Twenty years ago this month hundreds of young Irish people were part of Euro Disneyland’s opening cast. School leavers and graduates had lined out over two days at a Dublin hotel hoping to be recruited as a waiter, car-park attendant or chambermaid
IT WAS freezing at 5am when the first of the eager youngsters arrived at Jurys Hotel in Dublin with hopes of going to Euro Disneyland.
Within a few hours their numbers swelled to hundreds and over two days thousands of school leavers and graduates joined the queue to apply for jobs at the corporation that created Mickey Mouse. They all wanted to be part of Disney’s colourful cast of characters when it opened outside Paris in 1992.
With memories of crowds of desperate men and women surging on Working Abroad Expos in Dublin and Cork last month still fresh, 20 years ago the sight of a generation of young talented people queueing for hours for menial jobs provoked similar outrage.
A front page report in The Irish Times said the patient line that snaked around Jurys “spoke volumes about 1990s Ireland” and the bleak economic times. “Most were wasting their time with only 150 relatively menial posts on offer at the 5,000-acre resort,” it said.
At the end of each day the Disney Corporation hired those who impressed it as car park attendants, waiters and chambermaids. They would join its opening crew who on April 12th, 1992, smiled and warmly welcomed Euro Disneyland’s early visitors.
As the resort, now known as Disneyland Paris, celebrates its 20th anniversary its first recruits are remembering their experiences; for some it was the time of their life while others loathed the Magic Kingdom.
One man hired in Dublin has no interest in an opening crew reunion saying he would be embarrassed to meet some of his former colleagues. “It was a hedonistic lifestyle. It was sex, drugs and rock and roll,” he says. “What else would you expect when you put 30,000 young people together?”
The opening crew worked long hours for wages ranging from €800 to €1,000 a month before taxes and accommodation costs. In the restaurants and hotels tips supplemented their earnings but it could be difficult to make ends meet and within a few months some of the enthusiastic workforce began to check out.
As French trade unions publicly criticised Disney’s work practices and tried to get a foothold in the staunchly American-run playground there were signs some of the Irish were disillusioned.
A chambermaid from Dublin told The Irish Times in May 1992 that while she knew the wages were low when she took the job she hadn’t realised how expensive it was to live in Paris. She didn’t want to be named for fear of being fired, she said. A young man from Dundalk talked about feeling trapped because he couldn’t afford to move elsewhere.
Those who stayed and moved up the management chain tended to be graduates. Benjamin Rudd, who is now a project management consultant working in the entertainment industry, joined Disney in Dublin in 1992 and became a team leader at its equine management division and stayed for three years.
In 2006 he returned to the corporation to manage a project at Walt Disney Imagineering and is in contact with other colleagues who thrived in Disneyland. They were the generation who were able to “create happiness and make memories” the Disney way.
Twenty years on Disneyland Paris is still eager to hire young Irish people who are friendly and service-oriented. It is offering jobs as cleaners, ride operators, cooks and salespeople and is likely to receive plenty of applications as once more a generation looks abroad for jobs.
DISNEY MEMORIES FOUR WORKERS AND THEIR STORIES
It was part of trying something new and getting a bit of worldwide experience
KEITH SHANAHAN
KEITH SHANAHAN directed Euro Disneyland's first visitors to Fantasyland and the other giant theme parks when it opened outside Paris 20 years ago.
"We mostly worked at opening and closing time in the car parks, operating the toll booth, moving traffic cones to make sure everyone was going in the right direction," he says.
A qualified draughtsman, Shanahan had already worked in France, Spain and the UK. He says no one really viewed it as a career move. "I was offered a job in the car parks because I had a driving licence and could hold a conversation in French. It was a bit of fun and something to do. The salary was low so I knew I wasn't going to save anything. It was part of trying something new and getting a bit of worldwide experience . We were looking for fun and adventure."
Shanahan stayed at Euro Disneyland for six months and moved on to other parts of France and Germany for a couple of years before returning to Ireland to study architecture. He started Waterford Architecture in 2006 just a few years before the crash, and has been travelling abroad for work since.
"I was working in Libya last year and got caught up in the revolution. There is a lot of work there for professionals in the construction sector and I hope to bid for more international contracts," he says. "I need to do this now to make a living."
My father said it was as good as national service for someone like me
ANDREW LEECH
ANDREW LEECH'S mother sent him to Jurys Hotel to apply for a job at Euro Disneyland. Leech, who now owns Rocketfoods with a diner and shop in Mount Merrion, Dublin, had finished a computer course after school but at 19, he had no idea what he wanted to do.
"I was a grumpy teenager who wasn't towing the line at home and when I got the opportunity to leave Ireland and work as a waiter, I grabbed it," he says.
News that he would have to wear a uniform and live in staff accommodation patrolled by security amused his father. "He said it was as good as national service for someone like me." Coincidentally, his brother was just finishing up working on the park's construction about this time.
Leech was based at a hamburger restaurant where there could be 100 staff working on a single shift, about 30 of whom would be Irish. "I was working every day with people who didn't speak much English. It was a multicultural environment and I loved every minute of it," Leech says.
He stayed there for 18 months and only left because he couldn't secure a permanent contract. It inspired him to train to work in the sector.
"I did a cookery course when I came back to Ireland and later worked in Germany, then in Paris, at a catering company that supplied food to Euro Disney. Working at Euro Disney really set me up."
I learned from my time at Euro Disney but it was not a great experience
SORCHA Nic CORMAIC
SORCHA Nic CORMAIC, or Sarah McCormack as she was then, sold popcorn and ice cream around the Euro Disneyland theme parks. The 18-year-old from Ballinteer, Dublin, had dropped out of college and was working as a lounge girl when she was offered the job.
"I thought 'this sounds brilliant, going to France and working in Disneyland'," she says. "I was young and naïve. I had rose-tinted glasses then."
Every day she moved around the theme parks with her vending cart wearing a different costume, depending on where she was based.
Nic Cormaic, now a national teacher who has run for election for Sinn Féin in Dublin South, found it a "demeaning" experience. "It was a bit of a shock to the system . . . Since that experience I have been involved with trade unions and workers' rights and socialism."
Working with other nationalities also sparked Nic Cormaic's interest in the Irish language, which she now speaks fluently. "The Irish were not great at their native language but began to speak it in broken bits when it became obvious we were the only nationality there without our own language," she says.
Nic Cormaic stayed at Euro Disneyland for about four months and came back to Ireland to study at NUI Galway. She now teaches at St Olaf's national school in Balally. "I learned from my time at Euro Disney but it was not a great experience," she says.
The reason I left was because the only way to progress was to have a college degree
MICHELE NEYLON
CORKMAN MICHELE Neylon was unemployed when he decided to try his luck with Euro Disney. After queuing for hours he was offered a contract to work as a waiter and signed it on the spot.
"It was an easy choice to make when I was offered the job. It was either stay in Cork and survive on the dole and never maybe get a proper job or go off and have this experience and earn some money," he says.
Neylon now runs Blacknight Internet Solutions, the company that registers the biggest number of .ie domain names and employs 25 staff. He still has a commemorative Euro Disney opening crew mug and thinks fondly of his time there.
"It was like college except you had cash and access to cooler things" he says. "It was wild." He laughs about the "Disney way" and the American management style they had to embrace.
He was making good money from tips but didn't see any prospect of carving out a career. "The reason I left Disney was because the only way to progress was to have a college degree."
He returned to Ireland after two years to study European languages at the University of Limerick. "I really enjoyed it. Sometimes when I get really frustrated with what I am doing now I do look back and think things were much simpler then. On those days I would go back in a heartbeat."