Taking a bite of the Big Apple: Maeve Higgins tells us about life in New York

COMEDIENNE Maeve Higgins decamped to New York at the end of January, having spent the previous year living in London, and the dozen before that in Dublin.

“I always wanted to live in New York,” says Higgins, returning to Ireland next week for gigs at the Vodafone Comedy Festival in Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens. “It was a dream of mine to be a writer in New York city. I didn’t really have concrete plans coming over. I still don’t, really, but I’m having a really good time, doing loads of gigs and loving the city.”

Higgins got into the United States on a performer’s visa. “It’s funny — when I moved here I met up with a friend of a friend of mine. We went for coffee, and he was like, ‘Congratulations — you got to America.’ I mean, oh, God — I would never say that to somebody who had arrived in Ireland from somewhere terrible. But, to be honest, I do feel very lucky to be here.”