To describe Peigín Crowley in a word? Passionate. Her passion for her work, wellness and her genuine love for all things grounding and sustainable tells the story of someone who lives a thoroughly considered life. Not striving for perfection, but for contentment, comfort and wellbeing.
“When I come off a long flight, I’ll take off my socks and go walk in the grass, no matter the time of night, just to re-earth myself. To ground myself again. My whole body relaxes back down and I know I’ll sleep well that night,” she explains.
Travelling is something Crowley does often, both for work and pleasure. The wellness entrepreneur’s excitement about road-tripping from Mount Juliet to Jerpoint Abbey, to Kilkenny city and back again is palpable.
Hearing from her about how electric the centre of the city is, the feeling of energy coming from the natural stonework at Jerpoint Abbey and experiencing all of that in her BMW 330e Plug-in Hybrid, it’s refreshing to witness the pure joy that can be found in life’s small pleasures, if we just look for them.
“Kilkenny is just such a precious hub. It’s a medieval city, and it’s amazing that your sat-nav will tell you you’re four minutes from the city centre, but you’re still surrounded by countryside,” she says.
The county has all these quirky villages like Thomastown, and one of my favourite spots is Mount Juliet. It’s great because it affords you the five-star elements and you have the experience of being in an estate, but it’s a contemporary take on a manor house.”
Looking for the beauty in those small moments is Crowley’s whole ethos, and a focus on sustainability is ever-present too. Getting her career start as a holistic therapist, she found she had an innate insight into what makes for true wellbeing, and took that instinct with her through her life. She now works for herself as a spa consultant and founder of Ground Wellbeing, an inclusive, sustainable and plant-based wellness brand that she hand-makes.
“I started designing spaces for spas like Adare Manor where people could just start a journey to wellness and surrender into relaxation. People think putting on a face mask on a Sunday night is self-care, but it’s more than that. Are you soothing your soul and connecting with yourself?” she says.
Crowley’s years of experience delving deep into wellness are now paying off: Ground has recently been taken on by Brown Thomas as well as in an ever-increasing number of spas around Ireland.
With so much going on, her days are equal parts hectic, equal parts calm. Making things more efficient is her BMW 330e Plug-in Hybrid, which has features that blend seamlessly into her daily life.
“Picture this. I wake up in the morning, I check the My BMW app. It tells me how much charge I have in the car and how far I’ll get. And then – imagine – I go into the supermarket to do my shop on a warm day, and I’m able to turn on the air conditioning 10 minutes before I come back to the car. You can do that from the app. It also has a ‘Find My Car’ feature, where it will light the car up if you can’t find it in a multi-storey carpark for example. I’ve used that so many times,” she says.
“The car also reads out messages while you’re driving, so if you’re working you can hear your messages and be productive if you’re on a commute or a long drive. It has Apple CarPlay, so if you have an iPhone it has everything intuitively there for you, from your podcasts to your email. It’s really intuitive and user friendly,” she says.
Once you go hybrid you wouldn't really go back
Crowley has re-evaluated every element of her life from a planet-friendly perspective. Explaining to her teenage daughter about fast fashion and its impacts is one of the small ways she’s trying to spread the word of sustainability. But equally, small changes in her own day-to-day life, like how she drives, matter too.
“Driving the BMW 330e M Sport Plug-in Hybrid makes you become more mindful because it’s so quiet and then you can hear when the petrol side starts to kick in, so it’s changed the way I drive. It’s so luxurious but not in your face, even the materials in the car, it’s really understated. The drive is really smooth, really purposeful. A dream to drive really,” she says.
Being a part of something and making connections with people, as well as constantly checking in with herself on her sustainability values and planet-friendly ethos, are things that are important to Crowley. Being on the road in a plug-in hybrid might not have provided the chance to explore these aspects before, but they did on her journey around Kilkenny, and beyond.
“When you pull in to charge up the car, you meet other hybrid users. You kind of admire each other’s efforts, and it’s like you’re in a club. I also think once you go hybrid you wouldn’t really go back – you’re going to go full electric at some point and will feel really good about it. I love the fact that on the app it will tell you where the closest place to charge is, too,” she says.
Where’s next on the travel list for Crowley, her family and her BMW 330e M Sport Plug-in Hybrid? Back to the comfort and familiarity of her Cork roots, of course.
“We’ll go down to Inchydoney, west Cork, Rosscarbery and that beautiful stretch of coastline from Clonakilty to Schull. We’re very loyal, the beaches we went to as children are the ones that we’ll go to for the rest of our lives.”