Amy Keenan Molloy grew up on the northside of Dublin’s, with parents from Dublin and Kilkenny. She was schooled at Loreto North Great George’s Street and later in Swords, when the convent moved there in 1988.
She was part of a great bunch of girls, she says, who went on to make their mark, including Barbara Condon, the founder of the Irish NGO Ruhama.
After school she worked full time in Roches Stores while also studying at night for a course in supervisory management in Marino, eventually becoming a department manager building up expertise in sales.
When it closed, she moved into Total Fitness, a chain founded by the late wealthy businessman Albert Gubay, becoming director of sales and marketing. There she met Ciaran Molloy from Artane, who had been headhunted by Gubay to train staff. They married in 2000 and later established their own health training company.
RM Block
Five years later, in search of a challenge, the couple moved to Sal, one of the 10 volcanic islands that comprise the Cape Verde archipelago, having been impressed by a Channel 4 documentary naming it as one of the top 20 locations to buy abroad.
Following a three-week reconnaissance, they set up a bar called Tam Tam, which they later sold to rent a bigger premises, which they named The Dubliner, in 2018. This became a thriving 120-seater bar and restaurant employing 25 people. It ceased trading in March.
Having settled on the island, with three young children who attend a French school and who also speak Portuguese and Crioulo (a local language), they are taking a break and planning a new business venture.
In the meantime, Amy has developed a career writing books for children, which has started to take off. It began as a means of helping to raise funds for a local friend, Alice, who died of cancer during Covid, leaving two children behind.
“We live in a quiet little village near the sea called Murdeira and my first book, called The Adventures of Lilo the Rainbow Dog, was based on our own strays – a dog called Lilo and a cat called Sinba, with illustrations of them and the characters from the environment around us, like turtles and octopuses.
“It was a way of helping kids who were learning to read,” she says. “We raised enough to put Alice’s children, a boy and a girl, through school and after that I decided to write another book and take the process a step further.” The second book, she says, is about characters based on the sea and a famous landmark, Lion Mountain.
“So many kids in Cape Verde have never been to the beach, and few manage to read or have access to books in Crioulo – each book is written in English on one side and Crioulo on the other.”
The books are printed in Lisbon by publishers Editora Letras Salgadas, with artwork by Kyle Collins, and are sold on Amazon.
Her books are now being used in courses for adults as well as children on the island “and that’s important because they are trying to bring back Crioulo as an official language”, she says.
She adds proudly that her latest book was presented to the mayor in Sal a few months ago, and a more recent fan is Roberto (Pico) Lopes, the Shamrock Rovers captain who was born in Dublin but plays for Cape Verde through his father’s lineage.
Lopes recently helped the Cape Verde team qualify for the 2026 World Cup, a first for the tiny nation.
Much of the success has been attributed to the huge following established by The Dubliner in Sal. The couple are also involved in a charity set up in 2012 called Associação Nu Bai. “There is so much poverty and we need to get those books across the island where books are not in homes because food and shoes are priorities,” she says.
“We are now shipping books to four other different islands and to libraries and other districts just to try and make a difference.”
The charity also gives free scholarships to underprivileged children – the number was 170 in the school year 2022-2023.
She is also proud of the training that was given to the staff of The Dubliner, who have now found alternative employment. “It gave people opportunities they would not have otherwise had. Higher management is important in Cape Verde because so many have left for Portugal and we were trying to up the bar – all our staff have done well.”
As foreigners working in Cape Verde, “you need to work that little bit extra as everything is done through Portuguese,” she says. “Food is expensive, but things are getting better as EasyJet now flies into the island. It is relatively easy to set up a business.”
Save for three others, the Keenan Molloys are the only Irish on the island.
“We come home [to Ireland] once a year, but this time we are also coming home for Christmas, as my dad is now in his eighties.
“We usually fly with [Portuguese airline] TAP to the Canary Islands first and then on to Dublin, which helps us unwind. It’s a homecoming rather than a holiday.
“I have learned how to live on a small island where everybody knows everybody else and says good morning – like Ireland. Like the Irish do, we have worked hard and earned our place in the community. Apart from family and friends the only thing I miss now is the odd bag of Tayto crisps.”
