Changing career midlife: ‘I could not have done this in my 20s. I was self-conscious and chaotic’

In midlife a lot of people at least fantasise about changing their jobs. We spend a huge chunk of our lives at work. The jobs we do shape us and sometimes define us. People change, their circumstances change and what they want from a career can change as well. Here are three people who made a switch:
At the age of 61, Una Carmody has decided to become a private chef. She already has a successful career in arts administration, working over the years with institutions such as the Dublin Film Festival, Temple Bar Properties, the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and the Helix in Ballymun. She is still the chairwoman of Dublin Theatre Festival.
Last year, on a whim, she took a course at the École Ducasse, the cookery school of multi-Michelin-star chef Alain Ducasse in Meudon, outside Paris. “It was a 2½-month course in classical French cuisine,” she says. “Alain Ducasse also has another school in the centre of Paris where they do one-day courses but they always say, with this kind of sneer in their voices, ‘That’s for amateurs’.” She laughs. “I quickly realised it was really quite a serious course. There were 14 of us from all over. Quite a few from France, but others from China and all over the world. I was by far the oldest. I was 61. The next oldest to me was in their 40s … I was the first Irish person ever to go there. It was so busy and intense. And as I got through the course, I thought, ‘Oh, I could do this. I’m quite good at it.’”
Did she have a notion she wanted a change in her career? “At 61, I was definitely saying, I’ve probably got another 10 years, maybe, of work to do and wouldn’t it be great to have a new cast of characters, to have some new horizons? I love the arts, don’t get me wrong … I’ve just been doing it a long time.”
Were there any other factors that made her want to change? “In 2022 I had a bad accident,” she says. “I was knocked off my bicycle. And I think that probably had an impact on me, making me think, ‘Okay if I want to go and live somewhere else for three months, just do it.’ My arm was out of commission for a number of months and you do realise that you are more fragile than you think when you have an accident like that.”
If that experience made her feel fragile, did doing the course make her feel strong? “I was really proud of myself when I finished it,” she says. “I got really good marks. The first day I was there, they asked me to wash some spinach, and I did it. Apparently I did it wrong and I had to do it again.” She laughs. “I found it really interesting in later life to go, ‘Okay, now I’m relearning really basic things.’”
She has worked in the arts since she started off working in the box office of the Dublin Film Festival in the early 1990s. That career, like her new one, was a “happy accident”. And she sees similarities between the two jobs. “The organisation that I had to do in the theatre is very similar to the organisation you have to do catering an event. I’d say it’s 80 per cent organisation, 10 per cent cooking and 10 per cent performance. It’s all about being really organised. I love drawing up menus. I love going, ‘What goes with what?’”
What did she like about cooking? “I never thought about another single thing except what I was doing, just the cooking I was doing,” she says. “To me that absorption is bliss. If you’re doing any kind of organisational job in the arts, you are actually thinking about 20 different things all at the same time. Cooking is complicated but straightforward. You’ve got one job to do. So I find that really enjoyable and relaxing. You’re feeling and tasting and looking and hearing. It’s such a sensuous thing.”
She recently cooked for a birthday gathering of 27 people, prepped for guest chefs at the Ballymaloe Festival of Food and catered an art opening in Dublin Port. “I served canapés in little wooden boats with cocktail-stick sails and I made elderflower cordial with elderflower I gathered from the banks of the Liffey. I love doing those themed events.”
How does she balance her two jobs? She laughs. “At the moment I’m just winging it. I’m the chair of the Dublin Theatre Festival and we launched our festival on a Wednesday evening, and I was speaking at that and making speeches. Then the following night, I was at a gig in one of the city theatres, handing around the canapés, and there were two or three people going, ‘Is that the same person?’” She laughs. “That was kind of fun.”
In contrast to Una Carmody, Louise Kennedy left the world of professional cheffing to be a writer. She has won the McKitterick Prize and the best debut award at the British Book Awards for her novel Trespasses. When we speak over the phone, she’s at a literary festival in Norway and staring at a “misty fiord”.
Her career change was not planned. “I was asked to join a writing group by a friend [Niamh MacCabe]. I said, ‘Ah f**k off, what would I be doing that for?’ And then she turned up at my house, and just said, ‘Look, stop messing and get into the car and get a notebook.’ So I grabbed the notebook that I wrote shopping lists and prep lists and menus in.”
What was it like? “The meeting was really excruciating because everyone else in the room seems to have been involved in some kind of creative practice, and I didn’t think that cooking counted. I do now. But when I went home that night and started to try and write a short story, I figured, ‘Okay, this is making me feel better on some level.’”
What was it about writing that felt right? “It was giving me something that I hadn’t got for a while. The further you advance as a chef, the less your job is about the creative side of actually making things. They give you rosters and profit margins and food hygiene management systems. My job by then was about that sort of admin as much as actually cooking.”
She also just needed a change. “My husband and I had been running a restaurant we’d opened in 2007 on the brink of the economy going tits up. Within a year of when we opened, we were looking at each other, going, ‘Where is everybody?’ Business became really difficult … I had become profoundly depressed. I was on medication. And maybe because of that, I didn’t really feel that I had anything to lose by showing up in a writing group and making an eejit of myself.”
