Orla Maguire

I believe I received my Morrison Visa in 1995. I had just graduated from college and was living in Dublin. I had studied fashion design and was thinking about working abroad. When the green card came through, I moved to New York City. I’m still here, though now I live just outside the city in Rockland County, in an area called Pearl River. It’s a very Irish enclave. There’s a huge GAA presence here, you can’t escape it.

My four kids all grew up playing Gaelic football. My second-oldest has a Féile medal. One of them is a great hurler. Even though hurling isn’t big in Monaghan, it is in New York, and he came up on a good team here. They’re all in their late teens and twenties now, but they were mad into it. My oldest, who’s 24, has just gone back to Rockland GAA to play senior football.

Life was good growing up. I’m from a farm in Clones, County Monaghan. My dad was a farmer, but also very entrepreneurial. He imported from Germany and used to travel to the U.S. to visit dairy farms. Growing up in that kind of environment, I always had a sense of the world being much bigger than Ireland.

I studied for a couple of years in the North, then finished my fashion degree in Dublin. I was in a class of nine girls, and everyone had their sights on New York. It was the hot place for fashion back then. People wanted to work for Donna Karan or Calvin Klein. I had originally leaned more toward Europe. I even did a short stint at Vogue in London before the visa came through. But once I got the green card, I thought, “Right. Let’s go to New York and give this a shot.”

I had a few friends from college who had already moved over, so I wasn’t arriving into the unknown. I had a place to stay, but I didn’t have a job. I didn’t even know what a résumé was. That was my starting point.

“I knew I wanted to work in magazines and photo shoots, so I printed a list of stylist agencies in Manhattan and went door to door, handing out my résumé. I literally walked the length and breadth of the city.”

One day, I was getting anxious. I had been in New York for about a week and thought maybe I should just waitress to get by. I went to a bar to look for a job, but I didn’t like the guy running the place, so I just walked out. The very next day, I got a phone call from a stylist. That phone call changed my life.

One of the most memorable experiences for me was getting involved with the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland. They were coming to New York in 2005 for their first-ever performance at Carnegie Hall. They needed someone local to help sell tickets, find sponsorship, and pull everything together on the ground. I got roped into it, and it turned into a full year of planning and production.

I remember sitting in the Irish Consulate with the Consul General, explaining what the orchestra was about. Tom Moran came into the meeting and offered to sponsor the performance, I think it was twenty-five thousand dollars. I just thought, this is what it means to be Irish in New York. People want to be involved. They want to support good things. That moment really stayed with me.

The show was a complete sellout. That’s why I’ve stayed involved. I’m still the New York Chair almost twenty years later. The orchestra comes back every four or five years, and each time we fill Carnegie Hall again. I work closely with the Irish Consulate and all the Irish-American networks to make it happen.

In Ireland, they’re known as Peace Proms. The idea is to bring Catholic and Protestant kids together through music. My nieces and nephews have all sung with them at the RDS, in Limerick, Belfast, or the SSE Arena. Here, it’s a little different. We can’t get thousands of kids on stage at Carnegie Hall, but we still manage to bring in a few hundred students to perform. It’s an incredible thing to be part of.

I’m also a supporter of Project Children. That started during the Troubles, when Dennis Mulcahy brought Catholic and Protestant kids over to the U.S. to live together for a summer. Their archive is going to be housed in the Peace Campus in Monaghan this year. Music Generation composed a piece for the event.

The biggest challenge was missing friends and family. I’m very close to my people, and that was hard. But I made sure I stayed connected. I go home regularly, sometimes four times a year. It keeps me grounded.

Also, being in New York helps. It’s the 33rd county of Ireland. My local ShopRite has an Irish aisle. There’s always Dairygold in the fridge, always Irish sausages in the freezer. You’re never too far from home when you live in a place like Pearl River.

I think I always had a big vision, but moving here removed the limits. New York attracts big thinkers from everywhere, and you start to realise anything is possible.

After that first phone call, I started working with stylists. One hired me as her assistant. Then another agency called. Word got out I was a good hire. I was Irish, hardworking, and low-key. I could hem a pair of pants faster than anyone else. I wasn’t fazed by celebrities. I just got on with the job.

I started flying around for shoots, working constantly. Then I realised I wanted to be in the magazine world. I began assisting a stylist who was a full-time editor at Cosmopolitan. After about a year, I got offered a full-time job. I was now selecting models, hair and makeup, working with art directors. I was the one calling the shots.

In 2016, I launched Lash Star Beauty. I saw a gap in the market for high-quality, lash-focused products. At first, I thought it would be e-commerce only. But then Bloomingdale’s spotted it and took it in-store. Blue Mercury picked it up, too. The brand grew fast. It was in over 500 stores across the U.S. and in Harrods, Selfridges, and Douglas in Europe. The products are made all over the world, mascara from Italy, eyeliner from the Czech Republic, tools from Japan, lashes from China.

After COVID, I wanted to do something new. I had been to a Blue Mercury event and noticed brands were finally talking about menopause, but it still felt like a man’s world. So I launched Lubify, a sexual wellness brand for women. I wanted to bring skincare, fragrance, and sexual wellness together in a way that felt elegant, empowering, and unashamed.

We launched on Valentine’s Day this year. We’ve been in Vogue twice, listed in Self Magazine’s top ten lubes for women, and picked by Who What Wear as a beauty must-have. I work with an amazing Irish graphic designer on all my packaging. I always try to bring Irish people into what I do.

I went to two Tony Robbins Business Mastery events, one when I was starting Lash Star and another post-COVID when I needed to re-energise. It gave me the push to do something new.

“But my biggest achievement? My four kids. They’re grounded, happy, and thriving. That’s what I’m proudest of.”

It means everything. I didn’t realise at the time how life-changing it would be, but it was. The fact that I’m still here, that I’ve raised a family, built two businesses, stayed connected to my roots, it’s all thanks to that visa.

At the time, there were people who didn’t get it. There were people who got it but didn’t stay. I got it, I stayed, and I made the most of it. I’m so grateful.

It gave me a chance. That’s what the Morrison Visa means to me. A chance to build something, to dream big, to do more. And that’s what I’ve done.