A New LifeWhen Mick McCarthy quit pharmacy to open a bookshop, he surprised everyone but those who know him best. He tells Kathy Burke how and why he did it
When his customers congratulate him on opening a bookshop, they say encouraging things like: "What a wonderful thing to do!" When he tells them he was a pharmacist beforehand, they ask: "Are you mad?"
The 29-year old Mick McCarthy has a degree in pharmacy from Trinity College Dublin. Pharmacy pays well on qualification, and, where other careers may keep people close to cities, pharmacy allows you to work pretty much where you want, as there are only just over 3,000 pharmacists in the country.
He understands why people can be confounded as to why anyone would opt out of such a career in favour of something that guarantees neither money nor security.
However, McCarthy says the downside of pharmacy is long hours, which ultimately motivated him to reorganise his career. He still works as a pharmacist, but now on a locum basis, covering occasional absences of other pharmacists in his region. Otherwise, he is in his bookshop on Tucker Street, Castlebar.
He says the new structure to his working life has worked well. "I like pharmacy. I like dealing with people and I am good at it. You are part of the community. I like that."
However, after a few years working full time, the job began to make him miserable. He says it had nothing to do with the notion of a rat race. With hindsight, he puts it down to "working constantly".
Other pharmacists agree; the hours are long. He says he never took two weeks' holidays in a year. In the pharmacy environment, it can be even difficult to "eat a sandwich for lunch in one sitting", he reflects.
Other people can look at you and say "you're stressed", but it is hard to see it yourself, McCarthy says. "I started worrying. I probably began to think too much about the potential for something to go wrong, which I used not do when I started. Drugs are poisons, after all, and can do harm, and you are giving them out all day, every day. You think in a certain way all the time, and it can be hard to switch off."
With some irony he points out that pharmacists find themselves fielding questions about the price of cosmetics as they dispense drugs.
"In an ideal world, a pharmacy wouldn't be a profit-driven business, but it is. Pharmacies have turned into cosmetics shops. Could you imagine a doctor having someone come in asking how much was a shampoo in the middle of a consultation?"
The bookshop provides what McCarthy likes best about pharmacy, helping people to get what they need, but without the downside. "People take their time in a bookshop. They tend to whisper. In pharmacies, by the time customers come for a prescription, they have probably been at the doctor's for two hours, they are not feeling well and have already been charged a lot of money "
He describes his idea of opening a bookshop as "the kind of thing that would 'come out' after a tough few days". Then, quite suddenly, last October, he decided to have it open in time for Christmas.
McCarthy's partner, Anne, is also a qualified pharmacist, though not currently in practice. At time of going to press, she is due to give birth to the couple's second child. The first is two years old.
With six weeks to the opening date of December 1st, he had located retail space, fitted and stocked it. Trouble with the visa machine at the eleventh hour held things up, he recalls. "I put a sign on the window saying 'open next week', and the world didn't end," he says.
Debt was not an option that he considered for setting up. He cleaned and painted the premises himself. He made the bookshelves himself. Thanks to his pharmacy qualification, he didn't have to borrow money to open. If the venture doesn't work out, he says, he can walk away owing nothing to the bank.
Is McCarthy relying on the bookshop venture to work to justify his decision? "No. If it didn't work out, I know now that I can try something else. That's the thing. Now that I did change, I would find it easy to change again," he says.
Giving up money was the greatest barrier to action before now but this concern seems to be in the past. "I look at the baby and obviously she doesn't care about money. She is happy when I can read her a story. Of course, maybe when she is older she will want me to buy her expensive things But, I think young people should learn that you don't need money to make you happy. You should have some. But that is a difference between age 30 and your young 20s, when you think in black and white, and in terms of 'I have to make a lot of money'.