‘I lost my anxiety and found confidence – now I’m on my way to being a tattoo artist’

“There was a lot of pressure to go to college, but I didn’t know what to do. I also was afraid to make my own decisions because I didn’t feel like I was ready,” she says.

Aspects of learning were difficult, and Amy was told she had undiagnosed ADHD.

Her guidance counsellor at Loreto College, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, came up with what turned into a winning idea.

“She knew I wasn’t planning to do anything after school and she said, ‘I have the course for you’.” She suggested that Amy consider a National Learning Network (NLN) Skills for Life course, the modules in which include digital media, health and safety, and word processing.

“This was when my life changed for the better. I learned a lot about myself, I made a lot of new friends, overcame my anxiety and got an amazing confidence boost,” she says.

After one year, Amy was still unsure about what she wanted to do and the pandemic had also complicated life, so she stayed on for a second year.

Amy says they were “like a little family in here and it was a joy to see my classmates every day”.

She followed that up with another NLN course, this one in employment-based training, which led to a placement in her local tattoo and piercing parlour.

Amy worked there once a week for 10 weeks, helping with stock intake and booking appointments.

It was a job that she “absolutely loved”, to the point that Amy decided that she would like to be a tattoo artist, following a route taken by an apprentice she worked with at the parlour. 

Her colleague told her about a course she had done at Moate Business College, which can pave the way to tattoo apprenticeships. “It really helped her to get to what she wanted to do, and I thought ‘I’d like to do that’,” says Amy.

Her next move was to apply to the college of further education in Moate for a place on its post- Leaving Certificate (PLC) course in art and design, and she starts this month.

The course is one of many at Moate and is a platform for pursuing a career as a professional artist, or as a pathway to further studies, with opportunities spanning animation, computer graphics, ceramics, art and design teaching advertising, performing arts, fashion and textile design, film and character production – and tattoo apprenticeships.

Amy’s post-school journey has been so successful that her sister is considering enrolling with NLN.

“She has seen how I was, and how I was suffering through school and how confident I am now,” says Amy.

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