Barry Holland may work at Cork Airport, but when he talks about home, there is only one place he means- Courtmac.

Ask Barry Holland how much of the person he is today comes from Courtmacsherry and there is no hesitation. “Everything,” he says.

Now Communications Manager at Cork Airport, Barry has lived in Cork City since his college days, but there is only one place he calls home.

“Courtmac for me is home and while I have been living in the city since I started college, home will always be there.”

It is a theme that comes up again and again when talking to Barry. His love of tourism, his understanding of its importance to local communities and the path that brought him to Cork Airport can all be traced back to the West Cork village where he grew up.

“You are talking about a coastal village, less than an hour from Cork on the Wild Atlantic Way. It’s a bit of a hidden gem. Visitors from both Ireland and overseas are hugely important to the village, yet it hasn’t been overwhelmed by tourism.  It’s a big part of the village and Courtmac does tourism very well.

That love of tourism was already evident while Barry was studying at UCC. In 2017, when he was just 22, a campaign began to have Courtmacsherry and the Seven Heads Peninsula included on the Wild Atlantic Way.

While some of his college friends headed to America on the J1 for the summer, he found himself sitting down with politicians, representatives of Fáilte Ireland and members of the local community, making the case for his home village.

“We were galvanising support to ensure that Courtmacsherry and the Seven Heads Peninsula were all included in the Wild Atlantic Way,” he recalls.

“At the time it was a glaring omission because we were the only peninsula stretching from West Cork, including Mizen, that wasn’t included.”

A neighbour proposed Barry for the campaign committee and, as he puts it, “one thing led to another”. Before long, he was asked to chair the group.

The campaign succeeded in having Courtmacsherry included on the route later that year. While road constraints meant the entire Seven Heads Peninsula could not be incorporated, getting the village included was a significant achievement.

Barry sees it as part of something bigger, a community determined to protect its own future.

Only a year earlier, the closure of Courtmacsherry’s last grocery shop had left the village facing the prospect of having nowhere to buy everyday essentials. Local people responded by forming a co-operative and opening their own community shop, which is now celebrating ten years in business.

“I’m passionate about the area alright, but I suppose it’s like anyone and their own turf,” he says. “It’s like they say as Gaeilge, it’s the ‘áit dúchais.’ It’s about the part of the world you come from. You want it to do well. You don’t want to see it spoiled.”

If Courtmacsherry planted Barry’s passion for tourism, his other fascination, for aviation, started even earlier.

One of his uncles worked with Aer Lingus and would bring him to Cork Airport. Then, around 2002, his father bought seven-year-old Barry a Microsoft Flight Simulator.

“My uncle bringing me to the airport and him working for a company like Aer Lingus, and the flight simulator, were the two main contributing factors of getting my fascination going,” he says.

“After that, an undying passion for aviation just took over.”

Interestingly, becoming a pilot was never really the dream. “The business of aviation and tourism and travel is what interests me,” he says.

Barry went on to study Commerce at UCC, followed by a Master’s in Accounting. He qualified as a chartered accountant and began his professional career with EY. On paper, the route ahead appeared clear. Then Covid happened.

Like many people, Barry found himself with more time on his hands. He completed a diploma in sales and marketing by night and rediscovered how much he enjoyed areas such as market research and consumer behaviour.

It made him wonder if  his future might be somewhere beyond accounting? Initially, he envisaged something combining commercial accounting with sales. Then, in late 2021, an opportunity arose at Cork Airport. Barry decided to take the chance, deciding that it was better to make the leap at 26 than spend the next decade wondering why he hadn’t.

“The draw of the airport was a massive factor and the role also included tourism so I was hooked. The inbound tourism to Cork will always remain a huge passion of mine. Communities around Ireland are so dependent on tourism that we can never afford to take our eye off the ball.”

He agrees that he has never looked back after taking the leap. “I am very grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given since I left college,” he says. “But I’m a big believer in that saying do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.” 

So what does a Communications Manager at an airport actually do? Quite a lot, as it turns out. “It might sound clichéd but this job is completely varied and I love that. There are about six or eight hats you could wear on a daily basis.”

There is PR, sales and marketing, digital communications and social media. There are relationships with tourism bodies, local authorities and universities, along with engagement with airlines and travel agents.

