Making a comeback

We used to emigrate in droves. Now it's more common for people to come the other way

We used to emigrate in droves. Now it's more common for people to come the other way. Fiona McCannfinds out what it's like to return to Ireland after living and working abroad

DOREEN BOURKE

HOME FROM BRUSSELS

Doreen Bourke left Ireland for what was meant to be three years in 1990, when her husband, Tom, was offered work with the European Commission in Brussels. Moving countries wasn't easy. "Every single solitary prop I had under me was removed. I have the fondest and most heartbreaking memories of walking down to a supermarket in Belgium. I had to buy water, but I'd never bought water in my life and didn't know what to buy. I ended up in tears, because I felt so inadequate."

READ MORE

Her two children, Stephen, who was seven at the time, and Clodagh, then four, went straight into the European school system, and Bourke, who hadn't worked for 10 years, found herself with a lot more time on her hands than she had anticipated. "I was kind of bored, so I did a competition to join the European Commission."

Bourke passed the test and was recruited. She worked initially on a research-and-development programme with Esprit, an IT scheme, before moving to another post to improve her French. She then rejoined the commission, and she has worked in various roles there ever since. And as her career progressed in Belgium and her children settled into life out of Ireland, the three years became 17.

Raising her children in such an international context wasn't always easy. "Santa comes on December 5th in Brussels," says Bourke. "I told my children that Santa knew they were Irish, so he would still come on December 24th."

Despite the challenges, Bourke began to enjoy what life outside Ireland had to offer. "Like a lot of Irish people, I grew up thinking Ireland was the centre of the universe, and then you meet people from all over the world and realise there's a whole lot more out there than you've ever been exposed to."

When the children left home the Bourkes found themselves with less reason to stay in Belgium, so Tom, a civil servant, applied to come back to Ireland, and an opportunity also arose for Doreen to transfer to the commission's Food and Veterinary Office in Grange, Co Meath.

The Bourkes returned to Ireland on April 29th. Doreen says she's still adjusting to the change. "I find the crowds are daunting. Belgium has 10 million people and it's the size of Munster, but I have never seen the same throngs of people there as I do here."

And while the cost of living, house prices and traffic are problems she's finding it difficult to live with, there are positives to being back home. "What makes up for all of this is the friendliness, the laughter, the Irish wit and the singsong. You don't get that anywhere else in the world."

Bourke says living abroad paid huge dividends in terms of her personal and professional development. "I am a much more broad-minded person now," she says. "And I would not have had the opportunity to do what I'm doing now professionally if I hadn't gone abroad. I probably wouldn't have had the confidence to even aim for the kinds of jobs I'm doing now. But when you've had every structure you've ever known taken from under you, and you rebuild it, then you are on very sound footing for life."

So is she back to stay? "I am certainly back with the intention of working until my retirement in Ireland." She pauses. "I think." She pauses again. "We would be very open to any opportunities that come up. Now I know I can live anywhere, and I can survive anywhere."

NATALIE McGUINNESS

HOME FROM MALAYSIA AND JAPAN

It was turning 30 that prompted Natalie McGuinness to up sticks. Having been working in marketing for 10 years, and just completed an MBA, she decided it was time to see some of the world. She took a job with an aid agency, working on a water system in a Malaysian rainforest.

As McGuinness admits, she was the last person who might have been expected to take on such a project. "Up until this point I'd been all big hair, high heels and designers, so I guess I wasn't the most natural candidate to head off trekking through the jungle," she says. But that's exactly what she did, and she has never looked back, going on to travel around Asia when her work with the charity ended.

The temptation to stay in that part of the world was strong. "Asia is very addictive, so a part of you does think: Maybe I'll just be a dive instructor and never go home," she says. But the draw of warm weather and clear waters wasn't enough to overcome family ties, and she returned to Ireland. She was hardly back, however, when an opportunity arose to return to Asia, with Vodafone, and she set off for a year and a half as a consultant in Tokyo.

Life in Japan, she says, taught her some valuable lessons. "The Japanese have a fabulous consensus approach to work and to life, so everything is done on the basis of consultation and group approval. It means that if you're working on a project, by the time you get to the launch stage absolutely everything has been discussed or analysed or agreed upon, so it works like clockwork."

McGuinness says her experience abroad has given her a new personal outlook that she hopes to retain. "Because I did the charity work I realised how little I need to live, how many things in life are transitory. At the end of the day you can exist on very little as long as you've got food and shelter; everything else is a bonus. In Ireland that's totally gone. Now it's not about food, it's about Avoca food. And it's not about shelter, it's about a five-bed in Foxrock."

Time abroad also stood her in good stead when it came to her career. "It worked as a huge advantage, because I've come back with international experience. A lot of companies in Ireland are looking for people with international experience, particularly with experience of Asia. It also makes you more rounded."

McGuinness was determined not to rush into the first job that came her way in Ireland. "You only get one chance to return home, so I was keen to wait for the right job," she says. When a position arose at University College Dublin, her alma mater, as director of alumni relations, she jumped at the opportunity. Now settling back into Irish life, she still recommends a stint abroad. "It gives you a greater appreciation of wealth and of poverty. There's a whole world out there that you can't appreciate unless you've travelled. If you're wondering whether to go, my advice is just do it."

RONAN HIGGINS

HOME FROM LOS ANGELES

Ronan Higgins first left Ireland in 1992, heading for London to do an MBA; that led to further work in the UK. While he was working for a biotech company there, he was offered a green card, for the US, and he jumped at the chance. "I weighed up my options and said: 'Okay, I can stay here in England and be miserable or I can take a risk.' I took the risk and never looked back."

His first destination was Orlando, in Florida, but he soon moved on to Los Angeles, where his brother was living. "LA was a really good place for me. Within a week I got a marketing job with Orion Pictures."

