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Ireland is deepening its commercial presence in the South as the the region’s economic heft grows, officials said in Atlanta in advance of St. Patrick’s Day.
“Team Ireland,” as staff from the Consulate General of Ireland calls the constellation of government agencies and Ireland-focused nonprofits in Atlanta, has steadily grown in the decade since the country chose the city for its first consulate opened in the U.S. since the 1930s.
“The focus of our attention is moving increasingly southward,” Irish Consul General Caoimhe Ni Chonchuir said in remarks at an annual holiday breakfast of the Irish Chamber of Atlanta — the first to be held in person after COVID-19 canceled the last two meetings.
Ms. Ni Chonchuir said Ireland would soon open a consulate in Miami, a sign that it’s continuing to reach beyond Ireland’s traditional strongholds in northeastern cities like New York and Boston.
“We see and believe in the great potential this region continues to hold,” the consul general said in remarks filling in for Helen McEntee, Ireland’s minister for justice and immigration, who was in Atlanta for a few days of meetings. The minister had to miss the breakfast to take part in an emergency cabinet meeting on the war of Ukraine. (Ireland is not a member of NATO, but the European Union member has agreed to waive visa requirements for Ukrainians fleeing the violence.)
Ms. Ni Chonchuir and Minister McEntee both were on hand Tuesday for the grand opening of the Ireland-based Kerry Group’s $137 million food manufacturing plant in Rome, Ga., which employs 250 people across 316,000 square feet of production space.
Smaller Irish investors have also seen success — mainly in the medical technology and financial services sector, said Rory Power, senior vice president in New York for Enterprise Ireland, the government’s outbound business-promotion agency.
Enterprise Ireland also serves as one of the largest venture capital funds in the world, Mr. Power said, noting that investments in Ireland by tech giants like Google and Microsoft has created “an ecosystem for our clients to grow up.”
Those Irish innovators, in turn, look to the United States to commercialize their creations: Despite a population smaller than that of metro Atlanta, Ireland is the No. 9 foreign investor nation in the United States, its companies supporting 110,000 jobs here. Locally, Irish-owned fintech players like Sysnet, Fineos and Wayflyer are continuing to hire hundreds.
“I think that piece of the story gets forgotten about,” Mr. Power said.
IDA Ireland, the country’s inbound recruitment agency, covers the other side of the coin, recruiting American firms to use Ireland as a base for their European or global operations.
That agency now has a team of three full-time staff at its outposts in Buckhead, an office that opened in 2008 and now is one of nine across North America.
The investment that is paying off in job creation by longtime investors like Coca-Cola Co., which will soon celebrate 50 years in the country, as well as more recent arrivals like Atlanta-based Equifax, Global Payments and Elavon.
“We are growing year by year on year with American companies continually expanding to Ireland and building multiple sites for their operations. We are very proud and happy about that,” said Enda Trautt, an IDA Ireland vice president arrived in Atlanta in the summer of 2021. Mr. Trautt also introduced Catherina Blewitt, vice president of consumer content and business services at IDA, who arrived three months ago.
Some 1,700 IDA client firms have invested in Ireland, with 900 from the U.S., Mr. Trautt said. Of those, 30 from Georgia have created more than 3,000 jobs.
Ireland is also capitalizing on its commitment to the European Union, having won 100 Brexit-related investments that brought 6,000 jobs and contributed to a record-breaking 2021 that, all told, brought in €71 billion in foreign investment (€54 billion from North American firms) and resulted in the creation of 29,000 new jobs.
Learn more about the Irish Chamber of Atlanta here and see more about its participation in a joint European chamber networking event April 14 here.
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