Eileen McHugh, who grew up in the “chaos” of 1980s Ballymun, is using her experience of addiction and trauma, and her profession as a hairdresser, to run courses for marginalised groups facing barriers.
Since opening her salon Hair Together in the north Dublin suburb in February, she has more than tripled the amount of training she can offer to those like young people in care, former prisoners and recovering addicts to help them gain skills and confidence.
“I’m feeling really good,” says the 47-year-old, sitting in her salon.
“Ballymun is very special to me. I have great memories from growing up here of a really close and caring community. But I have equally, extremely traumatic memories,” she says.
She recalls witnessing a man jumping to his death from a balcony as she was running to buy sweets. “I just carried on to the shop, got my sweets, and went back and then told everybody ... Things that weren’t normal were normalised,” she says. “It was chaos.”
“I was 12 when I started dabbling in drugs. We were smoking hash. I think it was 15, 16, the first time I smoked heroin. And then that was it until I was 29.
“I had learning difficulties and later was diagnosed with ADHD ... I suppose heroin, it just kind of shut all that anxiety, [and] my brain constantly turning, down. I remember the first time it was like somebody putting a big, warm blanket around me.”
She never injected; she was “too scared” as people she knew injected had overdosed and died.
[ Rachael Keogh’s story of heroin addiction, survival and spiritualityOpens in new window ]
Describing herself as a “functioning addict”, she completed her Leaving Certificate “completely addicted to heroin”, but found a new perspective during several stays with an older sister in Greece. “I still found drugs, but I felt safe there. My nervous system was starting to relax.”
On returning to Dublin, still smoking heroin, she “just caught a bug then for hair. I always loved doing my own hair. I knew I was good at it and knew good hair could make people feel good.”
When working on hair, she noticed she was “zoned in ... I wasn’t thinking about nothing else. My brain got that same break heroin gave me”.
She trained with a city centre salon. “I was good, hyper-focused, and they kind of spotted that and nurtured that.” She suffered with huge anxiety, however, spent time in hospital and was still using drugs.
Recovery began when she became pregnant with her daughter more than 20 years ago. She was in a number of rehab centres and lived and worked for a time in Waterford, before moving back to Ballymun with her daughter, and working in a local salon.
Her involvement in a local GAA club saw her first use barbering to engage young people – boys in particular – at risk with drugs and of dropping out of the club.
There’s something really magic about when you’re distracted and you begin to open up
— Eileen McHugh
“There was probably four or five boys that first night. We were supposed to be there for an hour and a half. Two and a half hours later, they didn’t want to go. We were having a chats about everything. And they were doing hair. There’s something really magic about when you’re distracted and you begin to open up.”
From there McHugh continued, with support from local businesses, to run BEST (Bringing Education and Sport Together). Hair Academy started around 2019 – in youth clubs, local schools and community centres.
Meanwhile, she was working in a city centre salon where one of her clients was Dara Connolly, chief executive of the social enterprise Common Purpose. He encouraged her to participate in its emerging leaders programme in 2021.
Founded in post-Thatcher Britain, Common Purpose has operated in Ireland for 30 years. Its mission is to bring together leaders from disparate sectors – public and private sector and community – to learn from, challenge and mentor each other, and ultimately understand and work with each other towards a common purpose of improving society.
“I was terrified,” says McHugh. “I thought: ‘I’m going to be so out of place. But I really want to do this’. So I pushed myself.”
“I gained confidence and the ability to pause and look at myself. I used to be really rigid in how I thought. Coming from Ballymun I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I learned what values to stick to and when you’re able to like flex them a little bit to work with different people.
“Skills in me that were never developed or looked at emerged. And the peer support I have gained is incredible.”
These skills helped in her mission to get a premises. Following two years’ fundraising, to a total of €125,000, Hair Together opened in a bricks-and-mortar home in February.
Funding from Rethink Ireland, a charity that backs non-profit and social enterprises tackling pressing social challenges, has enabled her to take three full-time and three part-time staff.
It operates as a working salon as well as a training venue. The courses vary in length, from day courses to one night a week for up to eight weeks.
“Between 2020 and February, since we opened, we had 260 people go through the programme. Today it’s 600 plus.
“You see people go from not being able to make eye contact, to standing up in front of everybody, so proud of what they’re after learning. It’s a little bit of magic what we do here.”