50 Years of Co-op: Alice Carroll

Tell us a bit about yourself, what course did you study in UL, what has your career looked like to date?  

Hi, I’m Alice Carroll. Originally from Limerick but now living in Austin, Texas. I’m the co-founder of Foxes Bow Irish Whiskey which launched in Ireland at the end of 2021, and which is now exporting to Europe, Africa and North America. I studied Business with French in UL, graduating in 2014. 

Upon graduating, I secured a place on the highly coveted Jameson Whiskey Graduate programme, where I worked for a year in France as a brand ambassador before relocating with Jameson’s parent company, Pernod-Ricard, over to Toronto, Canada. There, I spent 6 years working in different functions of the business across the sales, trade marketing and brand marketing teams.  

 Just before the pandemic, I relocated to Ireland and worked with a PR agency in Dublin, working on Diageo’s whiskey brands and Guinness as part of their cultural marketing team. It was during this time I connected with an old neighbour of mine (and another UL alum) to explore, and ultimately co-found a project that would come to be Foxes Bow Irish Whiskey, which we trial launched in Ireland at the end of 2021.  

Since then, we’ve secured national listings with SuperValu, Tesco and more in Ireland, began exporting to the UK, Africa, Europe and North America. We’ve won Gold at the Irish Whiskey Awards, Irish Design Awards and Belfast Whiskey Week. We also raised over €1M in investment, which was a whole new experience for me and definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone - but that’s where the magic happens, as they say!  

Tell us a bit about your co-op placement, what organisation did you work with and what year it took place? 

In my third year of Business with French (2012-2013), I had the chance to get real life experience and implement everything I had learned before even finishing college through my co-op placement, and absolutely stood to me after I finished college and started looking for employment.  

Co-op afforded me the opportunity to do an 8 month internship with Fendi in New York. At the time, I was sure I wanted to do PR in the fashion industry so I literally applied to every posting I could find in NYC, contacting everyone I knew until I finally secured a position. In hindsight, even that alone was such a good lesson in the power of networking and persistence. The experience was incredible - I was really thrown in at the deep end and as a result, learned so much so quickly. My day-to-day job responsibilities varied from co-ordinating with magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair to secure features in upcoming shoots, to pulling samples from our PR showroom for celebrities to wear for red carpet events, and everything in between. Basically, anything that would get the brand positive exposure.  

It did make me realize that Fashion PR was not for me, but I made memories and connections for life. It was genuinely an incredible opportunity - not only to gain experience, but to be able to try a career route and course correct before even leaving college. And it has absolutely stood to me in my career.  

What impact did your co-op placement have on your future career? 

Between the co-op experience and the real-client projects, my UL experience prepared me really well for entering the workplace upon graduating. I think sometimes with education can favour a certain type of learner, someone who can sit down and memorize things. And while that’s great for written exams, it doesn’t help when you enter the real world and don’t know how to apply what you’ve learned in practice. The University of Limerick isn’t structured that way at all. As you learn and study theory, lecturers ensure you truly understand it and know how to apply it by regularly inviting real life entrepreneurs or companies to present - so you can see the theory in practice and fully grasp the concepts. And both co-op and project work bring that to the next level where by you have a chance to implement what you’ve learned, in a safe, learning environment that allows you to test, make mistakes and learn so that you’re confident of your ability to execute once you’ve graduated and are working in the real world. In my experience too, this is recognised by Irish employers, who really hold UL graduates in high regard. Especially graduate programmes!  

What piece of advice would you give to students going on co-op now? 

If you're starting the process of securing your co-op placement, my advice would be to do your own research if there's a particular area or company, you'd like experience with. Reach out to your network, or even to strangers you think might be able to help. Make sure you're really specific in what you're asking them for to maximise the chances of them helping, without adding too much work to their plate. For example, a simple intro is an easy ask for someone to help with. The worst that can happen is that they'll say no or not reply. The best that could happen is that it helps you land your dream placement. Definitely worth taking the chance!  

The advice I would give to students going on co-op is to give it your all and put yourself out there as much as possible. While co-op is a break from traditional course work, it really is what you make of it. The more opportunities you jump at, the more real-world experience you will have when you leave college and are applying for jobs. It’s also an amazing opportunity to figure out what area you’d like to pursue when you finish college. There’s a huge difference between a job on paper and one in practice. Learning what you don’t like is as important as this stage as figuring out what is. For me, it honed my passion on the brand building side of marketing and away from public relations so that when I was finishing college, I knew exactly what type of jobs I DID want to go for.  

Best of luck – it really is such an exciting time and experience!