How did cheffing prepare her for writing? “I didn’t even try to write until I was 47 but I do think that when you’re just cooking, it frees up some room in the back of your head. I think that maybe there were things going on there that I wasn’t really aware of. When I came to write, Trespasses [the first draft] formed really quickly. So I think that there maybe was stuff going on in the back of my head, that I didn’t know about. If I hadn’t gone to that writing group, I never would have accessed it … At 45 I thought I was finished. I had physical problems, health problems, my mental health was bloody awful. But it didn’t even occur to me that I could do anything else.”
She also thinks that cooking made her highly sensitive to sensory input. “A kitchen is a highly sensory environment and you don’t just cook with taste and smell. It’s not all just about taste and smell. You know by touch whether a steak is ready. You know, if you’re plating some dishes, and there’s a change in sound on a pan behind you, you know that that needs attention. I think it probably helps with whatever descriptive abilities I have.”
Is there any part of her wishes she began writing earlier? “Absolutely not. I could not have written in my 20s. I was self-conscious. I was also really chaotic and I wouldn’t have been able to apply myself to anything. I wouldn’t have been able for any sort of criticism or feedback.”
Does she still cook? “I have a tiny little studio that I have up the town for 25 quid a week … two heaters, a dehumidifier and a kettle. A very basic space. I go in and work for six hours. But when I come home, I cook for hours. There’s nothing else that I want to do. Cooking is like a comedown from writing. When you leave your manuscript for the day, it doesn’t go away. If I was to go out and chat to people, I think I wouldn’t be able to carry the book in my head to that extent. But I think if I’m just pottering in the kitchen, that I’m able to keep it with me, to keep it alive until I open the laptop again.”
For years 51-year-old Dumfries-born Al Higgins worked as both the drummer with Le Galaxie and as a marketing person in the whiskey business. Just last month he has started work as a special needs assistant (SNA) in a Dublin school. His decision to change career was mainly down to family. His children are four and seven. “I was working in my old job, mainly from home and working part-time, but the hours still meant that because I was looking after the kids during the day, I was having to work when everyone else was at home. I was shut away in a room away from them most of the time. Someone suggested to me that being an SNA would be a good solution and also could be quite fulfilling. I started the course, not knowing if it would be for me [but] the more I learned about children on the autistic spectrum, the more I wanted to do the job … It’s about getting to know each individual child and figuring out their own preferences and abilities and making their day as enjoyable and fulfilling as possible.”
What was it like before kids when he was in the band and working in the whiskey business? “It would sometimes be extremely hectic, because it wasn’t just in one band. I was having to juggle two bands [Higgins was also in Little Xs for Eyes] and the job working full-time hours. Getting off a flight knowing that in four hours you have to turn up at work and do a shift. You couldn’t do that if you were a parent. These days my family’s the top priority.”
What’s his verdict on being a musician now? “You never really feel secure in your job,” he says. “It’s not like you get a pay cheque at the end of the month. There’s a lot of pressure and a lot of ups and downs. I really enjoyed it but I found the experience quite unsettling at times in that you’re constantly chasing something bigger and better. Being in a band is often just a series of let-downs with the occasional really significant moment that makes you think, ‘Oh, this is worth it.’ Anyone who thinks it’s glamorous all the time is kidding themselves. You get the occasional moment when someone treats you really well at a gig and the next week, you’re playing a toilet somewhere in northern England to four people.”
What’s his experience as an SNA been like so far? “It’s been fulfilling. I haven’t any agenda in the classroom other than trying to make the kids happy and make sure that they have the most fulfilling time during their day. It is a lot like being a parent, to be honest.”
Are there any parallels with being in a band? “In a band when you get proper feedback from people about a gig or an album or a song. It’s the same emotion you get when you see a child doing something really well and exceeding your expectations. But they’re very different worlds really … I think raising two kids has been the best grounding for my new job.”
As a younger man would he have expected to eventually be doing a job like this? “I didn’t even see myself having kids for years. I wanted to be in a band my whole life and be touring the world into a grand old age.” What changed? “I think when you get older, you really dislike wasted time. There’s more of a feeling of the clock ticking and you want to make the most of life. There’s so much wasted time when you’re touring, whether it’s travelling in a splitter van or just waiting around in a dressing room with nothing worthwhile to do.”
He still plays music, often with his children. He hopes at some point to bring music into the classroom. “I wouldn’t say no to joining a band now and just having a laugh with friends, but there’s always someone in the band who wants to do bigger and better things. Your focus quickly shifts on to the business rather than the enjoyment and the creation of music.”
Does his new work feel meaningful? It does, he says. “Every day is different. There are days where you can leave work thinking, ‘I didn’t handle that well’ but then other days, [you say], ‘Wow, that was amazing, that that kid did that.’”
Was the career change a culture shock? “I was very careful not to let my old job define me,” he says. “I think it could be harder for people whose career really defines who they are. I think if someone didn’t have kids and they transitioned from being, say, a high-powered accountant into being an SNA, it would be a real culture shock.”
Did being in a band define him more than his day job? “Kind of, but again, I was always happy to be at the back as the drummer. Drummers like to be out of the limelight.”
But much like being a good SNA in a classroom, everything falls apart onstage without a good drummer, right? He laughs. “It certainly does.”