Corkonians Abroad: I was in Forbes... Mam would have preferred The Echo!

Where did you grow up, Gemma?

My friends slag me on this, as when I try to be posh I say Blackrock, and when not I say Mahon, but I grew up on Ringmahon Road, a place that really shaped me in so many ways.

My dad was one of 15 children - 13 of whom survived infancy- and he was from Dunlocha Cottages, a real old Rockie stronghold.

He left school at 13 to become a mechanic apprentice, although he was truly one of the smartest men I ever met.

He met my mam, a very proud Barrs woman from Barrack Street, when he would drop the oiled overalls from Dunlop’s into McKechnie’s dry cleaners where she would write the docket.

They built a house a few hundred metres from my dad’s family home, so my father was a born and bred Rockie.

My mam used to tell us how she thought she was living in the countryside, moving to Blackrock then, but we grew up right there next to my dad’s family and friends, and families that have known each other for generations.

How did you end up in New York city?

I moved to New York at the start of 2015 for a job at the time with IDA Ireland.

I had just gotten married a few months earlier, to Leo, and I had always dreamed of living in New York city.

My dad had five siblings that had moved there in the late 1950s, and I was particularly close to his oldest sister, my aunt Joan, who used to come home like our very own Daddy Warbucks every summer and I idolised her. She was an absolute character.

At the time I landed the IDA job, I was working for Microsoft and always stopping off in New York on my way to other parts of the USA for work, and always looking for a path to New York, so I couldn’t believe my luck, to be honest.

We live in Brooklyn with our two kids, Edie and Esme, aged seven and five, and we moved here to send our kids to good public schools as the cost of private schools in New York is nothing short of criminal.

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced abroad?

Without a doubt the biggest challenge was losing my mam in 2019, and all that came before, during, and after in that chapter of being so far away.

My mam had been diagnosed with cancer in 2016, just a year after we first moved, so that was a real shock, and there is a lot of guilt that comes with not being there.

My dad had died in my teens so my mother was the true centre of our family, and the angst of it all was a lot to manage.

I constantly asked myself should we stay or go home, but she had battled with the strength of an army and we thought she was in the all clear when she did die very suddenly in late 2019.

I was 38 weeks pregnant with my second baby, when my siblings were given the shocking news she wouldn’t make it, and the experience of going from a labour ward to JFK to fly home was somewhere beyond a nightmare, to be honest.

Then we had the world of 2020 and the madness of the pandemic, with a lot more time than I ever wanted to think, I was in a spiral of what-ifs.

But my mam wanted so much for us to have what she never did, especially education and opportunity - that was so important to her.

She used to say to me all the time, ‘Sure, your dad never even had a passport’, and I know she was proud of the pilgrim soul in me.

But I will say that the phrase ‘time nor tide waits for no-one’ is a lived reality for those of us who live abroad, and I think a lot about the memories my kids will never make at home and that is a tough one to swallow. Especially right now, when the moral compass of this American life feels very eroded and I think about the influences on our kids.

I want them to have the values and spirit of my parents, not the lunatic capitalists we see in the news every day, and I think in the USA life can be subconsciously superficial, so we have to grapple with that a lot and try to stay true to ourselves.

How might you spend your weekends in the USA?

We spend our weekends like everyone else with two young kids, regardless of country or city. Surviving them and indulging their social calendars.

We have soccer, art, Girl Scouts, play-dates, an endless stream of kids’ birthday parties (we might need to start driving an Uber to afford the gift spend), tantrums. and all the craic that goes with it.

Tell us a bit about the culture of where you live?

I feel like I get culture shocks almost daily these days! It’s like waking up in an episode of Black Mirror for Jesus’ sake, but some of the earliest culture shocks I have had here relate to money and motherhood.

Growing up in Ireland, I didn’t really understand generational wealth and the scale of it, and living here has really opened my eyes to that.

I used to think people were mega-loaded if they had a new car or went on a foreign holiday when I was growing up, but here in New York, people live and spend like it’s Monopoly money, and I would meet people through work and life and think, ‘Jesus, like, where am I going wrong?’

But you learn over time that most people have family wealth and a security net, so it’s a totally different playing field.

That’s why comparing yourself is such a waste of your time and your soul.

The other thing that has been a major culture shock to cope with is school shootings and raising my daughters in a system where they are taught ABC drills in school (Avoid, Barricade, Confront).

When I first read the ‘confront’ instruction ‘Teach them a personal line to say like their favourite colour or animal’, I thought it was a sick joke. But that is the reality of 2025 in the USA, five-year-olds are being taught a line to look a gunman in the eye and hope for the best, and that is nothing short of insanity. It’s absolutely infuriating.

Life and society exists in raw form here. Politics are so much meaner, drivers are angrier, people are angrier in general most days, to be honest, and that makes me miss home a lot.

I was on a subway car once zooming into Manhattan and a visibly homeless man stood up and announced he was going to stick his hand into a gap between carriages with a live electrical current as he had nothing to live for, and this lady stands up and shouts with a level of palpable impatience: “Can you please wait until the next stop, I have a very important meeting.”

NO joke. Like, Jesus, imagine that happening on the number 2 bus into town. It beggars belief but it’s how it is.

It’s a very individualised society here, and people are unashamed about that.

So, moments like that also make me miss home and wonder where we are headed for the future, but it’s the price of New York City; it’s not for the faint-hearted.

What has been your most memorable moment in your new location so far?

Bar the birth of my children, I would say publishing my first piece for Forbes and leaving the studio on Fifth Avenue, walking along, and thinking Jesus that’s my name next to the logo. It felt so surreal.

Though I did joke to my siblings at the time that my mam would have been much more excited if it was The Echo! And that’s a fact!

Any special mentions to friends or family back in Cork?

There are too many special people to mention, my aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, but a special call-out to my sister Colette who is my rock always and who I miss every day.

If you were back in Cork for one day, what would be the ideal day for you?

Get a coffee in Blackrock village, walk the Marina with some of my closest and oldest friends Mary, Sarah, and Claire.

Call to see my aunts and uncles at home, especially my Uncle Ger, maybe, if time allowed, take my kids to Crosshaven to the Merries in the evening. Get chips from the Golden Fry.

I love to go home and step back in time, and I love my kids to do the things I did. It’s the best feeling.

What are you looking forward to in the coming months?

Launching my website and event series the Sunday Slay here in New York City, and coming home to Cork in May for a very special Holy Communion: Emily Cronin.