Feature

Bright sparks: Meet the teenagers who started businesses while still in school

Every year 25,000-plus students from 500 schools take in the Student Enterprise Programme. We speak to three young entrepreneurs who have used the scheme as a springboard for their ideas

Anthony Gorman, from Killeigh, Co Offaly, makes wooden reindeer decorations and planters; last Christmas, 10,000 of his reindeer were sold in 45 branches of Dunnes Stores. Picture: Jeff Harvey

We’ve all heard that necessity is the mother of invention. For 13-year-old Anthony Gorman from Offaly, a burning desire to upgrade his phone without accessing the family coffers meant he had to find a means of making his own money.

The enterprising teenager came up with the idea of making reindeer decorations from pieces of wood, fitting them with battery-operated fairy lights and adding the obligatory red noses in 2019. He quickly sold 50 to ...