I’m from New York, where I worked in insurance and my husband had a construction company. My sister married a Dungarvan man and moved here and I missed her, so I moved too, in 2000.
I never had a business in the US so it’s hard to compare how different it would have been but I know what did surprise me here was the level of support available to entrepreneurs. Whether it’s the Local Enterprise Boards, the Leader companies, Enterprise Ireland or Bord Bia, the support we have received has been tremendous and I don’t think would have been of the same level in the US.
Perhaps there is sometimes a ‘slow no’, where you go some distance in negotiations before someone tells you that actually, it might not be a good fit. There’s a sense that maybe they didn’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you earlier. It isn’t just Irish though, it has happened in other countries too. It hasn’t hampered our success. Our business is doing better than ever and most of it comes from exporting our bagels to France and Spain.
Again, it’s hard to compare how managing a workforce would be different in the US because I never did. My husband did run a business in the US, but then, all his staff were Irish! Rosie’s Bakehouse is based in Dungarvan, Co Waterford
