New rebel army: Five well-known people discuss putting down roots in Cork

To celebrate the launch of We Are Cork, Ciara McDonnell chats to five of Cork’s most prominent blow-ins about putting down roots in the rebel county.

Alpa Agrawal, tech entrepreneur and owner of Allmin Resources

I came to Cork just over five years ago. I had qualified in chemical engineering back in India and I wanted to study business; I felt that the technical side of my training was over and I wanted to learn the business side, so that I could open my own company.

It’s in my blood. I am a third generation chemical engineer, and I come from an entrepreneurial background – my grandfather started a chemical engineering business in India and so I grew up learning and understanding how a business worked.

The Masters in Entrepreneurship that was offered at UCC appealed to everything I was looking for. It was so practical – we didn’t have formal exams, we had assignments in the practical aspects of entrepreneurship in collaboration with existing companies and this experience was invaluable to me.

The thing that particularly caught my attention initially about Cork was the fact that there are so many pharmaceutical companies based in Cork. My speciality is a niche area, which seemed to fit perfectly here in Cork. It’s the perfect size for a business owner.

It’s not too big where you may feel lost and it’s not so small that you don’t have access to the facilities that you would find in the larger cities.

Family is a number one priority in India, and Ireland is so far from what we perceive countries in the West to be in this regard. Family ties here are really important. All of my friends in Cork talk constantly about their mammies and their grannies and they are so involved with their day-to-day life; this is how it is in India.

Last year I got married back in India to my husband who actually studied with me here at UCC. Some of my friends from Cork travelled over for the celebrations.

They had such a wonderful time at all the ceremonies, and my mother and grandmother spent some time explaining the teachings behind our wedding traditions.

They told me that lots of what my grandmother had told them were things that their grannies and mothers would have taught them growing up, and to me it showed the ultimate similarities in our cultures. To me, I have come from home to another home, here in Cork.

RayMond Kelleher, Marketing Director, Trigon Hotels

I’m originally from Longford, where I grew up on a dairy farm. When I was 17, I moved to Dublin to study hotel management and business studies, which took me to hotels in Dublin, Kenmare, and Sligo, before a move to Clonakilty to join the team at the Quality Hotel, in 2000. I didn’t know it, but that move would change my life.

I met and married a girl from Courtmacsherry and we are settled in Clonakilty, with two gorgeous children, Aoibhinn (10) and Rian (7). I joke that I have the best of both worlds: the city by day and the sea by night, and it’s true.

The thing about the hospitality industry here is that if there is someone in crisis, we all rally round. Last year, during the bad weather events we had, we all helped out: whether it was sending staff from Cork Airport Hotel across to the airport, with duvets for the passengers who were grounded, or at The Metropole, where we had unexpected guests staying with us, who became part of our family, that’s part of the charm of Cork.

I started working in the city just before the recession hit, so I’ve seen the city change dramatically over the last decade. What do you do when you are involved in a situation like this?

You join different groups, in order to help. I joined groups like the Cork Chamber, Cork Business Association, and the Cork Convention Bureau.

These are all extra-curricular and all voluntary, but they are necessary, in order to get your business out there and survive. We all have to network, we all have to do business, and, as hoteliers, we all work together to push the city as a destination.

We are Ireland’s second city, but when you think of our size, we are marginally smaller than Dublin.

In saying that, there are very few European cities which have an airport located ten minutes from the city centre, and that is a huge benefit to business. The team at the airport are fantastic and we are seeing more and more flights going out of Cork, year on year.

Karen O’Reilly, owner of Employmum

I grew up in Limerick and qualified as an accountant before heading off and travelling the world. I lived in Luxemburg and spent five years in Australia before finding myself in the South of France. I went there with a rucksack on my back and 12 years later, left with a container full of things and two children. Even though we had a great life in France, my husband and I really wanted to come home with the kids, and raise them here in Ireland.

It was really important for us that wherever we ended up at home, we would have to be by the sea. While we were in France, my mum moved to Clonakilty and every time we came back to Ireland we would visit her and we fell head over heels in love with Clonakilty. It’s close to the city, it’s by the sea and the people are unbelievably nice.

