“My son Paul is a bit of a problem, can you take him for a year?” Designer Paul Costelloe on leaving school and being sent to work in a pig factory

He was put on a ‘blacklist’ in primary school for falling grades, before leaving entirely in secondary

Paul Costelloe at the Westbury Hotel. Photo: Mark Condren

Liadán Hynes

Even at 78, Paul Costelloe doesn’t regularly think about slowing down, but he did for a moment recently.

“I decided I had to slow down when I got locked into an Indian restaurant two weeks ago, because of the riots. I was just out here,” he says waving at the windows of the Westbury.