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When I moved back from Amsterdam, it was clear it was to a much emptier Dublin

Is it possible to live out the adventure of your 20s somewhere as familiar as home?

Dublin is abundant with people trying to make it somewhere they can be proud to call home. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

Molly Furey
Wed Mar 13 2024 - 06:00

Your mid-20s are filled with uncertainty – you are constantly being faced with big decisions that may redirect the entire course of your life. But being in your mid-20s in Ireland, in Dublin in my case, has added a whole new dimension to this sense of self-doubt.

If the “why-are-you-backs” and “when-are-you-goings” don’t do it, then scrolling past posts of Christmas on Bondi Beach or of the glamour of London life are certain to send me into a tailspin wondering what the hell am I doing here.

When I rushed off to do a masters in Amsterdam after finishing college here, I barely gave a moment’s thought to what I was leaving behind. Graduation seemed like my cue to leave – I had never been much of a homebird anyway and Covid had only exacerbated my impatience to move elsewhere.

When the time finally came, I was delighted to head off on my adventure, wherever it was leading, and heartily waved goodbye to the doom and gloom of an unaffordable city that seemed to be pushing me out anyway.

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When I returned to Dublin last September I planned on making only a fleeting pit-stop to say a few hellos and goodbyes before making my merry way over to London. I crashed into my dad’s spare room with two suitcases, a pack of stroopwafels and absolutely zero intention of staying.

Six months later and, well, I am still here.

It may just be the relief of no longer having to explain the clever cruelty of my jokes to Dutch people, but somewhere between the quiet pints and seaside swims, the Wicklow hikes, Fade Street nights and cheeky bowls of chowder (I am a sad excuse for a vegetarian since coming home), I forgot to leave.

Molly Furey is enjoying and relishing her accidental return home

[ I went to visit my old school. Big mistake. At 25 I now feel ancient ]

I never imagined what this time in my life would look like here. It feels as if I have gone off-script and am making up new plot points as I go along. While there is certainly a sense of possibility about that, it is undercut by plenty of second-guessing.

Between rising rents and a cost-of-living crisis, I am constantly grappling with the distinct feeling that the city does not even want me to stay. But almost as discouraging is the idea that this is the time for getting out, garnering new experiences, meeting new people, “finding yourself” – and this is not possible to do in Dublin.

It feels almost wrong, if not dull or unimaginative, to be enjoying and relishing my accidental return home as much as I am. How can my 20s, my great years of adventure, exploration and discovery, possibly be lived out in a city that is so small and familiar?

When I arrived back from Amsterdam, it was clear it was to a much emptier Dublin. With so many of my peers gone, I found myself reconnecting with old friends, meeting new ones and seeking out different places to explore. I started venturing to pockets of the city I was previously too lazy or incurious to go to, and began finding shows, gigs and events that I let pass me by while planning my exit strategy back in college. I feel I have come back to an entirely new, discoverable city.

It is, admittedly, easy to be charmed by home when you have just returned. The novelty of Irish people’s default level of kindness and craic is still quite fresh and I am, quite possibly, just drunk on Barry’s tea (also Guinness). But I think that only partially explains my sense of rediscovery about the place.

I am quickly realising that I had falsely equated the fact that this city is pushing its young people out with the assumption that it is incapable of playing host to the expectations we have of our 20s. Dublin is far from perfect and, even if it did become some kind of affordable, sunny and safe utopia, it will always be too small for some people. But it has been a true revelation to arrive back to a place that I so patronisingly gave up on only to find it abundant with people trying to make it somewhere they can be excited and proud to call their home. Maybe we ignore this fact in order for it to be easier to leave, but I am delighted to reap the fruits of it now that I have returned.

Talk to me in a few months after I have tried to move out of this spare room and I might very well be back where I was three years ago: disillusioned and desperate to go. But in hindsight I wonder if my brisk assumption that “there is nothing for me here” back in 2021 was more unimaginative and less interesting than it has been to try to stay.

If I am to leave again it will not be for want of an adventure or to crash in some other far-flung spare room but, more realistically, because of the diminishing size of my social circle. Until then, I will leave my stale stroopwafels to wither away in the corner press and continue uncovering the many surprises of this inimitable city that is home.

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