{"id":523271,"date":"2026-06-28T22:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T22:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/523271\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T22:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T22:54:14","slug":"the-us-still-has-a-frontier-mindset-that-you-can-go-and-make-something-of-yourself-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/523271\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The US still has a frontier mindset that you can go and make something of yourself\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Wild Geese slot was originally designed to allow successful emigrants share some tips with generations who might follow, and sometimes that is precisely what happens.<\/p>\n

When Galway man Killian Moyles was researching marketing agencies in Chicago in 2020, he came across an old Wild Geese feature on fellow Irish man Fergus Rooney<\/a>, whose early relationship with an up-and-coming politician in the Windy City called Barack Obama<\/a>, had proved fortuitous. Rooney had set up a successful firm called Agency EA, organising innovative events and experiences for corporate clients. He had also planned campaign and inauguration events for the former US president. <\/p>\n

In that 2017 column, Rooney advised young professionals to steer away from traditional career paths.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Don\u2019t be in any way inclined to follow traditional career paths\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

This was music to the ears of Moyles, who had qualified as a primary schoolteacher during the crash. With poor work prospects in Ireland at the time, Moyles had taken teaching posts abroad, including stints in Spain, Australia, New Zealand and the Falkland Islands, before settling in London. <\/p>\n

By 2020 Moyles had married his long-time partner, Sarah, a native of Chicago and the couple set their sights on a move to the US. Moyles was also looking for a change of career direction and had undertaken a master\u2019s in digital marketing back in the University of Galway, known then as NUIG. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the column, Fergus was saying that people out here are not afraid to restart their careers in their late twenties and early thirties and that this was a good place to reinvent yourself,\u201d Moyles recalls. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe had also said that the Irish are good at helping each other and not to be afraid to ask for help. I thought if this guy thinks like that, he might be interested in me, even though I had no event management or marketing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following a LinkedIn message exchange, the two men met in the company\u2019s downtown office in Chicago in June 2021. \u201cI arrived suited and booted, which wasn\u2019t the dress code. The offices were almost empty as we were still in Covid.\u201d <\/p>\n

While there wasn\u2019t a position available at the time, Rooney recognised that Moyles had acquired useful digital skills in his master\u2019s degree and his business was rapidly pivoting to virtual events because of the ongoing pandemic. With nobody in the office at the time with that skill set, Moyles found himself at the right place at the right time and the two agreed a 10-week trial period.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked the people and I could see there was a need. Clients were looking at these virtual platforms, and they needed help. It all happened rapidly. I upskilled very quickly as the industry changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Covid passed there was an appetite to get back to in-person events. \u201cThis was seen as an antidote to the fact that we live online, with so much screen time. My role changed to areas such as digital installations for the on-site experience \u2013 large display screen, interactive technology, virtual reality components,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0From a Monaghan farm to New York high fashion: \u2018Ireland is still a very big part of my life\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Five years later Moyles is still there, having moved 18 months ago to a business development role. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not a short-term hard sales role. It\u2019s a much longer cycle, building relationships over one to five years that will lead to business coming to us and I like getting out and building those longer-term connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agency EA employs more than 100 people and counts Meta, Salesforce, Intuit and HubSpot on its client roster. <\/p>\n

Work continues with the Obamas, with the agency heavily involved in the recent launch of the Obama Foundation Centre on a 19-acre site in Chicago. The building, an evolution of the idea of a presidential library, also features a museum, a basketball court, gardens, dining facilities, a playground and educational facilities. <\/p>\n

Moyles has settled easily into life in Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful city all the time and it\u2019s a nice city to live in three seasons of the year but it\u2019s a brutal place to live in the winter. It\u2019s cold and icy and you understand why retirees like to escape to Florida then.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou try to seek out Irish people and I\u2019ve been fortunate to get to know a lot of people at the consulate and in IDA Ireland. Getting to have a beer with Irish people is emotionally important when you are a long distance from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a city that\u2019s been very good to me at a crossroads in my career. I didn\u2019t know what America was going to hold for me and it has provided me with great opportunities. It has a frontier mindset that you can go and make something of yourself, but it\u2019s on you to do it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat does assume that everyone has the same opportunity to do that, which isn\u2019t always the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Moyles misses his Irish family and returns when he can, one of the benefits of the move to Chicago has been the presence of Sarah\u2019s parents, who live in the same suburb of Beverly on the southern outskirts of the city. The couple are raising two young children, and having loving and supportive grandparents on their doorstep is a great privilege, he says. <\/p>\n

The couple were able to buy the house in Beverly for \u201chalf of what it would have cost in Galway and a third of what it would have cost in Dublin\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is helpful for me to live in this area, where many Irish emigrants settled over the years. It\u2019s a mix of Republicans and Democrats. There are a lot of police, firefighters, emergency service workers, many of whom vote Republican. It helps you understand other perspectives and not to have a narrow view of someone based on how they vote. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt hasn\u2019t changed my politics, but it has softened me to other viewpoints. That\u2019s really important right now, regardless of where you sit politically. When the dialogue drops out, the polarisation exacerbates.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This Wild Geese slot was originally designed to allow successful emigrants share some tips with generations who might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5456,72,160,61,60,10970,27079,1962],"class_list":["post-523271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-barack-obama","tag-business","tag-covid-19","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-abroad","tag-wild-geese","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}