Irish immigrant is living the American Dream
When Greg Dolan first visited America in 1995, it was on
vacation. He’d come to meet friends, but somewhere along the line
he fell in love, started a family and created a life he never
dreamed he could have.
Irish immigrant is living the American Dream
When Greg Dolan first visited America in 1995, it was on vacation. He’d come to meet friends, but somewhere along the line he fell in love, started a family and created a life he never dreamed he could have.
Dolan says he’s living the American Dream.
Born and raised in Dublin, Dolan grew up with three brothers and three sisters and worked as an electrician, but the position lacked room for growth and Dolan said he wasn’t doing much with his life.
His first stop in the states was in Wisconsin. He remembers that it was so cold that they couldn’t venture outside. All he saw was farms and snow, contrary to the skyscrapers and sunshine he’d imagined in America.
“One of the reasons I left Ireland was because of the weather and then I got to Wisconsin and it was nothing but bad weather,” Dolan said.
He fared better at his second destination, San Jose.
“San Jose was more like what I was expecting. It was an actual city,” Dolan said.
So, despite the fact that everyone he knew and everything he had was in Dublin, he decided that America was the place for him.
Dolan took a job tending bar in an Irish pub where he met his wife Gardenia, who through her encouragement of him to take classes would put him on the path to success.
“She’s the main reason I stayed here. I fell in love,” Dolan said.
It would have been easy for Dolan to move to San Francisco and seek out fellow Irish immigrants to be close to, but he said that he didn’t want to come to America to be part of the Irish culture here. He’d left his partying ways back in Dublin and knew that he could too easily rediscover them if he wanted to, but he wanted to pursue a new life for he and his new bride.
It took him three months of pursuing his wife to convince her to go on a date with him, he said. The couple was married and has three children – Ollie, 5, Quinn 2-½ and Callum six weeks – and have guardianship over Gardenia’s four nieces – Victoria Angeles, 16, twins Arlene and Isabella, 14, and Alyssa, 8.
It’s important to Dolan that his kids grow up knowing where their father is from, so he and his family visit Dublin regularly and his relatives visit here as well. Despite the distance, with all the communications avenues available today they stay in regular contact. In fact, Dolan said that his kids talk to their grandmother about once per week.
He knew that America was a land of opportunities and offered citizens the opportunity to achieve all they wanted, if they were willing to work for it. He said that the setup in America and the resources available made it easy to succeed.
The opportunity to own his own business wasn’t something that was readily available when Dolan lived in Dublin. There, he was barely a high school graduate and here he was able to take courses and better himself in ways that he couldn’t have in Ireland.
The process of becoming a citizen was long and arduous. It took three years to wade through the legal red tape and even then there were restrictions. He is now going through the citizenship process, but he says this is the easy part.
“Now it’s all just money,” Dolan said.
There are few things Dolan doesn’t like about America. He sees it as his first home and Ireland as his second home.
“I’ve spent the best years of my life here,” Dolan said.
Still, the one thing he said he likes the least about American culture is the cheap and easy access to fast food.
He loves American sports.
“I’m a sports addict,” Dolan admitted freely. He said that despite the fact that America doesn’t have football [soccer] satellite television allows access to most games, so he’s not missing out.
The one thing that Dolan misses the most about Ireland is the pub atmosphere. Not for drinking, but for the camaraderie. In Ireland the pubs are where they have football meetings and church get-togethers. It’s less about the drinking and more of a meeting place.
Moving to Hollister was a bigger culture shock for Dolan. He and his wife moved here in 2000 and started a mortgage company, Shamrock Funding. Since Dolan had always lived in bigger cities, like Dublin and then San Jose, the shift to life in Hollister was a transitional one.
Still, Hollister’s pace has grown on him and now he can’t see himself or his family living anywhere else.
