Rise at the Cove: Social Enterprise Cafe

Rise at the Cove opened in 2021 on the site of a former tea room beside Carraig Eden, Tiglin's transitional housing facility for men in Greystones.

Tiglin CEO Phil Thompson saw the space and had a straightforward idea: turn it into something that does two things at once. A café people actually want to come to. And a place where people in recovery can get real work experience without having to explain their past to get it.Gavin Murphy manages it. The team includes people working through Tiglin's Community Employment Scheme and residents from Carraig Eden next door.

It's won awards. But the number that matters more is 21, the jobs created since it opened.

Every coffee & every pastry sold goes back into Tiglin. There's no shareholder. The café runs as a proper business, to be useful as a training ground, and every euro it makes funds the charity's services.

For people working there through Tiglin's programmes, it's a functioning operation with real customers and expectations. The skills they build are transferable.