There is nothing more magical than flying into Dublin Airport at Christmas

My love affair with Mallorca started many years ago.

I left Ireland at the age of 20 and so it began, working as a travel consultant, nannying jobs, teaching English, anything that kept me afloat in order to stay in my paradise.

I met my husband here, spent summers working and winters off travelling. It was a free and easy lifestyle. We bought a sailing boat and explored the Mediterranean. The flow of our life was smooth and endless.

We moved to Carlingford, Co Louth, in the bleakness of March, 1993, looking for something I cannot quite explain. I vividly remember moving back. I was so excited to be coming “home” again.

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Living and working in the newly constructed marina on the east coast, we had our son and then our daughter in Ireland.

We loved this time and over the five years we spent there we absorbed all that Ireland has to offer. My husband (who is Spanish/French) still says it was one of the most memorable periods of his life.

My parents lived up the road in Dundalk, and I cherished that. When I look back now, 25 years later, I am unsure exactly what drove us to leave. But the weather could be so harsh and we were confused about future job opportunities.

Somewhere within us, we wanted the nomad life again.

Our children were four and almost two when we left Irish shores and headed back to Mallorca. We bought a little sailing boat and introduced our children to life at sea as we explored the coast and surrounding islands. It was an idyllic time and we have precious memories of that year spent on board our yacht.

Life shifted to a land-based one. My husband returned to working as a dive instructor and then as a boat captain, and I worked in tourism and then education. The children attended local schools and we made our life, a good life, here in Mallorca.

However, come December time, the countdown began. The return “home” for Christmas loomed.

There is nothing more magical than to fly into Dublin Airport in the run-up to Christmas. The drive to my parents’ house …my mum flinging open the front door, her Christmas pinny stained with the evidence of her baking delights. Their house festooned from top to bottom with twinkling lights and decorations from my childhood. There is nowhere in the world I would rather be at Christmas and I thank my parents for that.

This year, we will be close to Carlingford in a charming cottage with our son, daughter and their respective partners for a true Irish Christmas. In my opinion, one just cannot do Christmas in Mallorca.

What I love about Mallorca, though, is the weather, the beach life, the beauty of the majestic mountains that surround our town — the simplicity of life.

We have always lived in Port de Pollença, in the north of Mallorca, and people say it has a magic all of its own. However, Spanish bureaucracy, endless paperwork and “rules” do take some getting used to.

We have been happy living here, and continue to be so, but things are shifting. The last few summers have been extremely hot, temperatures soaring, breaking all previous records. Our offspring have grown and flown, both making their lives in London.

The island can be too small and too restrictive when one needs to stretch one’s wings. But here we are, my husband and I, still loving this paradise, albeit a bit too empty and silent without them.

My mum died in 2020, a victim of Covid, and it tore me apart not to be able to travel home to mourn her. I think something changed during this time, and I began to think about my homeland more and more.

I visit as much as I can, and during this year´s annual summer trip with my dad, brother and sister, as we wound our way around west Cork, I thought to myself, “this is home”. So, a new idea began to grow, a thought that perhaps we could find a way to buy a small house there and spend more time in my beloved Ireland.

It is a project that may take years to complete, but a worthy project all the same. So when my husband and I retire in nine years, we will escape the beating heat of Spain, in exchange for soft rain, green, green grass and the warmth and welcome of the Irish people.

My Irish friends laugh at me and say I am looking through rose-coloured spectacles. Perhaps I am. But all I know is that there is nowhere in this world where I feel I belong as much as I do when I am “home”.

• Jane Gracia was born in Dublin, but brought up in Dundalk, Co Louth. She moved to Spain in 1985, then her family returned to live in Carlingford from 1993 to 1998. Their son Yannick Gracia, who is now 30, was born in Drogheda in late 1993 and their daughter Matilda Gracia, is 27. Yannick is an osteopath in London and Matilda is a singer-songwriter who also lives in London. Jane’s husband Pedro Gracia is a boat captain for Scuba Mallorca in Puerto Pollensa, north Mallorca, where they live. She is a teaching assistant at an international school in Palma. They flew into Ireland for the Christmas season. “It feels so good to be home,” she says.
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