Corkonians Abroad: 'I left Cork in 2004, but it will never leave me'

How did you end up in Florida?

The long summers afforded to students in UCC set me off on my American adventure back in 1999.

During my third year in college, I was recruited to work in a summer camp in a place called Boca Raton in Florida. With the address of the camp being Military Trail, I expected to be working in the wilderness out of a tent. What I found was quite the opposite.

The camp was located on a small private university campus, with lush surroundings and all the modern conveniences you could imagine (www.lynn.edu). I would use the camp as my base to travel around the U.S after my work there.

After an amazing experience in 1999, I returned in 2000 thinking it would be my last year. 2001 would see me pursue my Master’s by research in UCC and my thesis focused upon the U.S role in the Irish peace process.

As a result, I returned to the camp for one ‘final’ year in 2001, with the idea I could use my time there as the base to arrange interviews and do additional research for my Master’s.

While I was successful in this goal, it would also be the summer that I met a girl from Texas working in the camp. After striking up a friendship, we kept in touch as most people did back then via MSN Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger. Unable to secure a permanent job back in Cork in 2002, I ventured back to the camp and from that point myself and Jenny decided to give things a go.

I moved out to Florida in September, 2004, with a view to us spending a year together in America, then a goal to spending a year in Ireland in 2005, before deciding where we would end up. We got engaged on top of the Empire State Building in New York in March, 2005, and were married in Boca Raton in July, 2005.

What is your life like in your new home?

When I tell people in Cork I live in Florida, I immediately get the ‘Wow’ reaction. There are not many negatives. We only have two types of weather, hot and hotter. We are 15 minutes from the beach and our residential community has its own resort-style swimming pool that is surrounded by palm trees. For those that enjoy shopping, we have outlets and shops galore, and all of the major theme parks are only three hours up the road. We are living the life!

But for every upside, there are some downsides. We are susceptible to hurricanes. The cost of living is extremely high. While covid brought so many challenges, it also slowed life down a little and we all appreciated the slower pace That slower pace is a thing of the past now!

Tell us about your family

I started going out with Jenny back in 2002. And for the first while, it was a bit like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail. While couples today have FaceTime, Zoom, and video calls, we would text back and forth for hours on end every evening, and make a phone call on the weekend. The long-distance communication was hard, but both of us made trips, when possible, back and forth.

Jenny is an elementary school STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art and Math) teacher at A.D. Henderson, a lab school on the campus of Florida Atlantic University.

We have been blessed with the three most amazing children. Caitlin was the first to arrive in 2009, followed by Sean in 2011, and Molly in 2015. They all attend the school where Jenny works. Education in the U.S is broken down into Elementary, Middle (11-14 years) and High School (15-18 years).

Where the educational programme at the lab school differs to the traditional U.S high school is that Caitlin will compress four years of high school into one academic year. In her remaining three years, she will take classes at the university campus. If we were to force things, which we will not, she could graduate university before finishing high school. Our goal is to take things slow and steady and to see where the road takes her. Right now, she is obsessed with all things Liverpool Football Club, and she is tinkering with the ideas of pursuing sports management.

Sean is in his second year of middle school, which is similar to secondary in Ireland. He is getting used to picking and choosing subjects and changing classroom after each academic period. He has had the opportunity to take aerospace classes and is captain of the drone team in one of his classes. They are competing in the Florida State Championships at the end of the month. Sean is a keen athlete and willing to try almost any athletic endeavour. He has represented his school in soccer as well as in track and field. He returned to Florida after his latest trip to Cork with a hurley and sliotar.

Molly is the ‘baby’ of the family and keeps us all on our toes. She is an avid reader and is rarely seen without a book under her arm. She loves all things connected to Greek mythology and is a big Percy Jackson fan. She is in elementary school and has plans to develop a podcast from one of her after-school clubs on the theme of mythology. To say Molly loves Christmas would be an understatement. The Elf on the Shelf gradually took over our house as the years went by and we progressed from one elf visiting to seven!

What has been the biggest challenge for you living abroad?

Being the fifth of six children, I am the only one not living in Cork. As with other Irish people living overseas, the struggle of missing home will always be there and will never go away, but you learn how to cope with it. I may have left Cork in 2004, but Cork will never leave me.

I have missed birthdays, christenings, communions and confirmations, and other family occasions. They have all come and gone, and ultimately you have to choose what you can try to make it to, and what you cannot.

I long to bring my children up with a sense of Irishness and appreciation for all things Ireland. However, the cost for a family of five to travel home to Cork from Florida is largely prohibitive, and as a result it can be challenging to see our children build the essential family relationships with their Irish cousins.

