Joyce Fegan: What constitutes 'a good job' in Ireland now?

'Tech' places enjoyed a good reputational run for years, but now the glean is gone and it's time to go back to the drawing board

The statue of Jim Larkin, who fought for workers’ rights to unionise. Picture: Maura Hickey

For the last decade or so, a “good job” in Ireland was in a place where there were bean bags, football tables, free lunches, and dinners, and where shirts and ties were frowned upon. For this level of luxury, you were handsomely paid too. And your friends were only dying to get invited in for lunch to the salad bar or for some stone-baked pizza fresh from the wood-fired oven. They’d even take a few smoothies from the fridge on their way out.

But you’d never have pulled the wool over Jim Larkin’s or James Connolly’s eyes, for all the free lunches in Ireland.