Just before Christmas 2022, a dozen Irish people landed in the Latvian capital and braved the Baltic winter to make their way to a Soviet-style factory building. The reason for their trip was “a Christmas party Irish-style in Riga,” says Tom Cotter, the founder of OceanR. The Cork-based sports clothing company was days away from closing the acquisition of its Latvian supplier. The process had been gruelling after the owner of the Riga factory, Cotter’s friend Peter Baker, passed away in the middle of the transaction earlier that year. Events had thrown Cotter, then 32, in at the deep end.…

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