Whipping up a business storm in New York

The last 12 months or so have been a rollercoaster ride like no other for an awful lot of people. Covid has made sure of that; the vexatious little beggar turning lives inside out, upside down.

Yet some have endured levels of turbulence and strife far more than others.

Take Shane Kenny. The young Ballivorman lives in New York where for a time the pandemic hit the local economy with all the force of typhoon whipping up from the Florida Keys.

Shane lost his bartending job in Queens. Ok, you might say, a lot of people have ended up losing their jobs, some temporarily, some permanently but The Big Apple is no place to be without buck or two coming in the door. The streets and avenues can be cold and full of foreboding at the best of times; without funds they can be as bleak as the tundra.

Losing his job was one thing - but there was something else the young 27-year-old had to grapple with. Something far more insidious; far more soul-searching.

Last August he was diagnosed with stage three cancer. Testicular cancer. He says in one respect he felt “pure shock” but he wasn't totally surprised either. “I knew there was something wrong because for a couple of years I had pains in my legs, I had a pain in the left testicle and also my lower back but because of being Irish, being a man, being thick and stubborn I never got it checked out.

“Being in America and the cost of medical assistance I decided not to go to the doctor because it might put me out of a job. I was living cheque to cheque but it got to the stage that last summer I was in a lot of pain, a serious amount of pain,” he recalled down the phone from his apartment in Queens.

“One day I just said to the boss I need to finish my shift, go to the doctor. I did and was pretty much told it was stage three testicular cancer.”

That, not surprisingly was the low point in a year of intense turbulence - but there have been some good times too for Shane. Some major highlights.

Some years ago, as part of bit of banter between his now business partner, Sarah Pleitez, Shane purchased an ice cream making apparatus. Shane loved his ice-cream particularly the banana-flavoured kind; a commodity he simply couldn't get in the Big Apple. Certainly not like the stuff he knew at home.

He started making it, tasting it up the way he knew it should taste. Sarah, a Californian also knew a thing or two about mixing flavours, adding an ingredient here, an ingredient there.

They liked what they produced. More than that they felt there might be something in this ice cream business lark. They kept at it, evolving flavours. They named their range ‘Big Shane's Ice Cream.’ The word spread. They looked at it first as a hobby or a “hustle.” Orders came in.

Believing they now were onto something Shane and Sarah thought about expanding their little enterprise. They planned to launch their business on St Patrick's Day 2020. Support came from Meath.

Then the Covid typhoon hit. The launch party had to be postponed - but the “tonnes” of ice cream that had been prepared didn't go to waste. Sarah and Shane sold it to their growing band of customers. They sold it because there was a market for it.

Over the past year or so they have continued to expand. 'Big Shane's Ice Cream' has become something of a sensation. Shane too has become something of a celebrity. He has been in demand in the media giving newspaper interviews and appearing on Fox TV. It has been quite a year for Shane Kenny all right. A year he will never forget. A real rollercoaster.

BALLIVOR

Growing up in Ballivor Shane recalls going down to Dempsey's shop (now Mace) in the village and getting a big, creamy 99 with a flake in it. It's one of the abiding memories of his childhood; as indelibly imprinted on his consciousness as the image of Ballivor village itself. Home.

He is eldest of four children in his family. Aaron, Meaghan and Lauren the other three. His mum Bernie and father Aidan provided a happy home. Secure. Growing up Shane was steeped in sport. He particularly got to like rugby turning out for under-age teams in Navan RFC. He loved the physicality of it all. Meaghan Kenny also proved to be an excellent player, good enough to be selected for Leinster.

Shane attended Boyne Community School in Trim and went on to do a course in Carlow IT in sports management with a big emphasis on coaching rugby skills. He went to California to work as a rugby coach at schools level there but after a year he packed his bags and arrived in New York - where he landed a job bartending.

Life was good but those pains bothered him. “My whole back seized up, my leg was on fire, I was in the worst pain ever.” Then he got the very disturbing diagnosis - he had testicular cancer.

He received the news on his own. “In Ireland you go to your local GP, it's usually a family doctor you are familiar with but over here it's different, you don't know your doctor.” After undergoing surgery Shane went through 12 weeks of chemotherapy. It was a lonely, tough time.

At first he was reluctant to tell his parents. “I was going to sort it out on my own but Sarah said that's not very fair on my parents. When I got all the details about a week before surgery I rang up the parents. I just said: 'Listen, I don't have the best of news, so you need to relax.”

That sense of isolation was alleviated greatly when his mother and brother travelled over to the Big Apple.

“Obviously during Covid no-one was allowed into the hospital where I went to get my chemo. So it pretty much drop me at the door and pick me up at the door at the end. It was eight hours a day. The hospital got my mother and brother emergency visas, they were both allowed to come over for two weeks, they cooked my meals, made me dinner and looked after me.

Shane also pays tribute to the support provided by Sarah. “She has been wonderful, she took over all the appointments, all the transport, she took care of talking to everyone I couldn't talk to because of the chemo. My mood was bad there was a lot of sleeping because the energy just wasn't there.”

He completed his chemo treatment last December but during Christmas he had to be very careful where and what he did. “My immunity was very low,” he said.

Since the start of this year Shane has been focusing on building up his strength, getting back on track and he has achieved that a recent return to his beloved rugby a clear indication of that. “For a couple of weeks after chemo I was staying in, rebuilding my energy but then I went back to rugby training a couple of weeks ago.

“I played my first rugby game in a couple of years. We got hammered but I got a run out. We smashed each other and went for a beer afterwards, it was great. I feel great the body is getting back into shape, everything is going really well just now. I haven't felt this energetic in a while. Between the Covid and the cancer it certainly has been a floppy year.”

In recent times Shane has busied himself in running the ice cream business. It's something he now works at full-time along with Sarah and they have plans to expand further.

He has been touched by the way the Irish community in the Big Apple has rowed in behind him, supporting him, providing moral and practical back-up and advice. Ireland in general and Ballivor in particular is never far from Shane's mind but he wants to stay in New York now and give the business a real go with Sarah.

He planned to return home the other week but Covid rules would have required him to to into quarantine so he decided to give that a miss.

It has been some year for Shane Kenny. A real rollercoaster ride. There have been the bleak days but there have been good times too when life was sweet and cool; like a 99 with a flake on a hot summer's day.