How do Irish business leaders spend their downtime? This week Jonny Boyle, director of brand experience at FUEL, takes us through his Saturday
7am I’ve got three kids, two boys (Theo, 7, and Walter, 4) and a girl (Winnie, 2).
The boys get up first and I try to get them dressed.
Before breakfast the oldest wants to see highlights of last night’s Leinster match against Glasgow. He’s rugbymad but also plays soccer.
9am Theo is playing a rugby tournament at Old Belvedere RFC.
I make myself a nice coffee to bring with me. I take all three kids because my wife is driving to Cork later and needs some space to pack.
9:40am We arrive and find Theo’s St Mary’s College teammates. All the players are separated into teams named after English clubs.
He’s with Sale Sharks.
10am The tournament starts. They have six matches in a round-robin format.
I watch the first game, while distracting the other kids with copious amounts of food.
I eventually have to move to the bouncy castle to keep the two smaller kids entertained. Winnie gets her face painted as a tiger and Walter gets some sort of cartoon.
11:45am I catch Theo’s last game and he ends up scoring two great tries.
They all get hotdogs at the end from Gaucho’s Dog, a food truck.
12:45pm We make our way back home to Rathgar, but stop off at Tesco to grab some food for lunch.
I’m under pressure to pick up my mother-inlaw, who is having an operation in the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital.
I drop the two boys home and they head straight out to a birthday party in Rathmines cinema to watch the Minecraft movie.
1:45pm I pick up my mother-in-law and we again stop off on the way home to pick up food. Myself and Winnie then have a bit of one-on-one time, which is very rare.
We do some baking, making potato waffles from scratch.
4pm Winnie gets confused about whether she wants to watch Moana or Frozen. They are her two favourite movies and has seen them about 20 times each.
Hearing her sing along to Let it Go is amusing, so it’s all worth it at the end.
5:30pm The guys come home from their party. I throw some chips in the oven and I’ve got the waffles ready. I get them fed and watered and packed into the car.
6pm My wife leaves with the two boys. They are off to Cork to spend time with their cousins. I deal with ten minutes of snots and tears from Winnie, as mom is her favourite.
We go for a scoot around the block.
7pm I get Winnie into her pyjamas, teeth brushed and into bed. There’s a 10-minute tug of war to get her to go to the toilet before bed.
I read her a book about dancing unicorns — it’s her favourite — and she eventually nods off.
8pm I sit down for what feels like the first time today. I think about my evening in a free house. I skip dinner and decide to catch a movie on Apple TV, but can’t find anything of interest.
9pm I buy a couple of disco and funk records online. I DJ a little in Anseo and The Big Romance. It gets me out of the house and gives me a bit of pocket money.
I started a club night called Records You Will Want to Own — everything I play that night is for sale.
I enjoy the jeopardy of potentially having to sell records I like, but I have about 5,000 in my collection so it’s no big deal.
10pm I move on to my other side hustle. I have a pop-up restaurant called Sticks. Because of the babies it’s an intermittent thing, but we are doing a dinner at Waterford Festival of Food where we are feeding 70 diners a sevencourse tasting menu.
Once upon a time I worked as a chef. I scribble some menu ideas down.
11pm I hit the hay with Brian Eno’s latest book What Art Does, but drift off after about 4 minutes.










