OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

The Celtic Tiger: robust but fussy

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Harry Keaney

As an Irish American, Charles O’Connor was delighted when he saw that his daughter Deirdre was falling in love with Ireland. His grandparents had emigrated from the Emerald Isle and his children were raised on stories of Irish folklore and music.

But the O’Connors were in for a rude awakening. Two factors — no Irish passport and lack of required skills — came together to make it impossible for Deirdre O’Connor to continue to legally work in Ireland.

In 1994, she spent the second semester of her junior year at University College in Dublin. After graduation from Penn State the following year with a liberal arts degree in English, she returned to Ireland on a student work permit, which allowed her to stay for four months.

But she was unable to obtain a well-paying, long-term, legal job.

"No one would hire an American and without a job you cannot apply for a work permit," her father explained.

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Deirdre O’Connor returned to the U.S., worked for the summer and went back to Ireland the following September.

During an interview with Merrill Lynch in Dublin, she was told there "was nothing they could do" for her, according to her father, who worked as a helicopter pilot for former Merrill Lynch chairman, Dan Tully.

"If she were able to obtain her citizenship, it would help," Deirdre was told.

The only problem was that her father had already tried that approach but discovered that Irish law was changed in 1986, making his daughter ineligible for citizenship through her great-grandparents. (Charles had already obtained his Irish citizenship through his grandparents).

After about a year of frustration, Deirdre O’Connor discovered a program at Dublin Business School that provided a graduate diploma in business studies as well as four months’ work experience.

Doing this, she felt, would enable her find a job.

She obtained her diploma with honors, but the school was unable to help her find employment because, her father says, she was an American.

"Finally, they placed her with Bórd Iascaigh Mhara for a four-month contract, and minimum wages," her father said. "At the completion of her contract [last February], even though they thought very highly of her, they told her they were bound to place an Irish or other European in the position and they could not renew her contract."

"If people come to the U.S., there are visas and green cards, but there is nothing of a reciprocal nature for Americans without an Irish passport going to Ireland," Deirdre O’Connor said.

"You cannot get a work permit unless you can get a job and she can not get a job because she is an American," her father said.

"Everyday I hear on the news about the Celtic Tiger," Charles O’Connor wrote last March in a letter to the Echo. "I hear stories of other Europeans being brought into Ireland to help in the computer industry. I hear stories of bonuses for Irish who are willing to return to work in Ireland. What I don’t hear is, ‘Americans Need Not Apply.’ "

Of course, the real question is, applying for what? Had O’Connor skills or experience in areas such as software, biotechnology or engineering, for example, she would probably have been overwhelmed with job offers, perhaps even from U.S. companies with subsidiaries in Ireland, thus copperfastening her case for a work permit.

Last Friday, she returned to the U.S. for a wedding. She will probably work here in the U.S. to earn some much-needed money. Then, perhaps, she may return to Ireland and try again to obtain a work permit.

"I don’t want to close any doors," she said last week from Dublin.

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