We made it home as a family of four in 2014, a family of five in 2016, but it would be March of 2025 before we all got to go together again.

Tell us about your career in Florida

I have carved out a good career here, but I am ambitious and eager to continue growing and developing. I started at an entry level position in the student financial services office at Lynn University. As the years have progressed, I gradually climbed to the role I have today, Director of Financial Aid Operations and Communications.

Financial Aid deals with student scholarships, grants, loans and student employment. I am responsible for shaping the departmental message, recruitment, and training of staff, educating students and staff on financial literacy, and leading different outreach initiatives for the department. While working at Lynn, I have been fortunate to complete my doctoral studies and as a result I have had the opportunity to speak all over the U.S at conferences on the topic of financial literacy.

Outside of Lynn, I have sought to expand my horizons. I am on the executive committee of VotingRights.ie, an organisation which seeks the right to vote for the Irish living overseas.

I am also a member of the Washington DC- based Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement. During the last number of US presidential elections, I wrote a number of pieces for Irishcentral.com on the election process and how it felt to vote in a U.S election for the first time. I regularly contribute pieces on Liverpool Football Club to Liverpool.com and AmericanSco.com. Most recently, I have been contributing pieces on education in the U.S for Irish families considering the move on WeAreGlobalIrish.com

What has been your most memorable moment in your new location so far?

The last 20 years have brought about a share of memorable moments. Our wedding in 2005 will always be a memorable adventure, on a day where the bride was late, the priest nearly walked out, and family got lost on the way to the reception. The birth of the three children will never be forgotten, but unlike most couples at home being able to share the joy with visits and hugs, we embraced technology with social media, FaceTime and blogs. Florida is always an easy sell, and the children have grown up to love the visits from grandparents, aunties, and uncles. The goodies that arrive in the suitcases from Blackrock are always well loved.

Moving to our new home in January, 2020, was a special moment. We had purchased a house in 2006 as we felt the money being paid in rent was essentially being lost. The house purchased for $222,500 would plummet to just $75,000 after the economic crash a little over a year later, and it really proved detrimental to the goal of moving home.

What was an ideal two-bedroom starter home for a newly married couple in 2006, would gradually be outgrown with the arrival of the little ones. Market conditions and restrictions meant it was a little more than a month before the outbreak of covid before we moved into our new family home. We moved from 1,200 square feet to over 3,600 square feet.

We have a few traditions that have brought some of the most memorable moments. Every year we celebrate Easter Sunday Mass at sunrise on the beach. It is hard to imagine sitting with the sand between your toes in shorts at sunrise in Cork during March or April.

I also took each of the children on a daddy daughter/son day trip to New York to visit Santa at Macys and more when they were in first and second grade.

Any special mentions to friends or family back in Cork?

My parents are still living in the family home in Blackrock, while my siblings are all in the local area. We all got to meet up for my brother’s wedding in March and it was a week to .

If you were back in Cork for one day, what would be the ideal day for you?

Christmas Day is the one day a year when there are moments that you long to be home the most. I say moments, because I would never trade the faces of my children running down the stairs to see if Santa has arrived or not.

We have started and built our own family traditions as the years have gone by; From livestreaming the children making a sherry trifle on Facebook on Christmas Eve, to FaceTiming family from the beach on St Stephen’s Day.

Christmas has always been special to us. And Christmases in Blackrock were always special. With all the family gathered together sharing stories and yarns, midnight Mass followed by a glass of Tanora and ham sandwiches before sharing out the presents from Santa himself.

There is something different about Christmas at home, and I think Irish people all over the globe appreciate it all the more when they get home to experience it. From turkey and ham to spiced beef and numerous types of potatoes to other culinary delights, we do love to enjoy ourselves, before moving on to desserts.

Then, to finish off the perfect day, we all fall asleep in front of a roaring fire while enjoying a film on the television.

What are you looking forward to in the coming months?

I may be far from Cork, but that does not prevent me enjoying the special moments that transcend distance. We are all big Liverpool fans and, all going well, we hope to be celebrating the second league title in 35 years on May 25. One of the biggest ironies of living in the US is I can watch every Premier League match for free and legally on one streaming platform, as opposed to the numerous platforms back home.

We enjoyed Cork’s hurling league win last weekend and are looking forward to the championship over the summer. While Cork is important, the Rockies are paramount, and no doubt we will scour every radio channel or every social media channel as we follow their quest in the county championship.