Irish in Europe: ‘I’m always stunned when I go home by how much is consumed in a ‘session’’

Aoife Hoitink is originally from Mallow, Co Cork, but now lives in Switzerland with her Dutch husband, Rob, and daughter Saoirse. “Through work with a multinational company we have lived in the UK, Australia, the US and Switzerland,” she explains. “We moved back to Switzerland eight years ago and enjoy being back in Europe and closer to our families in Ireland and the Netherlands. "

Hoitink describes Switzerland as a “beautiful, safe country offering an amazing, though expensive, outdoor lifestyle”. “Integration with the local community takes time and can be the most challenging aspect of living here,” she says.

Saoirse (15) identifies as “Irish Dutch, although she has never lived in either country. We have always worked very hard to give her a sense of both nationalities and ensured we travelled to Ireland as often as possible so she could have a good relationship with her grandparents and cousins.

“Living in so many different places means that we have always had to be open to different health systems and approaches to raising children but, fundamentally, the core values that you have at home is what matters the most. At the end of the day an Irish mammy is an Irish mammy. I always knew that we would not raise her in Ireland. And so while she will never experience the childhood I had, she has had amazing experiences while still having a love for Ireland and her Irish family.”

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Culturally, Switzerland is very different to Ireland, Hoitink says. Aside from language differences “people are a lot more reserved and serious and Switzerland has a quiet, low-key lifestyle”.

While she’s never really struggled with homesickness. “Inevitably, there were hard and sad times when you feel the distance, missing out on important family events, going to town with your sisters, popping over to your parents after work. But I knew it was always just a short flight away. As the years pass, we see increasingly the importance of being a shorter distance away from our families, and this was never brought more home to us than during the pandemic.”

Covid restrictions were not as severe in Switzerland as in Ireland, she says. “Luckily, the government prioritised keeping schools open. They were only closed for a few months in spring 2020. Apart from the anxiety of not getting Covid, the biggest challenge for us was when we could safely travel to see friends and family. Our biggest concern now is the rate of vaccination in Switzerland is low and we envy the sense of community and collectivity which drove the high vaccination rates in Ireland.”

For the Irish abroad, she says the biggest change of the past two years has been the ability to travel. “We lost that ability to just hop on a plane and be home in a day or a few hours. We were fortunate to not lose anyone in the family during this time, but I have seen the depth of grief of those Irish abroad who lost family members, had close family members fall ill, who have had marriages break down and the worry for parents isolating under such severe restrictions back home.

“For me, personally, I have always been comfortable living away, but the worry and fear for my parents weighed heavily.”

Although she can’t see herself ever returning to live in Ireland, she will “always spend time in Ireland in the future. As the picture my parents put in the bedroom at home says, ‘Life takes you to unexpected places – love brings you home’.”

Reynolds family

Alvaro Reynolds from Donnybrook, Dublin, moved to Mallorca, Spain with his Mallorcan wife and their son in 2012.

“I found a job straight away,” he says. “Since moving to Mallorca I’ve been out of work for only 10 weeks. English has been the language of communication for all my jobs. I’m currently the copywriting manager for a tour operator.”

Their eldest child, Pau, was born in Dublin, and their daughter Emma was born in Palma. "Pau still tells people he's from Ireland, even though he left when he was two," Reynolds says. "Being honest, I think Mallorca is a better place to grow up than Dublin. From May to September, they spend their afternoons in the pool. It's a great way to meet other children in the block. I know it's a cliche, but kids here just hang out by the pool or on the beach. You very rarely pass a group of menacing looking teenagers drinking cans. Also, childcare is far cheaper; creches are about €400-€500 per month."

Eating and drinking habits are the cultural differences he notices most. “Mallorcans have a more varied diet, though they do eat a lot of fried food. That’s offset by lots of fresh fruit. It’s the difference in alcohol consumption that’s most glaring; they drink small measures, paced out over a prolonged period. For example, on a family Sunday lunch a 20cl beer before eating, wine with the meal and then a G&T afterwards. I’m always stunned when I go home by how much is consumed in a ‘session’. I simply can’t keep up.”

