For the sake of your mental health, stop trying to have an opinion on everything all the time
Unthinkable: People are panicking, theorising and condemning on social media in every imaginable direction. But it’s all right not to have a view on everything all the time. In fact, it’s healthy
Laura Kennedy: You can’t escape yourself abroad, but you can find someone you’re less eager to escape from
When you emigrate, you shed the version of yourself that others consider to be who you are
It’s no wonder so many of us are lonely. Friendship has become harder and more complex
Unthinkable: Young people now spend less time in one another’s physical company than ever before and the experience of successive lockdowns deprived them of crucial social development
Here’s what the world doesn’t need: another woman writer complaining about masculinity
We tend to discuss what men are and should be, while suggesting it is inappropriate for men to comment on femininity or womanhood
I suspect the constant talk about Australia and spiders is a conspiracy to keep the sons and daughters of Éireann at home
Irish folks are obsessed with how living in Australia means constantly coping with arachnids. Well, I am now able to say, that’s a bit mad
Cases like Natasha O’Brien’s prompt a sudden, disquieting voice in collective consciousness
Suspended sentence for Cathal Crotty has raised questions about the nature of justice. It is easier to say when we feel its absence than to define it
My friend has done everything right but soon they will be homeless
When we emigrants speak critically of home, we are often met with a defensive tone
I watched my grandmother disappear into mental illness and believed I was doomed to follow
Ireland is struggling with a mental health crisis, while we are flooded with fluffy, often pseudoscientific therapeutic advice through social media
Our relationship with Britain will always be a bit weird, like making friends with your former school bully
In Australia, people I talk to seem slightly embarrassed by the fact that the king is still knocking around
‘An Irish accent carries a level of privilege here in Australia’
It’s a delight to realise that your voice evokes for strangers a beloved parent who is now gone
As an Irish emigrant, I’m not supposed to talk about butter. I’m supposed to talk about James Joyce and Seamus Heaney
The rules change when you emigrate: your moaning card, if not your passport, is revoked
Laura Kennedy: Australia leaves me longing for older buildings to carry me into the past
Life in Canberra is convenient and comfortable but when I miss home, it is the sense of age that I miss
Seeing the GP in Australia: ‘It’s dispiriting how utterly luxurious it feels’
Figuring out the healthcare system in Australia has certainly been the most complex part of moving
Moving back to Ireland would mean working till 10pm, no home of my own and bad coffee
It’s sad when the numbers say you’re better off leaving Ireland
The landlord asked where his ‘antique toilet brush’ was and demanded recompense from our deposit
‘When you own a house, you are allowed to live in it ... without worrying that the house is starting to look occupied’