 His grandfather opened up the Regal Cinema, Cappamore, in the early 1940s, and his father, Eddie Gleeson, took over the business, opening up several more screens across the south west of Ireland, including the Curzon Cinema, Kilmallock, and the Ormond Cineplex, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.David began his career at the age of nineteen writing and directing non-professional theater in Limerick City with the one-act drama "Class Control".A few years later he entered the North Sea oil industry where he worked for five years, chiefly in the Forties Field on the Forties Charlie platform, followed by two years in the Arctic Circle off the coast of Norway onboard the Ocean Alliance.