{"id":638319,"date":"2026-09-28T08:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T08:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/638319\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T08:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T08:08:11","slug":"i-arrived-in-arizona-to-48-degree-heat-being-irish-i-decided-to-go-for-a-cycle-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/638319\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I arrived in Arizona to 48-degree heat; being Irish, I decided to go for a cycle\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Aoife Kane arrived in Washington<\/a> for a summer internship in 2024 as part of her final-year journalism degree at Dublin City University<\/a> (DCU), her timing was impeccable.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump was almost assassinated and Biden stepped down. It was a mad time to be in the US,\u201d she says, referring to events during the presidential race in in July of that year. <\/p>\n

There was more luck on her side. Kane was working alongside students from Arizona State University (ASU), and through these connections was offered a scholarship do her masters in investigative journalism. She\u2019s currently in her final semester. <\/p>\n

The move to Phoenix, Arizona was a much bigger change than she expected. \u201cWhen I initially arrived it was about 48 degrees Celsius … I said, I\u2019ll go out and see a bit of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kane didn\u2019t yet have a car so rented a bike. \u201cI was the only person on the street not in a car … I almost fainted … the level of heat was insane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never understood why people here wouldn\u2019t go outside or would only be in their cars … but I get it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kane is from Caragh in Co Kildare, a village not far from the Curragh Plains and the Bog of Allen. But Arizona\u2019s vast and dramatic landscape took her by surprise. It\u2019s the \u201cpolar opposite\u201d of Ireland with \u201cenormous red rock formation and big canyons, kind of like the moon\u201d.<\/p>\n

The huge scale of the university stands in contrast to the cosy surrounds of the Glasnevin campus (which Kane heaps praise upon). Arizona State University is one of the largest universities in the US by enrolment, with more than 200,000 students from 173 countries. More than half of these are doing their course online. <\/p>\n

The number of opportunities and the level of resources (thanks to large donations) is \u201cinsane\u201d, says Kane, who has gone on reporting jobs on the border with Mexico, Texas, Alaska and Hawaii as part of her course. One investigative story, headlined Arizona scholarship non-profit paid millions to leaders\u2019 own companies<\/a>, was edited by Len Downie Jr, who was a news editor at the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal in 1974. \u201cIt\u2019s just unreal to think one of the editors in Watergate is editing our small investigative story. But the opportunities have been fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer Kane had the chance to intern with Fox News in Washington. Although the conservative news network is derided by many in Ireland over its close ties with Donald Trump, Kane opened herself up to the experience. \u201cI think all these different opportunities make you a better journalist and open your mind … I just embraced it and met a lot of fantastic people.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was impressed by the size of its operation and technical innovation. \u201cThere\u2019s some great reporters there. … obviously there\u2019s a side to network news in the US that can be problematic on either side but I feel very lucky to get that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kane was glad to meet a fellow Irish intern at Fox. \u201cWe were kind of pinching ourselves. We were in the US supreme court one day. There was a couple of Americans, me, and him from Galway. We were like, \u2018how did we get here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AoifeAoife Kane in the Cannon Rotunda in Washington <\/p>\n

But in Phoenix the encounters with Irish people are much fewer than on the east coast. Although Arizona\u2019s foreign-born population numbers one million, less than 2,000 of these are Irish-born. However, Kane notes how there is a cohort of Irish working for Intel in the area. \u201cThe Irish people are few and far between … it\u2019s not somewhere they naturally gravitate towards\u201d. <\/p>\n

Kane leant into the Irish communities that do exist to get her early stories, including a feature video on the Brian Boru hurling and football club, which led to a Thanksgiving invite.<\/p>\n

This rarity has made the encounters all the more sweet. The day before Kane spoke to The Irish Times, she had hiked up a canyon and jumped into the creek below to swim. \u201cWe were shouting up to the people on the top, they were hesitating to jump … and two lads at the top were like, \u2018Are you Irish?\u2019\u201d It turned out one was from Howth and the other was from Roscommon. \u201cOnce again, in the middle of a canyon in Arizona, where you wouldn\u2019t expect to find two Irish lads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although many people she has met in Arizona have visited Ireland or want to visit (\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of Enya fans who want to see her castle, it\u2019s gas\u201d), Aoife has had to dispel one myth. \u201cOne thing a lot of people asked was do we speak Irish or do we speak English. A lot of people thought English was my second language and that if I was speaking to my family it would be in Irish.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Aoife misses family, and a decent pint of Guinness, one welcome connection to home is to be found in a cuppa. \u201cI\u2019ve actually found somewhere I can get Barry\u2019s tea bags,\u201d she says with delight. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Aoife Kane arrived in Washington for a summer internship in 2024 as part of her final-year journalism…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22199,61,60,10970,43,20604,14053,25669],"class_list":["post-638319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dublin-city-university","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-abroad","tag-news","tag-phoenix","tag-washington-dc","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638319","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=638319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}