“I found myself almost handed roles in tech. Although we knew very little of technology, they were giving us jobs – quite good jobs with contracts,” Irene Dennehy says, recalling the job market when she arrived in Ireland from her native Portugal aged 28 in the mid-1990s.
The 58-year-old remembers admitting to not knowing anything about laptops in her first job interview to work in laptop support.
“They said, we don’t mind that you don’t know anything about laptops. You can learn that in the job. It’s much harder to teach languages to somebody who’s very technical.”
Dennehy can speak five languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish, French and Italian.
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“I found myself in an office with like-minded people who came to Ireland wanting to gain independence in a different country. Suddenly we formed a really great group of friends, people who spoke other languages, but technically we knew nothing.”
As this was in a time before search engines such as Google were readily available, she and her colleagues would queue up in front of the desk of the office’s one technical lead when a customer called with a problem with their laptop. The technical lead would then explain to Dennehy and her colleagues how to resolve the issue, who would then tell the customer what the technical lead had told them.
Over time her knowledge about laptops improved and she still works in tech today. She also met her future husband, Aidan, at work.
“He was one of the tech leads, one of the guys that had a queue of people asking him questions.”
Though Aidan asked her out first, she says the couple had had unspoken mutual feelings for each other for some time
“I was quite curious about his way of being, his culture. He’s just so different than me.”
They now have three children and have been together since 1998.
“He’s your typical Irish guy, if there is a typical Irish guy, but he is very crafty and funnily enough he doesn’t drink but he loves being with me. I think because I speak and I am so much, I’m the organiser but he brings some depth and some humour that is interesting.”
Dennehy had arrived in Ireland on December 29th, 1994, to pursue a master’s in communications. However, education was not the sole reason for her decision to move.
“A lot of times I felt that I was a foreigner in my own land when I was back in Portugal.”
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As a teenager she felt different from her friends and that she never quite fitted in. After graduating from university she struggled to find a job that she liked, which pushed her to look for opportunities abroad.
“When I arrived here, there was some part of me that started to be a bit more awake.”
She feels she aligned with Irish culture quite easily, especially in the way that its combines being friendly with being reserved and being insightful while maintaining a great sense of humour.
Initially she had planned to stay in Ireland for a year.
“I kept staying as I kept feeling that this is my home, this is where I want to stay. It was a weird, weird feeling. There was no explanation. It’s not like I have more money here. It was just inside me.”
While she found friends and community through her work, she feels that today people don’t mingle as much at work.
“I wish that we would still be more of a community like we were in those times with no social media. We were more in tune with each other because we talked more to each other. We had more time to talk. We met more often in person.
“I think now that that it’s less that way. I see that in work, the communities stick together. If there’s a big Indian community of very technically talented and qualified people that come over here to work, it’s more difficult to mingle. I don’t see people mingling that much with other cultures.”
She and her husband had their children quite soon after getting married. They decided to stay in Ireland over moving to Portugal as they had good jobs and Aidan has little Portuguese.
Raising children without the help of your extended family was not easy, Dennehy says.
“They say it takes a village; it takes your own family to help you raise your kids and I didn’t have that.”
Watching her children navigate the Irish education system made her question its merits.
“I started to research a lot about children’s education and I don’t know if our education system is the wisest. I’m not saying only in Ireland, I’m saying in general. I don’t know if it really brings out the best in our teenagers, when you’re really developing as a person.”
Some time ago she came across a video by Ken Robinson, a professor and education adviser, who said society was killing creativity with its approach to education.
“That was really mind-blowing because at the time I felt that my kids, who I love so much, were coming home every day with homework to do, repeating routine.”
Outside of work she volunteers with the Stem Passport for Inclusion, led by Prof Katriona O’Sullivan, which aims to diversify teacher training.
In terms of the future, she doubts that she will ever live in Portugal full-time again but goes back to visit her family regularly.
“I’ve always felt at home here.”
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish
