This month, couple Maureen Feenick Ryan and her husband Noel Ryan tell the story of how they moved from a small town in Ireland after 27 years and began to travel Spain – by means of house sitting. Using agency websites such as trustedhousesitters.com and mindmyhouse.com, the couple have been able to travel Europe and get the “opportunity to live like a local, get to know the area and meet new people”. Some house-sits last a month while others, like the one in Olocau, Spain, are shorter. Enjoying the sun and minding a pet, in Maureen’s view, is all she could ask for – “waking up to sunshine every morning is a tonic and massive health booster which to this day neither of us take for granted”. There are lessons learned on every journey and one of the most crucial things Maureen took away with her “is to learn the language” so you can talk to people.
Amy May Considine talks about life in Swiss Alps and how even though she lives abroad her neighbours still react positively to Ireland, with someone commenting “the Irish are like honey”. Living 1,300 metres above sea level has its challenges; when winter rolls around “driving is simply not an option” so Amy uses snow ploughs to get around. Ski boots become a regular sight in the shopping centre, something Amy says she still gets a laugh from “as people clink down the aisles in ski boots with beer under one arm and fondue under another”.
Some people face different circumstances when they choose to emigrate though such as expat Aoife Leonard. Now living in Berlin, she would like to come back and live in Ireland but a choice to move home means entering a market where she would be “completely priced out of home ownership”.
Brianna Parkins picks up the same theme in her personal finance column on the challenges facing people who try to move back to Ireland. She writes that housing remains the biggest headache, but getting your paperwork in order is also critical to smoothing your path.
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We hear about the story of Vince Power moving to London at the age of 15 in the 1960s and how today he’s most comfortable with the title of “lucky chancer”. Power believes that if there is one community in London that has shown resilience over time it is the Irish and he recalls stories of opening his pub, The Mean Fiddler, and watching groups such as Foo Fighters or The Pogues play there over the years. Today, Power recognises “that Irish people coming [to London] were different to those who had travelled before”. In a city that was infamous for its Irish hotspots and “No Irish” signs, the community “is now scattered across London and further afield” says Power.
Damian O’Sullivan gives another perspective on Britain when he recalls his father swapping his British passport for and Irish one. Growing up in the Netherlands with an Irish father and a French mother, Damian “inevitably had a European outlook on life”. That said, Damian spoke about time that he spent in Ireland – particularly at Christmas. “Christmas time was ‘religiously’ spent with my grandma and aunties in Monkstown, Co Dublin”, moments he describes as “pure magic”. The European outlook on life did not end there and afterwards Damian moved to Brussels in Belgium. Today, he is a designer for Hermes and Louis Vuitton.
Ronan Feely tells the story of how he decided to run the Boston Marathon, a race where “30,000 people will line up in Hopkinton, Massachusetts” to dream to cross that finish line. Ronan’s story has an unlikely start as a former smoker who hated PE classes but in 2014, however, he ran his first mile since his school days “and so it continued”. The timeline brings us to May 2016, when Ronan ran his first marathon and during it he went from the “I feel unstoppable” phase to the “I’ll never do that again” phase and back again. Despite the pain, he now has five under his belt.
For those of you living in Britain, columnist Finn McRedmond wrote recently about the coronation of King Charles, which is due to take place next month. She argues as “Ireland looks at the coronation it should not dismiss it as an archaic oddity, but instead accept it as a facet of British public life that we do not share but can appreciate nonetheless.”
Finally Dr Catherine Healy tells the extraordinary story of Irish nun Sr Ignatia, who became the “Angel of AA”. For her efforts in helping people with alcoholism, she received a letter of thanks from US president John F Kennedy in 1961. He said she had “added strength to [her] community and nation”.
If you live overseas and have a story to tell for The Irish Times abroad section, email abroad@irishtimes.com with some information about you and what you do. To find more stories by or about the Irish diaspora this month click here.
Thanks for reading.
