Annie - I have been battling the notion to move home to Ireland for months now and this piece really hit the nail on the head with how I have been feeling. Thank you for sharing and I am glad to know I am not the only person unsure of how a move back home might turn out.
As a fellow immigrant, I absolutely loved this and feel it so deeply. I recently moved to Romania to be closer to family and I wasn't expecting the flood of emotions and existential questions I'm having. I'm similar to the taxi driver in your essay - I spent my summers here butI never lived here. So it's super confusing to reconcile with the idea of moving "back" to a place you never actually left.
I love reading your words. There is something about the way you write that lures me in. How you convey emotion that resonates with me even when the context doesn't. I haven't read an adult book in over a decade. I can't seem to do it, but I really enjoy reading these. Thanks for writing and sharing them.
Goddamn parakeets… moving in and taking over our trees! (I always have the same silent smile.) I really feel everything you’re saying here. And it’s weird to have a country you CAN go back to, isn’t it? especially when so many immigrants in London can’t return for economic or political reasons. Choice is a privilege and an agony x
In 42 years in London, working in music and film, this is the first piece I’ve read that resonates with my experience. Twice I tried to return - once my family rejected the notion, the second time I applied for a significant film industry job, only to be told I was seen as too foreign. Now semi-retired, there is so much I miss that nevertheless seems just out of reach. Great piece, Annie.Thank you.
Ross thanks for your comment. I feel you hugely. It's likely I could be exactly where you are ... i think there's never a right decision. We just have to make peace with our choices.
I feel ya! I did it (moved back to Ireland) eventually because of ageing parents and the desire for community and I don’t regret it. It was the right time for us as a family. I trooped my kids back to Ireland from England but not down south (I went North) because there’s still a part of me that knows I’d never truly fit back in, in fact I’m not sure I ever did. I left Carlow in 1991 and headed to Belfast for university and never looked back- living in the UK for over 30 years! But being back on the Island of Ireland is nice. Funny thing is I never disconnected from England and never will… my job is there (remote now) and my husbands job is there. All 3 of my kids went to uni there and they’re all living in London Town now. They love the fact we moved them to Ireland and are super proud of their Irish heritage but they get to have the best of both worlds. If I had any words of wisdom it would be to say if you really fancy giving it a go then go for it! Rent a house for the summer or even a few years and if the lifestyle didn’t work out then just pivot. Ha ha sounds easy doesn’t it? I’m living on the North Antrim coast but I’m still over and back to London regularly, I’m off to see yourself and Roddy Doyle in a few weeks 🙌
This resonates so much. I moved from Italy to Ireland 20 years ago and I often find myself grappling with these existential questions. Feeling very much at home in Ireland but also having some moments of un-belonging... and then how to reconcile returning “home” as the person I am today?! Thank you for writing this piece so beautifully
Annie, that’s such a gorgeous piece to read and encompasses the feeling of moving away for anyone I think. I moved to Ireland from England 18 years ago, and have three children here. I sometimes think about moving back (elderly parents, like you, and they can’t travel as easily any more)… but my life is here now - my children are 11,13 and 15 and they’re Irish. We have state exams coming up, and TY, and more school support for my autistic son than we’d get in the UK. Perhaps when they’ve left the nest it might be something to consider, but as you said, I can fly home very easily. I do miss it, but I wonder if I miss the concept of the place rather than the reality. Also, how would I re-engage in my friends lives? For 18 years, I’ve been the one who flies in to visit and we have marvellous weekends together before I go home and our lives go back to the minutiae and routine we all need.
I also think, reading about your Irish pub, it’s funny how we find our people. All my closest fiends here in Cork are women and men who are either ‘blow-ins’ or they grew up here, moved away to live abroad and then came home to raise a family. I found many locals didn’t *need* new friends - they had full lives that started growing from the cradle, with sisters, cousins, aunts, friends from junior infants and beyond, and were content with their lot. Finding a place for myself here was tricky and I’m not sure I want to do that again. Especially given many of my friends were met through the children and there are definitely not any more of them in my future!!!
My Mother was from Wicklow , my Dad from North London - Hampstead, when chimney sweeps lived there rather than millionaires . I was born in London but moved when still tiny - yet our summer holidays were split between Ireland and London .
I left my small Midland town to live in Dublin when I was 18 - getting an Irish passport for myself.
My Mum lived longer in the UK than she did in Ireland and was very grateful for that , but cried on the ferry Everytime she left Ireland behind .
Your roots are everlasting Annie . Mum died 5 months ago age 93 , her last remaining sister Pam joined her on New Years Day .
My beautiful girls have never been to Ireland - my eldest just applying for her Irish passport now at the age of 25. The ties that bind us to each other - it’s in the blood as it is in your sons blood too . Much love x
This has made me think even more about the confusion I have about my heritage and identity.
As the name suggests, I have Irish ancestors. My grandad came to London in the late 1940s to work on a building site, leaving his wife and (approximately) 7 kids behind.
