A day in the life…

EB: Where are you currently working? Tell me a little about your working life.
CM: For the last 20 years I had worked with a general dentist in Dublin but he retired last year. After doing some locum work for a couple of months, I then took up a full-time position in a specialist dental practice in September of last year. I now work five days a week, with a half-day on a Friday.

EB: Can you tell me about your family life?
CM: I’m married to Jim, with a son, Sean, aged six.

EB: You were recently at the IDA conference in Kilkenny. Did you enjoy it?
CM: I enjoyed it very much. We travelled on the Thursday and attended some of the lectures. I also spoke with the dental reps and had my photo taken on the Colgate stand along with my colleagues. We attended the trade show party and then went into town for dinner. The dental nurses’ programme took place on Friday, and I enjoyed that very much. I picked up some new ideas and suggestions to take back to the surgery.

EB: Do you think you will attend the IDA conference in Galway next year?
CM: Absolutely! I believe dentistry is all based upon teamwork, so I expect that we will all go down from the surgery and enjoy both the social and educational aspects.

EB: I hear you are an avid horse rider. Where do you find the time to fit that in?
CM: I love to ride my horse Carrick Flyer (her stable name is Eadie). She is eight years old and I have had her for 18 months. I have competed in quite a few showjumping competitions with her and last year I won the league. Before Eadie, I owned another horse called Choice Flight and for seven years we were very successful in the amateur circuit. Eadie is stabled in Warrington Equestrian Centre in Kilkenny. We have a house just outside of Kilkenny city and we go to the stables every weekend possible.

As you can imagine, I need to be a very organised person, so I usually have the car packed up by Thursday evening and all of Sean’s paraphernalia ready to go. It suits me that I work a half-day on Friday. 

On Friday evenings in the summer months I do some flat work on my horse, especially if I’m competing on Sunday. My husband, Jim, loves to showjump too and Sean is learning to ride, although right now Sean seems more interested in his hurley stick!

EB: To prepare for the week ahead, it seems like there is a lot of organising going on in your house…
CM: Yes! Like I mentioned earlier, I am a very organised person, although my husband may call it obsessive compulsive! But I do like to come home on a Sunday at a reasonable time and make sure I have everything I need for the week ahead. When you have a small child and you work full-time, you need to be thinking ahead and you need to be structured otherwise the whole thing will fall apart.

EB: You strike me as a very up-and-at-it sort of person.
CM: I am! I love life. It’s precious. I work hard and I play hard. When I see Sean hit his sliotar or I watch Jim showjumping, or when I jump a clear round in the arena, it makes me feel really good. I get the same satisfaction at work, turning a nervous patient into a contented patient or a disgruntled patient into a cheerful one. I love the challenges life throws at me and I like to think I meet them head on.

EB: What’s the last book or music CD you bought?
CM: Its not often I get to sit still and read a book or listen to a CD, but recently, as you know, back in April we had some awful weather. So we lit the fire on a Saturday evening and settled in with an Indian meal that Jim cooked and I watched showjumping on TV.  You see, I do enjoy relaxing too!

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