From panel beater to nail technician - is this Ireland's most unlikely beauty therapist? Mark O'Neill went from painting cars to painting nails, which he says is just a natural transfer of his skills!

Published: 23:41, 1 July 2026 | Updated: 23:41, 1 July 2026 Every day Mark O’Neill heads for work at 9am, just like he used to in his old job. Similarly he’ll find himself behind a desk and at stages will be using the tools of his trade to make sure his work is precise and perfect. But as he approaches 50, the Dubliner has flipped the switch on a whole new life. For he’s no longer working in the motor industry in crash repairs, beating cars back into shape and painting them up. Instead he’s joining his business partner Joanna Figasinka – a woman who’s a lot more glamorous than his old car mechanic work colleagues – in their new nail bar. Nail Therapy is based in an industrial estate in Swords, Co Dublin, and provides an oasis of calm to the many customers who pop in for a manicure, a pedicure, acrylics and more. Some are surprised to see a bearded man in his late 40s picking up the nail polish to attend to their every need. But the way Mark sees it, this is simply a transfer of certain skills that he’s always possessed. Mark started working in the motor industry when he was 13 ‘I started working in the motor industry when I was 13,’ Mark says. ‘I was never a big fan of school at all, I really didn’t like it and I didn’t do well at it either. Subsequently, 15 years ago I found out I had dyslexia and that is the reason school and that way of learning didn’t suit me. ‘My dad Noel had a mechanic business he had set up and I used to help him out but I was given an ultimatum that I either had to go back to school or get an apprenticeship.’ The apprenticeship he got at the time was as a panel beater for a crash repair company and the teenager discovered he was a quick learner and very creative when it came to solving problems with a bit of panache. He has always been a firm believer in preserving things rather than destroying them, and would go out of his way to find solutions to problems with cars that others might have scrapped. ‘I discovered I was a quick learner if something was shown to me once I’d remember it – learning visually was easy,’ he says. Mark, from Drimnagh in Dublin, was delighted to be out in the world of work and actually began teaching himself skills beyond the beating and welding he was doing. ‘It’s very precise work and I always wanted everything to be perfect,’ he says. On occasion he’d happen across his mother Lucy, sitting at the kitchen table painting her nails. ‘Her eyesight was terrible,’ he says. ‘So as a teenager I would end up taking the nail polish from her and painting them for her.’ He taught himself how to paint cars that had been in accidents, reviving them and bringing them back to life After all, it still involved the same precision and skills Mark was renowned for in the motor industry. He taught himself how to paint cars that had been in accidents, reviving them and bringing them back to life. Even from a young age, despite the problems he faced with undiagnosed dyslexia, he admits he was always a determined kind of character. He lived and breathed the motor industry, working his way up through the ranks to become a manager, and finally took the plunge to set up his own crash repair business around 2010. After all, it was a trade he knew well. Running your own business means long hours and there were times when Mark worked seven days a week to get the work done, when other members of staff were ill. Mark with wife Niamh Crowley and their granddaughter Pippa In between, he met his wife Niamh Crowley online. At that time she was a radio presenter on FM104, presenting the station’s popular breakfast show. ‘From the minute we met, we realised we had the same values,’ Mark says. ‘We’re both very driven people, we both wanted to be successful and to be happy.’ Niamh had a daughter Ciara, now 30, from a previous relationship, while Mark had Kaydi, now 21, so they became a successful blended family. ‘We all get on great,’ says Mark. ‘Niamh was working in radio when we met but she has since changed careers and is a really successful psychotherapist.’ Niamh and Mark are well suited – both are intelligent and funny, both are the kind of people who put others immediately at ease in their company and both are fun to be around. It was Niamh who was a tower of strength to Mark when, a couple of years ago, he started to notice there was something wrong with him. It began as back pain that was severe and progressed into a devastating diagnosis. ‘I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, a type of rheumatoid arthritis,’ Mark says. ‘I’ve since had a number of operations – I had my knee replaced recently, operations on my shoulders, both feet and on my toes.’ But the difficulties he was facing healthwise meant that Mark could no longer continue in the automotive industry. With a condition like rheumatoid arthritis, getting any kind of injury can be a huge issue. For Mark, cars were his life – in work and outside work too, as he restored and raced Minis as a hobby. But illness was chipping all of this away from him. ‘I was worried,’ he admits. ‘I’d been doing this job since I was 13 and I left school early so it was the only thing that I felt I knew how to do.’ Mark started painting nails at home during Covid, here with granddaughter Pippa When Covid hit, though, something unexpected happened. ‘With three girls in the house at that time, there was always something going on,’ Mark says. ‘I became the person in the house who put on hair dyes, who painted nails and I discovered that I really enjoyed doing nails.’ It was the step-by-step precision he loved – similar to his old work – and it was Niamh’s suggestion that maybe this was the new career Mark needed. At first he was apprehensive but he decided to look online for courses. ‘I found college courses but that wasn’t going to work for me because of my dyslexia,’ he says. ‘I needed someone to tutor me one-on-one.’ That person turned out to be Joanna Figasinska, Mark’s now business partner. Under her tutelage, it took six months for Mark to get his exams and become a qualified nail technician. His pals down the pub were shocked. ‘In the beginning, they thought I was joking but now their wives all come to me to get their nails done,’ Mark says. Mark’s drive saw him taking the training a bit further. After working from home and perfecting his skills, he decided to set up in business with Nail Therapy and asked Joanna to join him. Mark with his business partner Joanna Figasinska, with whom he owns Nail Therapy. Picture: Tom Honan You would have to wonder what she thought of this bald, bearded man and his new business venture. ‘I didn’t see it as a risk,’ says Joanna, explaining that Mark was one of her best pupils. ‘I saw it as an opportunity.’ So now he sits behind a different table with his files and accoutrements at the Nail Therapy salon in Metropoint Business Park in Swords. It’s stylish and dinky, with the needs of customers to the fore. While you’re getting your nails done you can enjoy a coffee, tea or prosecco, and a relaxing experience. Joanna is an award-winning nail artist who has worked in Poland and the Netherlands and Mark’s story for her, while unusual, is not unheard of. In many salons in Asia, men work doing nails and pedicures, such is the demand and speed of the work. But here, a relaxing and personal experience is what Mark wants to bring customers. ‘That’s the therapy part,’ he says. He loves to encourage women – and men – to nurture their real nails and get them into shape. He loves doing nail art and has often tried new ideas on his own fingers and then forgot about them, which makes for a good conversational piece. ‘I was paying for something in the carpet shop once and I realised I had a Santa painted on one of my nails,’ he says, laughing. Joanne and Mark cutting the ribbon to declare Nail Therapy officially open The salon offers pedicures and manicures for men and women and sometimes clients are surprised when they book online and walk in to see Mark there, wielding his files and buffers. ‘When people book online they don’t necessarily realise that there’s a man working here,’ he says. ‘But people have been very supportive and once I’ve done someone’s nails once, they generally come back.’ In the business of nails, Mark is determined to use only the best products and Joanne is the country’s representative for Magnetic Nail Design, a brand they both use. They pride themselves on having high standards of hygiene and also arty expertise. ‘It’s a creative career so I am using similar skills to the ones I used in the motor industry,’ Mark says. With the advent of AI, clients are expecting nails that are even more elaborate. ‘That can sometimes cause difficulty as often nail art created by AI isn’t possible to recreate in real life,’ Mark says. ‘We ask clients if they want something specific to email the photos first.’ It isn’t the kind of career you expect for a former crash repair expert and current granddad to five-year-old Pippa and one-year-old Bonnie. But Pippa loves helping her granddad choose his colours at home when he does the occasional client in his house, and his mates in the pub are now looking at Mark’s new life in a rather different light. ‘They’ve told me if I start drinking wine instead of beer then that’s it over,’ he says, laughing. ‘But some of them are now thinking about their own careers and looking at things differently.’ It has been a seismic change and one person struggled with accepting it. ‘My daughter Kaydi wasn’t keen at the beginning,’ he says. ‘I was always the guy who fixed cars so to go from that to “my dad does nails” has been a bit weird for her.’ But in recent weeks Kaydi, who studies agricultural science in UCD, has finally let Mark do her nails for her. Such is the popularity of Nail Therapy that even Niamh can’t get an appointment unless she books ahead of time. Punters are flooding in, not least drawn by the hilarious social media posts Mark is putting up on the business website to drum up more custom. For Mark, finding a new career at his age and setting up his own business again has been life- affirming in the face of his illness. ‘It can flare up at any time and can be quite debilitating,’ he says. ‘But setting up Nail Therapy means I’ve got that spark back. ‘If you have a spark for something and you enjoy it then I think it’s worth pursuing. If I can change jobs and make a new career for myself at my age, then anyone can.’ Follow @nail_ therapy_swords on Instagram Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.