It’s the last day of a standard work week, but that doesn’t mean the work has slowed down one bit, at least not yet. Today, the entire group– all ten of us– met with Erin McLaughlin, our liaison in Ireland. She’s part of AllPeopleBeHappy, the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organization that the University of Pittsburgh is working with to make the Haller Global Fellowship: Ireland program possible. Essentially, if we aren’t considering Carrigart itself to be our client, Erin is. As Erin is also the one who’ll be approving the scope-of-work that each team has been working on, this meeting presented a great opportunity for each team to ask questions that would prove critical to how each of us moved forward with our plans in Ireland.
The questions that my team and I asked were mainly regarding the types of people who come to Carrigart. Carrigart’s main pull is already as a tourist destination, but we wanted to know how the local community in Carrigart responds to tourism and what kinds of tourists they get. That first point had a simple answer that assuaged my fears about a possibly hostile local response to tourism: the people of Carrigart are incredibly welcoming! Erin explained that the local community is one of, if not the nicest she’s ever had the pleasure of knowing. This was backed up by Professor Phil Hnatkovich as well, and some of the blog posts from previous years!
The latter question had an interesting answer as well: most of Carrigart’s summer visitors are other Irish people! Specifically, Carrigart receives a lot of business during Ireland’s caravan season. What’s the caravan season? Well, I’m sure we are all aware of how Ireland is currently split into both the independent Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, a small-ish sized chunk of the isle which remains part of the United Kingdom. Without getting too overly deep into the long-winded and somewhat confusing tumultuous political history of Ireland, the primary reason for this is the divide between Irish Catholics, or Nationalists, who wanted an independent Ireland, and Irish Protestants, or Loyalists/Unionists, who wanted to stay with the UK(again, this is very general; not everything was split between religious lines, but historically this has always been a key part of the conflict). So, during the summer, many Nationalists still living in Northern Ireland form caravans and vacation to the Republic, often to avoid demonstrations such as street bonfires and marches performed by Unionists. To these people, Carrigart offers the perfect place for an authentically Irish experience in a relatively untouched natural area, being a quaint but beautiful town with all amenities covered and several attractions to stay for. The other main demographic of people visiting Carrigart are American tourists who similarly want a calm break to stay at the hotel, eat a nice Irish meal, or experience something new like a guided horse trot, yoga on the beach, or diving. Suffice to say, this was important information for the marketing team!
Our next event was a lunchtime meeting with Joe Pietropola, one of Pitt Business’ Executives in Residence. He told the group a lot about his personal professional journey and success. What was very compelling to me personally was how he was able to wear many hats at many of his jobs; by being unafraid to learn new things to take on multiple hard positions, he was able to become a beloved member of the companies he worked for, mainly DICK’S Sporting Goods. Joe also offered each group many suggestions and sample questions for our time in Ireland, to give us great avenues to explore during our research. For my own future, I think Joe’s story encourages me to take risks and try out jobs to find what I excel at.
As for why the featured image is what it is… well, we went out for some truly wonderful ice cream at a place called Dave and Andy’s Homemade Ice Cream. I haven’t had ice cream as good as this in years! Might be place I need to frequent…