“My mission is to have the best vape shop and my real passion is to help people quit smoking.”
Vape store owner Eoin O’Boyle is a man on a mission.
He has a passion for vaping which extends far beyond just offering smokers a proven way to quit.
When the 23-year-old talks about vaping and the enormous power for good it can be, he does so with almost religious zeal.
It is easy to imagine him standing at the pulpit, delivering a fire-and-brimstone sermon on the evils of traditional cigarettes while exalting the praises of vaping.
But the reality is far, far different, as the ever-growing number of customers at his vape store can attest.
He owns OB Vape in Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland, 35 miles north of Dublin.
It is a real family business. Eoin’s mum Majella is the retail manager while dad Declan and brothers David and Connor also help out at the popular store.
Eoin, who is also the spokesperson for Vape Business Ireland, seemed destined to end up in retail.
As a four-year-old he would spend hours at his local grocery store, happily rearranging the stock on the shelves (at least the shelves he could reach.)
A year later saw him selling crisps and chocolate to friends and by the time he was ten he had become so good at pool that he was teaching older lads how to play.
Like many youngsters growing up in Ireland it was not long before Eoin started smoking.
He said: “I started smoking at school because it was the culture at the time and I enjoyed the nicotine.
“There was the macho image of smoking cigarettes and also trying to fit in.
“When I ask customers at the shop when they started smoking the most common answer is between 12 and 14.
“Thank God I discovered vaping otherwise I would still be smoking now.”
Vaping literally changed his life and allowed him to set up a business where he could spend every day helping change the lives of others too.
Eoin said: “I won’t let anyone under 18 buy vaping products in my shop but there are no laws in Ireland to limit sales to young people and that is why I became spokesperson for Vape Business Ireland.
“We need laws to protect children while giving adult smokers access to the vaping products they need to get them off cigarettes.”
He added: “I help thousands of people quit smoking every year and there are other shops around the country doing the same.
“Yet the national quit service for Ireland doesn’t support vaping, which is the most effective tool that smokers have to help them give up cigarettes.
“We need to help people, many of whom have been addicted to smoking for 30 years or more, and give them a safer alternative.
“I have customers, who a year ago, could not even walk up the stairs, and after they switch to vaping they are running around with their children and having a great life.”
Eoin has built up such a loyal following that around 95 percent of his customers are regulars and he knows them all by name.
He said: “My mission is to have the best vape shop and my real passion is to help people quit smoking.
“For me, the most amazing feeling in the world, is when you see someone come in, and you can make a genuine positive impact on their life.
“My mission is to achieve a tobacco-free Ireland, because the government’s current strategy will take 100 years to get there when the solution is right in front of them…vaping.”