Jennifer Horgan: Is it time to rethink the kind of success we celebrate in Ireland?

'My son has just finished his Junior Cycle. Already he tells me that the system wants him to get points because the higher his points the more money he will make.' File picture

If you haven't heard of Eoghan McCabe, he’s the Dublin-born CEO in the news this month for signing an agreement allowing Salesforce to acquire Fin, his tech company, for a cool $3.6bn. It is the largest-ever deal involving an Irish-founded tech company — an indisputable ‘success’ story.

On his website he describes growing up a “shy” boy in Dublin. He went on to study at Trinity — a successful education by any measure.

And yet, if he were a past student of mine, I could take no pleasure in his success — none whatsoever.

I first heard of McCabe back in 2017 when he was interviewed on Morning Ireland, about his efforts to help immigrant workers affected by US president Trump’s travel bans. He was speaking alongside Patrick Collison, co-founder of Stripe. If you listen back to the interview, you’ll hear Collison morally object to Trump’s policies.

McCabe, although donating money, does not object on moral grounds in that interview.

Rather, he reflects on his own status as an immigrant, and what Trump’s approach might mean for him.

A lot has happened since 2017. Like many ‘tech bros,’ McCabe has become a supporter of Trump.

It’s presumably good for business. Alongside donating to him, he has attended events that have raised millions, posing for pictures with the president against the backdrop of an American flag.

In 2025 McCabe posted on X: “one of the great sorrows of my life has been watching my beautiful home country of Ireland be destroyed by its own unfettered immigration policy.”

He has made comments about blood spilling on the streets of Dublin too, and bemoans the low level of testosterone among our boys and men.

McCabe claims to be spiritual. His bio on his X account quotes the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning poet Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I’m an English teacher. I wish Mary Oliver could write a response to McCabe, explaining how he is twisting that beautiful line.

To most of us Oliver’s words act as a mantra, helping an ordinary person retain some space for the soul.

For men like McCabe it appears to be the battlecry of pure, unfettered individualism.

I have shared my observations about McCabe with a few people while writing this column, and they weren’t shocked by them.

They worried for me that people might think I’m being too harsh on the man.

Like many ‘tech bros,’ Eoghan McCabe has become a supporter of Trump. File picture Big Event Media/Getty

People nowadays, even good people, seem to accept that to be hugely successful, you have to bend with the wind.

One friend said I was being an inverted snob, unfair to the wealthy. I’m not criticising McCabe because he is rich and successful. Rich people can be good people.

But the richer and more powerful they are, the more responsibility they have to the less fortunate. The wealth of a billionaire or a trillionaire is obscene.

Their generosity should be similarly so. I would never look at a rich person and assume they’re bad people, but given the state of the world it’s only natural to wonder how they got there.

McCabe is an educated man. He is a product of the system I work in. It’s something I’ve been thinking about all week.

McCabe’s language on LinkedIn, celebrating the recent acquisition, provides one answer. It is the language we fed him — the language of the underdog.

He writes:“To my cofounders, my exec team: Look what we built. Four young lads with a dream and nothing to lose.”

It makes for a great ‘fighting against the odds’ story. And that’s how a lot of people see it.

One reaction online reads: “This really is a landmark transaction for the Irish tech ecosystem.” “Great day for the parish!” says another.

The underdog narrative has a time and a place, but our system misapplies it.

True underdogs

A story was shared with me this week about a teacher called Jonathan Kozol who walked into a crumbling, underfunded classroom, in a poor part of Boston, in 1965.

On that May morning, Kozol proceeded to read to his class of African-American nine-year-olds, a poem by Langston Hughes, about a Black tenant standing up to a white landlord.

When word of his lesson got out, he was dismissed for having taught something outside the curriculum. Kozol knew his students needed to hear that poem.

He understood that in an unjust system he needed to empower those young people. He went on to write a bestselling book about the racial and social inequalities in America. It sold two million copies.

We still have classrooms like that in Ireland, populated by underdogs who need to be inspired and nurtured by the system.

But we have other classrooms too, populated by students like Eoghan McCabe, who could do with learning more about being kind, and less about ego.

In 2026, Ireland wants young people to succeed. We push them; we offer points on a scale; we tell them they can be anything, anyone. We champion perseverance, resilience and discipline. Be brave. Be exceptional. Take risks. At all costs, succeed.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Plenty of us working in the system see the problem and try to strike some balance. In quiet ways, we teach them to value one another.

Parts of the curriculum support us but they are not the parts that are examined or rewarded.

Young people aren’t stupid. They pick up on what our education system really values: financial success. They understand that caring for people is secondary.

They don’t see nurses on billboards. They see innovators, celebrities and sports stars.

Be exceptional, we tell them. Be the best at what you do. Fulfill your potential.

As a teacher in our system, and as a mother, I find the congratulatory comments for McCabe on LinkedIn truly depressing.

My son has just finished his Junior Cycle. Already he tells me that the system wants him to get points because the higher his points the more money he will make.

He says kindness is valued in school, but not rewarded. It shouldn’t have to be rewarded, he adds, but when other things are, it feels diluted.

He is a kind boy, and his school is better than most in getting the balance right. But we need to question a system that directs students to think only of themselves. Plenty of children fighting for points are not underdogs. They are keen to understand what a successful life, a good life, looks like.

What is it we are telling them?