Riding an economic boom

Unemployment is down and incomes are up as industry invades Ireland.

By ROBERT N. JENKINS, Times Travel Editor

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 2, 2000

Ireland's quaint, largely rural, often impoverished past is being challenged by an economic surge dubbed the Celtic Tiger. Some are happy to ride the tiger, while others wonder about its appetite.

In mid-May, Xerox announced that it is building a factory in Dundalk, about halfway between Belfast and Dublin, and is establishing its European operations center in Dublin. That headquarters will replace 57 smaller facilities throughout the continent and will have 2,000 employees, about half of them Irish, the other half from 30 other nations.

Irish idyll Southern Ireland has many charms among its craggy shorelines and rolling terrain, not the least of which is its people. 'All the seasons in one day' There's more to Cork than its capricious weather. Which way do you go? In Ireland, the signposts won't help much, even if you're driving on the correct side of the road. Be prepared to be confused by them -- if you can even see them. Getting to know the Irish You'll find out more about the Irish if you visit their "locals" -- the corner pubs that toast their sociable nature. Quiet stones tell a story Ireland's ancient past whispers from its ruins, fallen remnants of war and religion, fragments of communities that flourished centuries ago. Riding an economic boom Unemployment is down and incomes are up as industry invades Ireland. Drinking in the culture A personal pilgrimage to the pubs of Dublin.

Hundreds of other U.S. corporations are already operating in the Irish Republic, lured by reduced taxes and a relatively cheap, English-speaking, well-educated work force.

"This is the first generation that won't have to emigrate to find jobs," boasts Kilkenny historical guide Pat Tynan.

"Our population is rising for the first time since the famine (which began in the 1840s), despite a falling birth rate. Irish are returning, to high-tech jobs, and foreigners are coming, too. Every European country knows about Ireland now."

Indeed. An estimated 100,000 people immigrated to Ireland in 1998 and '99, about half of them Irish returning to the improved work climate. The country is said to be the world's leading exporter of software: Microsoft and IBM have their European headquarters here, but there are also Intel, Hewlett-Packard and others.

Unemployment, about 17 percent in the 1980s, is less than a third of that now. From construction firms to the computer industry, employers are pressed to find enough skilled workers.

Consequently, there is a lot of money to be made now, and a lot to be spent. The new ways are pulling people in both directions.

"We had a scare here recently," confides Maureen Gelletlie, pausing at a table of guests relaxing in the lush gardens behind her Hunter's Hotel in Rathnew, barely 25 miles south of Dublin. Gesturing toward the tree line at the edge of her land, she says, "The farmer adjacent to us was offered a sum by speculators, who wanted to put in an industrial park."

Tucking a few gray wisps back into her bun, "Mrs. G.," as she's widely known, pauses for effect. She is the fourth generation of her family to preside over this 200-years-plus "coaching inn," as early hotels were called, and her adult sons now work with her.

She lets her listeners imagine these sublime garden views bordered by commercial or retail structures, then she completes her story:

"We went to the (zoning) commission and got it stopped," Mrs. G. says. The simple comment reveals the tenacity to leave good things alone.

Others, of course, hope to change matters in a small way.

John and Mary Tattan are a two-career couple: He operates two commercial fishing boats, and she manages their small seaside hotel, the Spanish Point, in tiny Ballycotton, about 25 miles southeast of Cork.

John has always been a fisherman, but Mary left a banking job in London to return to her coastal home and to take a three-month course at the much-heralded (and nearby) Ballymaloe Cooking School. Now she is chef of the hotel's restaurant, which draws customers from miles away to the cliffside village.

After months of adding on and refurbishing the building -- it had been a summer home for nuns, crowded with rooms but not amenities -- the Tattans opened Spanish Point in June 1992.

Well, Mary did; John was 50 miles away at sea, working the low tides for hake, a popular fish.

Reflecting on his own absence then, John says: "Getting help is the trouble still. But it's the Celtic Tiger and the computer business luring them away to normal hours."

He interrupts his commentary to kick a soccer ball back to the couple's son, then adds, "And every Saturday, the business section of the Cork Examiner has a story about another new restaurant opening up.

"It's the money of the cities that lures them" from the villages, which often have fewer than 2,000 residents and few job opportunities.

Arnie and Georgina Poole have a reverse view of Ireland's economic changes. Dubliners who owned a company that rented pediatric medical equipment, they decided that the quality of life in the bustling capital was declining.

Having spent time relaxing on inland waterways, the Pooles knew they had an option. So, in the late '90s they put staff in charge of the rental business, sold their house and moved about 70 miles southwest to Graiguenamanagh (gray-guh-nuh-MAN-ah).

Now the Pooles rent out four 42-foot, motorized boats that sleep up to six. The boats are tied up on the River Barrow, which flows 30 miles south to the sea and, through canals and waterways, northeast to Dublin or all the way north to Ulster.

The company office is in the Pooles' small home, between the riverbank and a steep, wooded hillside typical of the river valley.

"We don't spend as much time on the water as we thought we would; we're too busy," says Georgina.

"We knew boats would never make us rich, but we bought a way of life. We sold our house (outside Dublin) for about $170,000; last year it sold again, for about $700,000.

"But here, we've got our goats and pony" grazing along the bank, "and the children can climb" amid the hillside fields of bluebells.

Though they have enough customers to keep them busy from April through October, says Arnie, "Not many people find their way to Graiguenamanagh. It's not on the way to anything."

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