Loretto Horrigan Leary

I received my Morrison Visa in the spring of 1993 while living in County Galway. At the time, Galway was the fastest-growing city in Europe, but even so, it wasn’t a place where a college graduate with a degree in English, Sociology, and Political Science could easily find a job. The Celtic Tiger was still just a whisper on the horizon, and I couldn’t envision the kind of future I wanted in Ireland.

I had spent several summers working in Connecticut while studying at UCG, and even spent a year there before starting university. I liked it. I had friends there. So when the visa came through, I packed up and immigrated to Darien, Connecticut on April 4, 1993.

“Leaving Ireland was bittersweet, I was sad to go, but eager to take a chance. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, and it wasn’t.”

I worked at a dry cleaners, a Chinese restaurant, a preschool, tutored high schoolers, and took night classes twice a week to earn my teacher’s certificate and eventually a Master’s in Education. I paid rent, ran a car, and covered school expenses by juggling five part-time jobs. A green card didn’t guarantee a job, many employers still didn’t want the hassle of paperwork. But I stuck with it.

One of the most formative experiences I had was working at the dry cleaners. There, I met people from every corner of the world, Korean, Chinese, Haitian, Mexican and all of them were kind, hardworking, and welcoming. With the exception of the Black Americans, we were all immigrants. That simple job changed my life.

But the hardest part of living in America was dealing with loss from afar. I lost family members back in Ireland and couldn’t be there. That’s a kind of pain you don’t really overcome. It’s deeply personal. If I could give advice to any immigrant, I’d say: be prepared for that. You can’t just hop on a plane when someone’s sick or dying. It’s one of the unseen costs of leaving.

“Living in the U.S. has deepened my respect for Ireland and Irish history. I’ve never lost my Galway accent, and never wanted to. Americans love it, and I love what it connects me to.”

I’m not into leprechaun hats or green feather boas, but I do spend time traveling around Connecticut giving presentations on the Irish Famine immigrants who came before me. I tell their stories, the jobs they did, the struggles they faced, and I cherish connecting with the older Irish diaspora. It feels like a continuation of something bigger.

Now, I’ve built a life with my husband and son that honors our Irish ancestry while embracing the opportunity that America made possible. I’m proud of that.