to Dublin to see my gang. They have also ventured west and it’s just been so, so lovely for the girls to hang out with their cousins, their grandparents and aunties. That’s what we’ve all been missing and what has brought such joy these past few weeks.”

For more information on Beo products and the live events this October, visit beowellness.ie