From Limerick to South Africa: Life comes full circle for Paula on the world stage

At the quiet end of Henry Street in the city sits an unassuming office building, whose workers, at home and abroad, are trying to change the world. One of those people is Paula Nolan.

Paula of Irish Aid has spent the last 30 years working across three continents, driven by a desire to help people and make the world a fairer place.

Her interest in world affairs was not always so strong. When she was growing up in Tulla in the seventies and eighties, a trip to Todd’s in Limerick was a big day out. Surrounded by a close family in a close-knit community, Paula felt her little village was the centre of the world.

But this was not to last. Her first experience of a very different world was a short visit to Russia in 1989. She remembers a country of contrasts. They were hungry during the day, with food shelves bare and people obsessed with identifying which shop would get the next delivery of bread. Then at night, their group was brought to tourist restaurants that served champagne, caviar and chicken Kiev. It was the first time she had grappled with a world riven with injustice and inequality.

“I can remember wondering what had gone wrong with it. Because Communism was born of a desire to bring about equality. This massive social experiment. I mean how could that have gone so wrong? I wasn’t able to figure it out in my head,” she remembers.

That question might have remained nothing but an idle thought, but in her early twenties, Paula was caught up in an event that changed the course of her life. She was returning from travelling in Australia and Asia when protests against a recent military coup in Thailand turned violent.

Some 50,000 protesters gathered in the streets, and gunshots rang out through the night. The next morning, parts of newspapers had been blacked out, and many of the protesters were covered in blood.

For Paula, while the experience was horrific, it crystallised a growing feeling that she did not want to return to Ireland and work with her qualification as a lab technician. She wanted to work full-time in overseas development.

Shortly after, she found a job with the Red Cross in Cambodia. The country was just emerging from decades of civil war, and she became part of a national and international effort to rebuild the country.

“Cambodia was magic,” says Paula, “there was a real energy of hope. We were swept away by this feeling – isn’t this so meaningful? Aren’t we so privileged to be here, to be doing some good? We thought we were there to save the country.”

Her hand covers her face as she chuckles at the idea now, clearly embarrassed. “That’s how naïve we were.”

On St Patrick’s Day in 2002, Paula reconnected with her Irish roots, albeit in Lesotho. She began working for the Irish government, managing the Irish Aid programme. Her work involved directing Ireland’s overseas aid funding to health and education programmes in a country which had been ravaged by HIV/AIDS. She remembers feeling a huge sense of pride to be representing Ireland and to see the difference Ireland was making in the lives of the poor. After four years, she moved to Ireland’s Embassy in Mozambique, again managing parts of Ireland’s aid programme.

In 2009, Paula decided it was time to return to Ireland. In her mind, it was a permanent decision. She needed to settle, needed one place to call home.

“It’s tough, because in some ways, you think, what am I doing here? It’s just a rainy, cold, windy rock in the North Atlantic. Why don’t I go live on a proper continent?” she says with a laugh.

“But this is home, this is my tribe, this is where I feel…” She pauses, struggling to find the right word. “… not like an ex-pat. I feel part of the community. And it’s a nice feeling.”

Her return home did not stop her interest in overseas development though.

Working in the Department of Foreign Affairs’ office in Limerick, she managed multiple millions in funding to support children’s education in poorer countries. She is most proud of her work advocating for girls’ education on the global stage.

It is perhaps less tangible than a specific funded project, but it is the kind of global influencing that is at the heart of Ireland’s overseas development work.

It also reflects Paula’s changing attitude towards aid. Her Cambodian idea of ‘saving’ people is long gone, replaced by a belief that aid is about building relationships, establishing partnerships and working together to make progress.

Despite her decision to settle in Ireland, the call of the African continent proved too tempting. After nine years at home, Paula recently moved again to South Africa and is now managing Ireland’s aid programme there.

It was a difficult decision, because she had felt her earlier return to Ireland had brought her full circle – from Tulla being the centre of her world, to an adult life travelling and seeing that world, to being back in Tulla and Limerick but still working on the world stage.

But maybe that is her real full circle – from her first attempts to grapple with inequality in the 1980s to becoming Ireland’s Head of Development in the country with the highest income inequality in the world.