In-form Bohemians defender Paddy Kirk says his career is thriving on the back of his decisions to return to Dalymount Park and also park his career in photography to focus full-time on football.

Kirk was hailed by Bohs fans as he scored his second goal of the season in Friday’s 2-0 win over Drogheda United, extending the Gypsies’ lead at the top of the table.

For some players, a return to a club after a spell away does not always work out but for Kirk, his second coming at Bohs, where he had a three-year spell in the first team and then two years away, with Longford Town and Sligo Rovers, is proving to be a success.

"I think the time was right to go out and play games,” he says of his decision to leave in 2020.

“Obviously I have an affiliation with the club and it was always assumed as soon as I left, it was my goal to get back eventually.

"It probably came sooner than I thought, when the opportunity came. It did me good to go out, play games, and come back a more rounded footballer.

"I’ve an affiliation to the club so I probably played on emotion a bit too much. It was nice to go away and play games and bit more composed, and be a more rounded footballer.”

Kirk also worked in photography before but that’s now a sideline and not his main focus.

“I was doing a lot of photography work, photography and marketing. I still do a bit of it now but it’s shifted from that being the dominant to now it being football,” he says.

“I did menswear, lifestyle, product photography. I studied communications in college and it was something I wanted to keep up on the side, obviously your career is not long.

"It helps me with the football, you can have that balance, it’s not too intense, you can switch off and vice versa.”

Since his return to Dublin 7, Kirk has played in every game bar one and feels a new-look side is bedding in.

“There was a lot of bodies through the door first day of pre-season but I think Declan emphasised even when we met me in the off-season, he wanted to bring in the right people and I think that’s probably our strongest attribute is the dressing room,” he says.

“Any XI that is picked, there is ten players are on the bench or not involved who are fully behind them.

"And that can change you see how often we’ve changed our starting XI, that’s been massive to us.

"And our results have been as a result of that dressing room. I think the recruitment was spot on, in who Declan got in the door and that’s definitely helped us.”