Within the first few days of renting our first house in Clonakilty, we knew that we would settle in Cork – it felt like we were home. We feel like we have won the lotto by getting to live here. Especially in the first few years, every day we left the house, we would meet someone amazing, who was friendly or helpful or just genuine. Really, for us it’s the people that convinced us to settle here.

In terms of business, the community supports each other. I work from home and during Hurricane Ophelia, all the cafes and restaurants opened their doors and offered coffee and wifi – there was no charge, it was just the goodwill of the people.

From a business point of view it’s really easy to do business in Cork. Businesses are extremely supportive of each other here. I am a member of Network Cork, which is a network for women, which has been so helpful to me.

When I set up EmployMum I was working away on my own – it can be quite lonely. Joining that network was a real lifeline for me. If you’re not from a city it can be very intimidating doing business, but the hand of friendship has been extended to me, along with the collaborative business end of things.

Networking has been backed up with practical business advice and help, because they want you to succeed.

Takashi Miyazaki, chef patron, Ichigo Ichie and Miyazaki

My wife is from County Offaly and we lived there for four years. We were thinking about opening a Japanese restaurant and we started to investigate the best location in the country for our idea. We didn’t want to go to Dublin, because it was too big for me, and we wanted to be as close as possible to the countryside.

We went all over Ireland and Cork was the last place we visited and straight away we knew that this was the place for our restaurant.

Ireland is a small island but there are lots of places that are not near water. In Japan I am from the southwest, which is by the sea. I loved that Cork was on the water, and had incredible artisan food produce.

I wanted to give people the food that Japanese people eat every day. Cork is the food capital of Ireland, but I always believe that people enjoy food if it’s tasty, and that’s what we try to give them. My food may be a new concept to people, but it is rooted in very traditional methods, and I use these methods with local ingredients.

I am so happy to live and work in Cork. It’s a destination area – people travel for the food. I moved here six years ago and now it’s completely changed. There is a real buzz around the city centre. There are some fantastic young chefs coming up now and they are focused on using Irish ingredients to their best ability.

Lots of chefs ask me how to best use Irish seaweed. There are so many great seaweeds here in Ireland and so many people have no idea how to use it, and how it is possible to make an incredible dashy broth from seaweeds that can be found here on our shores.

When I moved to Ireland first, there were lots of garlic mushrooms on the menu and now we are seeing lots of very exciting dishes on menus, especially here in Cork. These new chefs know how great Irish ingredients are. They are incredible and very inspiring to me.

Amy Gurlitt, tech expert and poet

When I finished my bachelor’s degree in Germany in 2011 I decided to travel and improve my English. My best friend and I looked into all of our options and though we looked at the United States and Canada, we realised that Ireland was extremely close and great value, so we hopped on a flight and found ourselves here!

Cork was the second stop we made in Ireland. We spent the year couch surfing and working on farms around the country and we kept coming back to Cork. Before the year was up, my friend went back to Germany, but I was not finished with Cork, so I decided to stay, and it was the best decision of my life.

When I arrived Cork was not like Cork is now. Even in this short period of time, I can see the change happening every day. From a place that wasn’t in such good shape, now it has transformed to a place that I can see flourishing more and more every day. The city has an incredible buzz and lots of things are bubbling up like Yoga by the Quay and incredible cafes and businesses all over the city.

I have worked in different jobs here for the last number of years. I am very lucky, I work at a place called Malwarebytes and they recognise the importance of balance. We work extremely hard, but we also go out and live our lives to their fullest.

The people in Cork are so beautiful and so friendly. There is a café called Myo down on Pope’s Quay whose owner gives the most wonderful Irish welcome. There is a small gesture Irish people make, which is to say thanks to people that they interact with in a shop, or in a bus. It’s such a small thing – but it is entirely unique to Ireland.

When I first arrived someone said to me “Look Amy, you have to be careful. There is something magic about this place.

If you don’t make it out of here within the year, you will stay. He was right. Every year, this love for Cork grew and grew inside me. The rhythm of the river, the ebb of the tide and the ever-changing weather – all of these things have kind of absorbed me and I feel as though I am part of this place.