From there he moved to a video-game company; when it was taken over Higgins used the opportunity to travel again, taking time out to visit his homeland while he was at it. "I took a look around in 1997 and decided I wasn't quite ready to be back in Ireland. Everything was still very tied into the Irish market: there was no sense of an international supply to a global market."

So he returned Stateside, working with various dotcoms before setting up his own company. "I was sick of following other people's bad management, so I set up Cafe.com, putting technology into other people's cybercafes."

Five years on he was approached with an offer he couldn't refuse, and he sold the business. "By then I had been in LA for 10 years, I'd had a very good time and made great friends, but over the years I had always been wondering whether I would stay there forever. Selling the business was the opportune moment to get out."

Aware of the dangers of reverse culture shock, Higgins softened the landing by taking a trip around Europe on his way home. "There was no sudden cultural withdrawal as a result." He was barely back in Ireland when he landed a job as chief executive for a property website called Funda.

He credits much of his subsequent success to his time abroad. "The American experience taught me to go for it," he says. "LA lives on the credo that you can manifest your dreams, and this becomes infectious. If I'd stayed in Dublin all that time I might have had a smaller vision of what I was capable of."

But settling back into Ireland after such a long stretch in the US hasn't all been easy. "On a personal level it has made integration a little bit difficult. Irish people don't necessarily gel well with the American way of doing things. You have to find a middle ground between the can-do US approach and the Irish 'ah sure that will never work'," he says.

Despite this, he says spending time abroad is a must. "By not leaving you miss out on knowing what the world is like out there."

STEPHEN STACK

HOME FROM CROATIA

Stephen Stack was driven out of Ireland two and a half years ago by steep property prices. "I wanted to do my own thing, but I couldn't buy property over here. It had been suggested by a few people I know that Croatia was a great place, so I went out on a holiday. After one week I decided I'd found the place I wanted to buy."

The place in question was a pizzeria in the stunning city of Split, and Stack, who had been working in catering for some time by then, followed his instinct and bought it within days. "My original intention was to go down the lines of an Irish bar with it, but I decided it against that because it was very successful as a pizzeria. So it became an Irish pizzeria. It had the best beer sales of any pizzeria in Split."

Clearly impressed by the area - Stack says he fell in love with it at first sight - he bought a second property in the city with his fiance. "She and I bought an old stone house which we renovated ourselves. I basically leased out the pizzeria after a year, and we got cracking on the house."

Doing business in Croatia posed challenges. "It's an emerging country, so they have their problems," he says. Added to which, Stack was running a business initially without even the local language under his belt. "I had people coming in with interpreters, but an awful lot gets lost in translation."

The plan had been to stay in Croatia for some time, but the pull of home was too strong. "After the first year I'd thought we'd be there for seven, but the draw of family and friends brought us back."

His return to Ireland coincided with a business opportunity, as within a week of returning he discovered that the lease on a restaurant in his home town of Gorey, Co Wexford, was up for grabs. He brought in a chef, Warren Gillen, and Stack's gastropub was born.

It may not have happened without his Croatian experience, he says. "The pizzeria was my first time running the whole show for myself. I realised you need to put in the hours. It's almost like a vocation." It has also made him a little bit tougher. "I'm still a nice guy, but I was probably too nice for my own good before I started off. You have to make some tough decisions in this business."

Despite missing some of the friends he made in Croatia, Stack has no regrets about coming back. "The weather has actually been better here than in Croatia since I've come back," he says.

After all his time abroad, Stack is home for good. "I'm happy to be back," he says. "I've done it now. I've spent a lot of time travelling and had that chunk of time in Croatia, and now that part of my life is done and dusted. It was a great time, but this is what I've always really wanted to do."

CLÍONA DEMPSEY

HOME FROM SYDNEY

It was only ever meant to be a year away for Clíona Dempsey. "I was 27, and I was in a meeting one day at work, surrounded by 50-year-old businessmen, and I thought: There has to be something more exciting out there." Within days she had resigned, and soon she was off to Australia, on a 12-month working visa.

It was a snap decision that changed her life, as Dempsey fell in love with Sydney as soon as she landed. "It's a beautiful place to live, and I loved it from the first day. I remember arriving down in Bondi and seeing that beach and saying I could do this for a year," she says.

The year got continually extended until she eventually got residency and then Australian citizenship - and discovered that seven years had passed. "A little bit of me always used to get surprised at how long I was there. I never intended to stay that long, but circumstances rolled on like that."

After changing countries, she also changed careers. "I had been working as an architect in Ireland, but I knew I wasn't 100 per cent keen on what I was doing. The firm I was working with in Australia had a really good interior-design department, so I moved across into that and have been doing that for the past five years."

With a new career and an apartment on Sydney Harbour, Dempsey was happy in Australia. But when the time came to buy her own place she hesitated. "I wasn't ready to settle down there for good until I'd written Ireland off," she says.

So she came back - but to a country that had changed dramatically in her seven-year absence. "It's a very different place, but all the changes are really good. The city feels an awful lot more energetic, and I love the fact that there are so many foreigners here. It was a little bit boring before, but now there's an international quality about it that's lovely. And you can get a decent cup of coffee now."

Dempsey believes that living abroad helped to develop her social skills. "I've been in so many situations where I didn't know anyone at all and had to talk to everyone, so in that way being abroad forces you to get over any shyness that you have," she says.

She's currently setting up as a consultant and teaching interior architecture. "The work in Australia gave me the expertise in that field."

She may be back, but is it for good? "Ireland is always going to be my home, but I could totally see myself in five years going to live in another country for another four years. I'd be more than happy to up sticks in a year or two if the circumstances were right."