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Home or away? Tell us how you are spending Christmas this year

Repatriating grief, Irish doctors down under, and other top stories from Irish Times Abroad this week

Mary Clarke from Dundalk welcomes her daughter June from San Diago. Photographer: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times

Ciara Kenny's face
Ciara Kenny
Wed Dec 12 2018 - 11:00

Christmas is a particularly emotional time for emigrants, whether they are spending it at home or away... where will you be this year? We're looking for readers to share their plans and feelings about Christmas time with us, for articles to publish over the next few weeks. Click through to send us yours. If you're living in Australia, we'd also like to hear from you about what it is like to live and work in one of the most successful economies in the world. Click here for more info, and to contribute your experiences and opinions.

"When people ask me how I'm settling in since moving home from America, I've finally found an answer that will satisfy them and myself. I tell them "it's great and it's hard". Because it is. Coming home stirs up emotions I couldn't have even imagined," writes Lisa Tierney-Keogh, about the unexpected grief she has experienced for long-lost loved ones since moving back to Ireland earlier this year.

Sinead Fahy spent three years working as a doctor in Melbourne. She's recently returned to the HSE, and is worn thin by regular 24-hour shifts and poor working conditions. She says all the other Irish doctors she met in Australia won't move back unless serious efforts are made to improve conditions. It is our most-read story this week.

"I brought it with me when I emigrated, and I still have it now..."An Irish woman who moved to England in 1954 to work as a nurse in the NHS has had the same Christmas crib for the last 77 years. She is one of many who brought an object along to Epic's story collecting session recently, documenting the sentimental value of material things that people bring with them when they emigrate.

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Also on the site this week, you can watch Ciaran Hodgers, an Irish spoken word artist living in Liverpool, read his funny, emotional take on 'How to Be an Irish Emigrant'.

You'll find plenty more stories by and about the Irish diaspora this week on irishtimes.com/abroad.

To receive this digest to your inbox each week, you can join the free Irish Times Abroad Network here.

Thanks for reading.