‘I love that in Dublin you can be your freest self. You can push society’s norms here’

Colleen Keogh, known to many as Anna MacShane in RTÉ's Fair City, moved from Vancouver in Canada to Dublin in summer 2019 with her then-partner, a Dubliner.

At the time, the Scottish woman was working in fitness, having previously worked in the industry in Melbourne, Australia, before the move to Canada.

“It was that decision of: we’re going to move to Dublin and stay with your parents and save and we’ll get our house. I think we were a bit naive because Dublin has changed an awful lot because he was away for years as well, so we came here and then the pandemic hit,” says Keogh.

She climbed the corporate ladder in fitness, getting a job as a manager in a gym in Dublin just before the pandemic hit, and when lockdown happened, she decided she would take a part-time acting course.

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“I always wanted to be an actress, but I think as a teenager I was encouraged to take the stability route,” she says.

“I’d worked in Canada with a bunch of actors and I think when they were educating me more that it’s not just playing pretend, I was like, I feel like I’ve gotten all of my jobs from playing a character, because I feel like I’m very underqualified to be a manager of 40 people and everything just came from there.

“I finished the part-time, and I still had that voice in my head being like: girl, you need a house, you need money, this isn’t a stable career,” she says.

Keogh went back to work in the gym part-time, but since finishing her acting courses has been acting more or less full-time.

“It’s kind of hard to believe, this is the country where I suppose my childhood dreams came true, and that’s what I feel like it done, it has a special place for me, but I don’t have a house or anything like that and I think the expectations I had when I moved here are very different to now,” she says.

It’s not until I lived here that I was like, that’s why everyone was laughing at me when I suggested going to the Spire as something to do

When she and her partner broke up, Keogh had no idea how to find a house, never having lived with people she didn’t know.

“I was naive because I was like, how do you even find a house in Dublin? How do you find a house share? How does this work?” she says. “It’s interesting because I didn’t know how hard it was, so I went in with that mentality of I’m going to have a place to live next week.”

Before moving to Dublin, Keogh came to Ireland on holidays, and made a list of all the things she wanted to go see.

“The Spire was on there, and it’s not until I lived here now that I was like, that’s why everyone was laughing at me when I suggested going to the Spire as something to do,” she says.

“There’s huge culture, diverse culture, and I think because I grew up in a small town that wasn’t there, you could count on one hand how many people of colour there were, and that’s very different to now,” says Keogh.

“I don’t know if I would say Dublin is my forever home, Ireland yes, I’m very much like I don’t know if I see myself anywhere else at this point, I just know I don’t know if it’s Dublin – but I feel like everyone I speak to is like: ‘Yeah girl, you’re not alone there’,” she says.

She finds Dublin small. “I go every single day and bump into someone and it’s not like I’m in here long, and I know you can argue it’s cause you’re on the telly, girl, but no, even just in general whether it’s been from nights out in the past I’m just like, how is it this small?”

It doesn’t matter where you are in the world as an artist, there’s a likelihood that you might not own a house, so does the housing crisis in Dublin affect you?

Overall, Ireland wasn’t what Keogh expected. However, her own expectations for herself changed too.

“When I changed from saving money living with my ex’s parents to paying rent and bills and everything, it was like, hold on a second, there’s not a chance I can save 10, 20 grand a year [for a mortgage].

“I wasn’t an actor [when I moved here]. There was job security, there was this pipeline dream of house, kids, that’s what I thought I wanted, and now it’s like stay in this lane, there really isn’t actually anything wrong,” she says.

“It doesn’t matter where you are in the world as an artist, there’s a likelihood that you might not own a house, so does the housing crisis in Dublin affect you? Yeah, it affects everyone, but it doesn’t trouble me as much, because I feel like we’re all in the same boat.”

Keogh now lives in Clontarf, goes running by the seafront often, and counts her housemate as one of her best friends. She will get her citizenship next year after having lived in Ireland for five years.

Now I’m like: Ireland is the best country in the world, minus the housing crisis and the occasional riot that goes on

“Public transport is very different here than it is everywhere else, I don’t find Dublin very accessible except if you’ve got a car,” she adds. But she says Ireland is the same as Scotland culturally, and she feels people “are always up for the craic and you can slag people and no one is going to take offence.

“I am very blessed with the people I have in my life,” she says, having met numerous close friends through her acting work.

“One thing that I will say about Dublin that I love is that you can be your freest self, which I have not experienced in other cities yet, I definitely think since I have become an actor I’ve become a lot more quirky, but I think you can push society’s norms in Dublin.

“Is that a good or bad thing? Maybe it just shows how much there’s crazy stuff going on that you don’t stand out like a sore thumb but I really do feel that it is the freest city that I’ve certainly lived in and even compared to other cities in Ireland that I’ve visited, because I do feel like I can skip down O’Connell Street, skip down the seafront.

“You might get the odd look. I can sing out loud. I’ve noticed a lot more people that sing to their music on the street. I’m like: This is class; I’m all for it. You do that in Cork? It’s not the same vibe,” she says.

“I can actually be my true, authentic self in this city ... I don’t necessarily really think I was ever comfortable in myself whereas now I’m like Ireland is the best country in the world, minus the housing crisis and the occasional riot that goes on.”

Speaking in the aftermath of the riots that took over Dublin city centre last November, Keogh says that it showed her the culture of Ireland, through the messages she received and people offering her lifts and making sure she was all right.

“That’s one thing I’ve never seen before, the community of people that really connected and I wouldn’t even say I’m that close with either, that I was like: Oh, people want to help you. And it wasn’t just from my immediate friends, and that I think when everyone was like: this is not, this actually isn’t Ireland and I don’t want people to feel that way.”

We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish