From haulage to handbags: ‘I tend to feel more Thai now than I do Irish’

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But speaking from Bangkok, where he runs an international designer handbag repair business, Connolly says, “I tend to feel more Thai now than I do Irish”. The road to this point…

Daragh Connolly always counted himself as a “true blue” Dubliner, with a background entrenched in a long-established family freight firm.

But speaking from Bangkok, where he runs an international designer handbag repair business, Connolly says, “I tend to feel more Thai now than I do Irish”.

The road to this point has had some big bumps, with the financial crisis and a life-threatening cancer diagnosis instrumental in ensuring Connolly made Thailand his home.

Connolly began his career as a forklift driver in Connolly Haulage (now Roadtrain Ltd) before making his way to become group managing director.

He had been doing business in southeast Asia since the 1990s. Then in the “heady days of the Celtic Tiger” Connolly took the business into other areas, including two multimillion hotel projects in Phuket.

But when Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 overnight, “everything went pear-shaped”, he says. “It was crazy”.

Connolly went to Thailand to dispose of the assets and see what he could recover. “I wasn’t supposed to be here that long”. But he ended up staying in what was a “very difficult” few years.

Fortunately, he met his Thai partner Pattita, who was based in central Thailand. He “didn’t really have contact with anybody” as he lived in a provincial Thai city for about three years.

She was “very skilled” and worked in a small studio in Lopburi (there were monkeys outside the door) making hand-cut soaps and crafted bags, he says.

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