NEW LIFE:Paul O'Mahony went from Hot Press to Concern, taking a less conventional route, writes BRIAN O'CONNELL
FROM AN early age, Paul O’Mahony knew his career would involve words in some form or another. “If I could understand something myself, then I felt compelled to explain it in words the best way I could,” he says.
Having avoided career guidance counsellors in secondary school, for fear of being railroaded into an orthodox career, O’Mahony enrolled for a Bachelor of Commerce degree in University College Cork. At the time, the degree’s focus was less business orientated and had a strong emphasis on marketing.
“It worked out very well. While I was there I volunteered to do lots of work for Hot Press Magazine. This gave me a foothold to use my marketing awareness on the one hand and to combine it with my interest in popular culture and music.
"After college I moved to Dublin and was on the dole for a few months. This was mid-1980s Dublin and opportunities were limited. I continued to work for Hot Pressthough and when a full-time position became available, I grasped it and stayed there for 15 years."
Music had been an interest of O’Mahony’s from school days, when he often found himself running home to listen to the latest albums. “I was the type who knew what records were coming out and I would be putting deposits on albums weeks before they were released. So music was always something I did, both listening to it and playing a bit,” he says.
O'Mahony joined Hot Pressat a time when the magazine had a small core staff and its business functions were mainly limited to publishing. The size of the operation meant every employee got a well-rounded education in both the editorial and business side of the company.
“Everybody had to muck in,” says O’Mahony, “from writing press releases to articles. It was pretty much all hands on deck and everyone in there got a great grounding. You had to be flexible as well. Most people went in there in their early 20s and it entailed long hours.
“Financially, the magazine might not have sold as well as some of the national newspapers but it maintained its own at about 15,000 readers. As a writer with the magazine I got to interview some of my musical heroes, from Rory Gallagher to Alice Cooper.
"That was one of the buzzes working for a magazine like Hot Press, being able to meet those types of people. I know there is a thing about not meeting your idols, but I have to say I wasn't disappointed.
“It got to a point though where the pay was not great and I was there for 15 years and was not getting the same job satisfaction as I had done previously. I wanted a new challenge.”
O’Mahony began to send out his CV on spec, and to give himself the motivation he needed for a change of direction, he eventually decided to hand in his notice with no other means of employment lined up.
“Some people would say that was foolhardy, but I needed to throw down the gauntlet to myself and that’s the way I approached it. In any move you’ve got to challenge yourself.
“I continued to keep an eye on jobs advertised both nationally and internationally. I got my first break through a successful application to an advertisement in the Guardian looking for a PR person for a banking company. I was placed in a multimedia company in Barcelona for a year, then onto Switzerland for a year.
“It was financial PR and not very exciting, and I found that some of my personal values were conflicted with the work I was doing. It was good for the experience though and bringing me into a different area. Also, I hadn’t worked overseas before that.”
O’Mahony’s next stop was Slovenia, where the post of an English-speaking editor had been advertised, in advance of the country joining the EU. His written skills, coupled with recent business experience, made him an attractive candidate and he would spend 18 months working in the former Soviet state.
He worked closely with the government translating speeches and legislation and checking that edited text was factual and correct. The experience brought him in contact, for the first time in his career, with the NGO sector and he began to like what he saw.
So much so, in fact, that on his return to Ireland he spent some time working with Comhlámh, the social justice and human rights organisation. Shortly before Christmas 2008, he applied for the post of communications officer with Irish charity Concern, and got the role.
“Concern is a radical change to what I had been doing previously. In other roles, such as with Comhlámh, I had been jogging, whereas this was like sprinting. There is a lot of emergency work involved, such as in Somalia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, and I was thrown into the deep end, which is exactly what I wanted!
“When I left journalism, I was looking for a challenge in my career, and I certainly got that with Concern. First thing in the morning my work involves media monitoring in order to find out what’s happening in areas overseas. I’ll most likely be going to the Congo at the end January – and one of the things which attracted me to the job was the opportunity to go into the field.”
Looking back, O’Mahony says his career progression was anything but orthodox. Little had prepared him for the challenges his current role brings, and he is enjoying the transition immensely.
“When I trace the career progression from Hot Press to editing overseas and then onto development work, it is a very significant jump, not just in terms of the type of work, but psychologically. There is an emotional aspect to my current work, when you are connected to the job 24/7. We are on call all the time and it’s a full-time commitment.”
Not that he’s complaining; he comes across as both professionally challenged and personally content.
“I’m really happy with the move. Also, and I have to say this, since working in development, I’ve become really aware of the work the NGO sector does on behalf of Irish people all over the globe. It’s not something I would have given much thought to years before, and I know it sounds clichéd, but it make me proud to be Irish.”