'I wasn't at all prepared for the feeling of emptiness that it created inside me. '

'I wasn't at all prepared for the feeling of emptiness that it created inside me. '

Michael Carlin describes going part-time in his daughter's spar business due to health issues. He also remembers the empitness he felt when he decided to sell his record business, Carlin Records. He reflects on how important the business was in his life, it defined who he was.

Michael Carlin

Trinity College Dublin

2010

This item is protected by original copyright

This content may be downloaded and used (with attribution) for research, teaching or private study. It may not be used for commercial purposes without permission.

Michael Carlin

Retirement

Life Story

Newry, Co. Down

2010s

I was 65 on the 30th April, 2010 and, having completed almost 50 years in the retail business, I decided it was time to take things a little bit easier. At that time, I was working with my daughter, Dara and her husband, Brian, in their spar business. A few months earlier, I had been diagnosed with scoliosis, which was causing me considerable discomfort, which was being aggravated by being on my feet eight hours a day, five days a week. When asked 'if you weren't working for your own family, would you still be working?'I had to be honest and say 'no'. On the other hand, I didn't want to go 'cold turkey' and cut myself off from the customers and the staff, so my compromise was to go to three days. I now have the best of both worlds in that I have three consecutive days off in the middle of the week and the other three behind the counter, engaging with the public and feeding oxygen to my brain.Walking out of Carlin Records for the last time was a surreal experience. This was our family business, a major part of my life for 40 years. It defines who I was - 'Michael Carlin of Carlin Records'. It was something we had built up from nothing to become well known and highly respectedNot only in Newry and the surrounding area but throughout Northern Ireland and Beyond. After over a year of consultation and deliberation, it was my own decision to sell the business and I convinced myself that it was the right thing to do. I wasn't at all prepared for the feeling of emptiness that it created inside me. There is neither the time or the space here in this exercise to express all my feelings and the effect that this decision had on me, my wife Joan and our three girls. That is a story on its own - a story I know I need to write someday.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)