Reynolds says he misses “family and friends. I miss bumping into someone wherever I go. That doesn’t really happen when you’re not a local.” Still, he adds, Mallorca is now home because he has set down roots. “When I go back to Dublin I feel like I’m a tourist.”

Pandemic restrictions were very difficult in Mallorca, he says. “One of the dads in my son’s class, someone I’d been speaking to only weeks earlier at basketball training, succumbed to Covid. It drove home the magnitude of what was happening. At home, it was very hard as we had two young children in a 90sq m apartment. It was extremely claustrophobic. We’ve since bought a house in a village with a back garden. The pandemic and its restrictions have shown us the value of space.”

He worries a lot about his father, who is 80 and lives alone. “It has been very hard to be abroad and not be able to keep an eye on him. I’ve disengaged from social media during this period as it was making me more fretful.”

Although Reynolds says he never wanted to leave Dublin, he now doesn’t envisage returning to live there in the future. “Salaries here may not be anywhere close to what they are in Dublin but being able to play outdoors almost every day and muck about in the pool is priceless.”

Dublin is “just too expensive. I also think people are happier in Mallorca than in Dublin. Mallorcans do have problems, but I know far fewer people here with them, mental health, alcoholism etc, than I do back home. This is something that becomes even more apparent with each trip to Ireland.”

An artist in France

Artist Macdara Smith moved from Dublin to France at 17 because "I was in love with a French woman who then became my wife. We have three boys together and we all live in Paris."

Smith says the approach to work is different in France. “I worked for a while in Ireland in a start-up before the dot com crash. On Fridays everyone would go down to the pub for drinks. That was nice, but as the company expanded no one knew who anyone was any more. In France they don’t really have that approach; when you leave work it’s over, you go and do something else. When you finish the time you are supposed to work, you stop.”

As an Irishman in France, Smith says "it's okay because the French have a traditional love of the Irish. I think this is mostly because we are enemies of the English and a sort of a cause célèbre. I like to remind French people that the Irish are like the north Africans that they colonised.

“I think France is a country of debate and discourse,” he says. “They are never really happy with anything. French people dislike each other a lot. They moan all the time. On the other hand, they really know how to have fun, how to say no to bulls**t and how to resist.

“Culturally, French people are a lot more sensitive to appearances. But it can get you down sometimes because France is a continental country which can really crush down individuality. Ireland with its small population still has a fair share of quirky characters.

“France can of course be very bureaucratic and slow. It has a lot of charges, you pay a lot of tax here. But a lot of things are done very well. Doctors are free, a lot of healthcare is very reasonably priced. French people take better care of themselves”

“I think a big difference is the Irish way of saying yes to everything to sound polite. The French just say no. It can be very shocking sometimes. It is often seen as rude. Now I see it both as rude and as an interesting way to affirm your right to say no.”

What he finds hardest about living away from Ireland is “access to good tea and butter. Other things I find hard is the seriousness in a weird way of the French. But I’ve been over here so long I don’t know if I’m Irish or French. Still, I am more exotic here than in Ireland. Here I’m a struggling up-and-coming Irish artist. Whereas if I was in Ireland I’d just be another struggling up-and-coming artist.”

Pandemic life and restrictions have been difficult. “We live in a 50sq m flat in Paris. No garden, so during lockdown it was cabin feverish. The worst part was doing the homework with my youngest boy. We were basically home-schooling. I practiced a lot of music and drew a lot. For work then last year I did all my classes through Zoom and that was not too easy.”

He has no plans to return to Ireland. “I’m in the process of getting divorced and my future ex-wife and I want to be near our French kids so we can share the parenting as much as possible. Maybe in my later years I’ll come back to Ireland for longer periods. But why bother really? I’ll come back to visit my family and friends. But I don’t see myself as coming back to Ireland to settle down. The world is a wide open place and I would like to see more of it.”