Just graduated?
Andrew Murray (above) is the author of The ’80s Kid, a lovingly-detailed buke about the macabre wonders of growing up in the 1980s in Ireland [a ‘Xmas’ stocking filler around these parts in 2011].
Two years on, this is what he has learned.
The HARD way.
Let me guess: you graduated this summer, but can’t find work? Maybe you’re not sure you even want to work in the field you studied? You sometimes wonder, should you just leave Ireland altogether? It’s not your first choice, but you know people doing well out there.
I have to be honest: staying in Ireland is not going to be easy – but if you scramble, gamble and do a few things that stand out from the crowd – you can stay here, find work you enjoy and be very happy. I know the score because I was once there myself.
I love Dublin. If I can live here forever, I will do so. That’s not to say Dublin’s perfect: far from it. It’s a complete paradox, and that’s what I love about it.
Dublin is beautiful – it has mountains and sea, yet it’s gritty and chaotic with people, relationships, creativity and culture all colliding. It’s full of the extraordinary in the everyday. That excites me. I miss the place, the people, when I’m away: I like nothing more than to get in a taxi when I return to Dublin Airport. I purposely bring up Bertie Ahern, if they ever forced someone to pay the soiling charge, John Delaney or the taxi regulator. You’ve got a 50/50 chance of fireworks and passion – that’s how I know I’m home.
My family are here. My favourite places are here. The only thing that’s missing is my friends. They’re in Australia, America, Canada, South Korea, Turkey, New Zealand and many more far flung destinations. The good thing is that Dublin is their centre-point, the place that they’ll always arrive back to. They may only return for one week spells every couple of years – but we’ve learned to make the most of that time.
These men and women have been forced to emigrate. Some have created great lives and careers. Some haven’t been as lucky. ALL say that they wish they could carve out a career in Ireland.
I’ve had one foot in Dublin airport on two separate occasions. On both occasions I had no idea when I would have been able to return. I didn’t want to go, but I knew I had no alternative.
My family had no money when I was growing up. My Gran raised me with the help of some amazing aunts and uncles, and my school helped secure a BIG grant for four years. Without this, college wouldn’t have been an option for me. I graduated in 2008 from DIT Bolton Street with a degree in Spatial Planning.
I was a Town Planner emerging into the market place at the exact time the construction sector was about to capitulate, but I was lucky, securing a job in a top architectural firm. I worked on a whole host of amazing projects in towns and villages around Ireland.
I could see my whole career mapped out in front of me – until, in May 2010, the bad news came: 127 jobs, including mine, were lost.
I had no savings and by this stage my Gran was in a nursing home, so I was effectively homeless. I had a choice – stay with my cousin, who had kindly offered to ‘put me up’ for three months while I worked as a sole trader for my old boss (without the promise of a pick of work) or jump on a plane to Oz, where town planning was on the critical skills list. I gambled and stayed.
It paid off: after a rocky start, I teamed up with a design firm and together we produced the PIVOT Dublin World Design Capital Bid 2014. It was all-consuming for ten months and the best project I’ll ever work on.
The bid was short-listed to the final three cities from 54 world-wide. Even though Cape Town was the eventual winner, Dublin’s PIVOT bid has a legacy that continues to inspire people
As the project was finishing up I had two weeks off, so I focused on a pet project: The ‘80s Kid – an annual or book about growing up in the ‘80s and early ‘90s in Ireland. I approached a small publisher in May 2011: three days later I signed the contracts. I teamed up with Red and Grey, my design partners from PIVOT; I interrogated 23 cousins on their memories of the 80s and 90s. Somehow, I got it done. Incredibly, it reached number five in the Christmas charts for two weeks in December 2011.
The ‘80s Kid and PIVOT led me into the advertising industry, where I’ve worked for the past two years and I couldn’t be much happier. It feels like ten years since I worked in architecture.
If there’s one recommendation I could give to any graduate, as someone who’s been there, it’s to STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD. Volunteer, do great things for charity, create a blog – just do something. Everyone has degrees / masters now. A person has to stand out, be different.
I see many people with great ideas who are not willing to fully back themselves. Why? Because there’s still a culture of ‘Who do they think they are?’ in Ireland. Anyone who puts their head above the parapet gets it in the neck.
I say ‘screw ‘em and go for it anyway: the responsibility lies with you to make it happen, no one else. People have other priorities in life rather than your ideas, so it’s up to you to create it and make it real.
I’ve been lucky. I could have taken a plane out of Ireland plenty of times, but instead I scrambled, gambled and did a few things that helped create a few CV moments that stand out from the crowd. So if I had any advice for you, it’d be to take risks and create opportunities – be a bit deluded, be fearless and most of all, be inspired.
FIGHT!
A Letter To Irish Graduates From One Of Your own (Andrew Murray, InTheCompanyofHuskies)
Pic: Saltwater Publishing