"Now we're in a position to say to America: you come to Ireland"

14 Sep 2026, 10:36 · IrishCentral

For centuries, the journey was in one direction: Ireland to America. Irish people crossed the Atlantic in search of opportunity, work, and a new life. Now, Enda Kenny believes, the tide is beginning to turn.

"For generations, the Irish came to America looking for things," the former Taoiseach told IrishCentral at Fordham University School of Law. "Now we're actually in a position to say to America, you come to Ireland, and what we offer will be a benefit to you, on the doorstep of the European Union with 500 million people."

Kenny was in New York this week as Chair of Ireland for Law, the state-backed initiative promoting Ireland as a destination for international legal services. The mission ran across three days of events in the city, and the Fordham session brought together Irish and American legal minds on constitutional design and the rule of law. Afterward, Kenny sat down with IrishCentral alongside Paul McGarry SC, Director of Ireland for Law, and April McClements, Partner in Disputes and Investigations at Matheson LLP.

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The Brexit dividend nobody talks about

The core of the argument is simple, and it is one most Irish Americans have never heard.

Since the United Kingdom left the European Union, Ireland is the only English-speaking common law jurisdiction left inside it. For an American company, that is not a technicality. It is the difference between a legal system you recognize and one you do not.

"The common law system that operates in Ireland is backed up by court decisions over 200 years," Kenny said. "American business will find that their contracts are going to stand up, because the law and the courts are behind them. That's a wonderful thing to have, rather than being in a situation where you don't know what's going to happen."

Former Irish leader Enda Kenny on Wall Street, New York.

Paul McGarry put the mechanics of it plainly. "Say you have a North American company that wants to enter into a contract with a German, French or a Spanish counterparty," he said. "They have to decide where they go if there are disputes or difficulties. Up until fairly recently, the dominant choice was England, and one of the main reasons was that England was part of the EU."

That default has weakened, he argues, because enforcement across the EU now works differently for the UK. And the prize is not small. McGarry put the British legal services trade surplus at roughly six billion euros in the years before Brexit. "London is still huge. England is still one of the biggest net exporters of legal services anywhere in the world," he said. "But even a small slice of that."

The rest of the EU cannot compete for that slice on the same terms. "They're all civil law jurisdictions. They're completely different systems," McGarry said. "American lawyers would understand our systems, our dispute resolution systems, our regulatory systems. We have a lot of oral advocacy, the same way they have in the United States. It's readily comprehensible to North Americans."

April McClements, who advises American clients from Matheson in Dublin, says that familiarity is exactly what they respond to. "It's a globally respected legal system, supported by expert legal advice and highly qualified specialist lawyers, an independent judiciary," she said. "That shared heritage we have with the US, both being common law systems based on a system of precedent, gives US companies a lot of comfort."

"The talent pool is the key"

Kenny has spent years in rooms with American executives, and he is impatient with the assumption that Ireland's appeal begins and ends with the tax rate. "People would say, well, you go there for the corporate tax and all that. Important, yes," he said. "The talent pool is the key. Crypto, cyber, environmental justice, marine, all these things. That's where we are going to score."

What Ireland is selling, he argues, is a young population that can fill a room anywhere in the world. "I have seen them all over the world," Kenny said. "You would be so proud of them, the way they can command attention and hold their own with their peers."

A Mayo thread through a New York law school

One moment in the conversation had nothing to do with commerce.

Fordham Law is where John Feerick spent his career, and Feerick is the son of Mayo emigrants. His mother left for New York in 1928, and his father the year after. Raised in the South Bronx, he went on to help frame the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution and to serve two decades as Dean of the law school.

Kenny, a Mayo man himself, was asked what it meant to be sitting in that building in the year Sam Maguire finally came home after 75 years.

"I am absolutely privileged and excited to be here," he said. "I have the highest respect for John Feerick. He's a person of real wisdom and common sense."

He went further, arguing that Fordham itself is an Irish story. The university was founded in 1841 by Bishop John Hughes, with the education of Irish immigrants squarely in mind. "Fordham University is the story of Ireland," Kenny said.

Then, on Mayo: "The thread running through that is the blood of Mayo. So many failures, so many failures, and then comes the great excitement of actually winning."

Keeping 70 million people interested

Asked how Ireland holds the attention of a diaspora now several generations deep, Kenny was candid about what the country's transformation has cost. "We have moved from being a country of almost junk status in 2011 to being a first world country now," he said. "That means you have the challenges of a first-world country. Accommodation, housing, infrastructure. Nobody can wave a magic wand."

Two things, he said, remade Ireland: free secondary education from 1969, and membership of the European Union with everything that followed, Erasmus included. He is not inclined to look backward, name-checking Irish researchers working underground in Switzerland, manufacturing in zero gravity, and Norah Patten, the Mayo woman set to become Ireland's first astronaut.

"If you're a surfer, which I'm not, you don't want to be waiting for a ripple," Kenny said. "You're waiting for the big one. There are several big ones coming, and we're going to be right on those boards."

What do they want Irish America to do about it

None of the three expects a stampede. "We're not under any illusion that people are going to wake up tomorrow morning and say, ' That's great, now we all have to go and invest in Ireland’," McGarry said. What he wants is narrower and more realistic: that in the sectors where Ireland genuinely leads, people at least ask the question. "Pharmaceuticals is one. Technology is another. Financial services, bond denominations. Maybe we should look at talking to Irish lawyers instead."

McClements framed it as a message that has not traveled far enough. "There are already a lot of US companies operating in Ireland. What we really want to do is expand the message."

Kenny put it as a matter of fair hearing: "If you're sitting in Connecticut and you're about to make a decision to invest in Europe, why should you go to Ireland? Why not go to Spain, Lithuania, or Romania? American business is fully entitled to do as it wishes, but it shouldn't be making that decision without knowing there are advantages."

Dublin International Disputes Week

The next chance to see the argument made at home is Dublin International Disputes Week, running 19 to 23 October 2026, co-chaired this year by April McClements.

"It brings together international and domestic legal practitioners, judiciary and in-house legal counsel teams," McClements said. "It's a really good opportunity to showcase Ireland's ability and experience in international litigation, mediation, arbitration and regulatory matters."

Details and registration at DIDW.ie.

Kenny, as ever, had the closing line ready.

"You can use the rugby analogy," he said. "Answer Ireland's call."