Communications can become particularly important when things don’t go according to plan.

Weather disruption can lead to passengers seeking information while journalists need accurate updates about affected flights and when normal operations are expected to resume.

“I think it is important for local people to get regular briefings about their airport,” Barry says, “and I am always happy to do that.”

Fortunately, he says, Cork Airport has enjoyed a period of significant growth.

There is a particular affection for Cork Airport across the region, something Barry is very conscious of in his role.

But he is reluctant to describe himself as “the voice” of the airport. “I would never consider myself being the voice of the airport,” he says. “We are all custodians or spokespeople at one point in time.

“I recognise that the airport is vitally important to Cork and the wider region. That is why people take such pride in it and they love it so much.”

That attachment means people are not shy about telling the airport what they think it should be doing either. Barry welcomes constructive criticism because it shows people have an interest, he says.

One of the questions he hears most often is why Cork doesn’t have a direct flight to a particular destination. The answer is rarely as simple as putting a plane on the route. There has to be sufficient demand to sustain a service, typically several times a week in both directions, and developing the business case with an airline can take years.

Barry’s pride in Cork extends far beyond the airport. Last year, he  travelled to the US to visit his brother and experience the St Patrick’s Day celebrations. After seeing the parade in Chicago the Saturday before March 17th, they travelled to New York, for the parade on St. Patrick’s Day. There, a family friend, Siobhan Deasy,  who is involved with the Cork County Association, had volunteered them to take part in the famous Fifth Avenue parade, without their knowledge! 

Barry’s brother, Rory carried the Irish flag for the Cork association while Barry carried one side of the Cork banner.

“The scale of the pride in their Irishness blew me away,” he says. “It was a great honour.”

Back at Cork Airport, older generations of travellers will remember the famous “Small Airport, Big Heart” campaign. Today, Cork Airport’s slogan is “Love Taking Off”, with the heart still visible in the logo, something Barry says has roots in that much-loved earlier campaign.

The airport may be growing, but retaining the friendliness and ease that passengers associate with it is hugely important, he says. 

“Customer service is about making sure that everything is as easy and as hassle-free as possible for the customer,” 

He is quick to stress that this isn’t the work of one company or one team. “Alongside DAA, which owns and operates Cork Airport, there are airline staff, ground handlers, caterers, Customs and Revenue, An Garda Síochána, duty-free teams, passenger mobility staff and many others working together”.

“We have people coming to the airport who are nervous, who don’t know the airport. It’s our job to put them at their ease. Airports tend to be happy places. People are going for happy reasons and occasionally, of course, there are sad reasons like funerals. But generally they are happy when they come to the airport and we want to ensure that they are happy when they leave the airport too.”

When asked for three wishes, one for Cork Airport, one for Cork and one for himself, Barry starts with the airport.

“If we got everyone in Munster and South Leinster to try it once, I’d be very confident that they would return to us again for their travels, making it the airport of choice” he says.

His hope is that the airport continues providing important connectivity for business, leisure, tourism and industry, with an expanding range of connections to the UK and Europe.

For Cork itself, unsurprisingly, his wish comes back to tourism.

Ask people overseas to name Irish destinations and Dublin, Kerry or Connemara would probably spring to mind. Barry wants Cork to be firmly on that list too.

“We are the second city and second cities by their nature are smaller, friendlier, cheaper and that little bit more quirky and vibrant,” he says.

“I think that Cork City and County has a lot to offer international visitors as a tourist prospect. I would love more people to find out about the beauty and the huge variety of offerings that Cork City and County has,” he says. “I would love it to become a must-do and must-visit tourism destination.”

And his final wish?

Barry admits he has no idea where the future will take him.

“If you asked me five years ago what the future holds, I would have told you that I’d still be an accountant. So here we are five years later and I am after doing a total 180.”

What he does know is that he wants to keep working around the things he loves.

“My wish for myself, I suppose, would be to keep on doing what I love, working alongside my passion as well as continuing to be healthy and happy, of course.

“I am delighted to have found my passion and to know where it lies.”

So, for anyone wondering where a step outside their comfort zone might lead, Barry’s story is an inspiration. He took a leap into the unknown and landed exactly where he wanted to be.