2024 | SEPT / OCT ISSUE
PAT MCEVOY
HOTEL & RESTAURANT TIMES
HOTEL GROUP WELLBEING EVOLVING WITH SOCIETY Having begun with a classic Irish education at the Christian Brothers school in his hometown of Gorey, County Wexford, Pat McEvoy would never have predicted ending up in the role of Corporate Wellbeing and Executive Coach at FBD Hotels. “I’m living in Kildare for the last 40 years or thereabouts,” says Pat, who originally opted for the well-worn career path of the family law firm, ending up in the Chief State Solicitor’s office at Dublin Castle. “It was a pensionable job and I enjoyed it to a certain extent,” recalls Pat,
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“but I was always a bit of a square peg in a round hole… people used to come in and chat to me and even without any training, I always seemed to be able to understand what was going on in people’s lives – I’m a good listener, I suppose.” At that time, Pat says, the Civil Service were completely sup-
portive of any employees who wanted to do a course and Pat opted for a two-year course in counselling at Maynooth University, which he completed in 1998. In terms of its application to the wider world in late 1990s Ireland, counselling rarely strayed beyond the two main areas of marriage guidance and addiction.