NEW LIFE: A change of career for both spouses made the Swan/Dunne marriage a real partnership
ELEANOR SWAN:NURSE turned ARTIST
SEAN DUNNE:BANKER turned ECO-FRIENDLY HOUSE AGENT
WHEN THEY first met in 1979, at a party in Glasnevin, Eleanor Swan was training as a nurse in the Mater Hospital and Sean Dunne was assistant manager with Standard Chartered Bank. After 26 years of married life, during which they reared three children, they have both recently embarked on new careers.
Dunne took early retirement from banking in 2007 and is now a marketing agent for Wolf Passive homes, a company that specialises in the building of eco-friendly houses.
Swan left nursing in 2002, after 25 years and is an established ceramics artist, on the final year of her master’s degree in the National College of Art and Design (NCAD). Both agree that having faith in each other’s decisions and supporting each other is key.
“We changed careers for two different reasons, but obviously the reasons were linked,” says Swan.
As a nurse, Swan job-shared and worked her hours around the children, with Dunne taking over at weekends.
“One of the benefits of nursing as a career when you’re a parent is that it allows you to work flexible hours.”
By now, Dunne had progressed to position of director and chief operating officer of the newly established IFSC-based WestLB plc, the German commercial bank which had taken over Standard Chartered Bank. The family moved in 1995 from Castleknock, Dublin, to Swan’s native Newbridge, Co Kildare, and built a house there. When Swan developed a blood disorder called immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) in 1996, she found the physical nature of her nursing work very demanding.
“I loved being a nurse, but you need to be very physically fit. Having ITP meant there was a risk I would get infections, so I had to reconsider my nursing job. Being ill and having to have medical treatment forced me to reassess my life. Suddenly, I was asking myself, if my life ended right now, what would be the thing I would most regret not doing?”
She realised that art, sculpting in particular, was the direction she wanted to take. Amazingly, her foray into the world of ceramics started in a traffic jam in Thomas Street, on the way home from Temple Street Hospital where she was working at the time.
“I was stuck in traffic outside NCAD, and made a sudden decision to park the car and go in for a look. It was literally a case of there being a couple of places left on a portfolio course. I had to make an on-the-spot decision.”
Swan submitted her portfolio and a year later, in 2002, resigned her nursing job, started her degree specialising in ceramics and qualified in 2006 with first class honours. While studying, Swan’s work was in demand and she had been working to commission. “My creative brain was very active, even though I was feeling very physically tired. Just because you might not be feeling physically strong doesn’t mean that the creativity slows up.”
The focus of her sculpture is aimed at people with visual impairment and she has exhibited, among other places, in the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin (RHA) and the Hunt Museum in Limerick. “My emphasis is on surface and texture to allow someone with sight difficulties to touch and feel the piece.”
In 2007, WestLB plc’s German division was going through restructuring which affected the Irish operation. Early retirement packages became available and Dunne’s decision to avail of one was driven by his desire to be there for Eleanor, who by that stage was recovering well from her illness, and the children.
“And after 35 years in banking, I felt the time was right.”
Although Dunne keeps his hand in the finance industry by working as a part-time consultant with Rebate Financial consultants in Newbridge, his first project on retirement was to build a passive house on a site adjacent to their existing home.
“After years of the hectic pace of banking, building my own eco-friendly house was the ideal challenge. I was involving myself in a totally new occupation and doing something directly for the family – it was the ideal combination, especially because it allowed me to spend time near the family.”
During his banking career Dunne had served as president of the German-Irish Chamber of Industry and Commerce and, while visiting Germany on business, he had noted the prevalence of eco-friendly houses, known as passive houses.
“The Germans are renowned for their environmentally-friendly construction work. They’ve been building passive houses for more than 20 years,” he says.
Dunne availed of the services of Wolf Passive Homes to build his house. The house, which is furnished with solar panels, triple glazing and its own windmill, is built using polystyrene blocks with concrete poured into the centre and is heated entirely from natural methods.
Dunne markets the building materials, a position he took up as a result of having acquired first-hand experience building his own passive house. While he acknowledges that business has slowed due to the building slump, there is still steady demand.
“There are eco-friendly building projects ongoing around the country. People are becoming more aware of the benefits of this type of house. There has been a complete saving on utility bills for us. Heating doesn’t cost us anything.”
Dunne and Swan acknowledge the financial challenge of both husband and wife embarking on a career change. “My experience in finance has helped,” says Dunne. “The proceeds of selling our old house, which was on the same site, has allowed us to build an eco-friendly house mortgage free, and that, coupled with the overall reduction in utility bills, makes for very cost effective living space.”
Swan’s blood disorder is now well controlled by medication and she is enjoying the challenge of completing her master’s degree while continuing to harness the creative flow of her sculpting work.
“Sometimes life throws you a challenge, like my getting ill, and you go in a direction you might not otherwise have. I would probably still be nursing, but I’m really happy with the way things have gone,” says Swan.
