Thousands who got Morrison visas in the 1990s are showing their gratitude to the politician who made it happen, says businesswoman Elaine Brennan
Irish-American business woman Elaine Brennan, who is executive director at Northwell Health, photographed at College Green in Dublin. Photo: Frank McGrath
Elaine Brennan was in London in 1994 when her mother phoned to say she’d won the lottery. Not the Lotto, you understand, although almost as lucrative and life-changing. It was the lottery for Morrison visas, which allowed about 45,000 Irish people to live and work in the United States at a time when the economy here was ailing.
“There was almost 20pc unemployment,” Brennan recalls. “I remember looking at job applications, and the only one I could get an interview for was washing dishes in a hotel in Ennis, and that was with a science degree.”
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