I’ve managed to find out a little bit about him and the family he left behind who weren’t entirely mine. It appears most of his “first” family left Ireland with the majority coming to England.
It feels strange that me and my Dad have always felt more connected to Ireland than England even though he never set foot on Irish soil and I’ve only visited once.
Maybe we’ve been hankering for the roots we knew so little about or the romantic ideals that being Irish evoked in us.
My dad has now passed and the feeling has only grown stronger for me - to understand the man who left Ireland and never went back and also to make sense of why, to my bones, I feel more Irish than English.
Oh Annie, you’ve managed to put into words exactly what I’ve recently gone through/am going through. I left Scotland for London - and Kilburn initially! - aged 19, and spent 27 wonderful years there, my entire adult life, working in the music biz . It felt very much like home. But as the 40’s hit and so many friends moved away, the connection loosened….and in 2020 for the first time ever, the idea of moving back to Glasgow started to seem appealing, so I moved ‘home’.
4 years later, and I just haven’t settled back here. Scotland is wonderful in many ways, but the people, the attitudes, the lifestyle….its different, I’m different. I miss north west London terribly, but maybe I miss the London of my 20’s and 30’s…..I could return, geographically, but maybe I don’t belong there now either. Feeling rootless, and homesick for a place and time that are gone. I’m not happy back here, but is returning to my old life the answer, when my old life isn’t there any more either?
Maybe you’re homesick for the ‘idea’ of Ireland, but the reality of everyday life there wouldn’t match the dream? Or maybe, with so many of your family back there, it would feel like the missing piece of the puzzle. Who knows! I think with immigrants/ex-pats, there will always be that missing piece, wherever we decide to go. Maybe being ‘neither here nor there’ could become ‘being a bit of both’ and the special visits, woven into the London life, will be all you need.
Your words hit me in the feels so much. Especially about Ireland and midlife but I think you could make me feel something by writing about the phone book or the shipping forecast!
Well, this piece has made me want to BE Irish, Annie. And to feel such deep connection with a group who’ve settled far from home. Crisp sandwiches and rumbling with the cousins sound like epic holidays for your boys.
I almost moved my four up to the Lakeland of my youth a decade ago, when they were same age as yours are now. We didn’t make that big move but continue to return for icy lake dips and slaty fellside scrambles at Christmas.
We did uproot for two years to live in the US though and I do think that their little, young emerging minds gained ENORMOUSLY from such a resettling. They truly got to know themselves in a new way through that creative experience, of growing friendships and from scratch and learning new cultural habits.
Gosh how exciting to be mulling it over, this move. For everyone.
yes it's so hard to know how it would affect them. My kid is in secondary now and has settled in really well so i feel relieved that staying has worked out for him. But you're right, they are so adaptable..
They are bloody adaptable laal beings, they really are. And it was one of the biggest joys to watch my kids become themselves all over and thrive in a new place. They did it with such open-hearted acceptance.
Annie, your heart is big enough to welcome inside it two countries and two identities! You're lucky that you've only got the Irish Sea between you and your home country rather than the Atlantic Ocean. You've found out that your short trips to Dublin are a lifesaver so that keeps you connected to your roots, I think it's fantastic.
Thank you for this. I, too, was brought up in south Dublin. Moved aged 10 in the late eighties. I’ve been in London since my mid-twenties and miss home more and more. Even though I’m born in England and have now been back here longer than I lived there, Ireland is home and I’m still very Irish in my outlook and ways. I wanted to move back when the kids were little. Felt very panicky about them doing secondary here. When lockdown started, I had vivid dreams of home, including being in the fields and by the sea, for months on end. I still feel the pull, and when the last one goes off to uni in a couple of years, we’ll be spending longer stints with the aim of eventually fully moving back.
Annie - I have been battling the notion to move home to Ireland for months now and this piece really hit the nail on the head with how I have been feeling. Thank you for sharing and I am glad to know I am not the only person unsure of how a move back home might turn out.
always unsure Ange. Still think about it all the time. I'm not sure the urge ever leaves..
As a fellow immigrant, I absolutely loved this and feel it so deeply. I recently moved to Romania to be closer to family and I wasn't expecting the flood of emotions and existential questions I'm having. I'm similar to the taxi driver in your essay - I spent my summers here butI never lived here. So it's super confusing to reconcile with the idea of moving "back" to a place you never actually left.
it's the line from Heaney's Postscript
'You are neither here nor there'
sending love Anna x
I love reading your words. There is something about the way you write that lures me in. How you convey emotion that resonates with me even when the context doesn't. I haven't read an adult book in over a decade. I can't seem to do it, but I really enjoy reading these. Thanks for writing and sharing them.
oh thank you so much vicki!
Goddamn parakeets… moving in and taking over our trees! (I always have the same silent smile.) I really feel everything you’re saying here. And it’s weird to have a country you CAN go back to, isn’t it? especially when so many immigrants in London can’t return for economic or political reasons. Choice is a privilege and an agony x
exactly Leah. We are so lucky. Also to just be able to afford the flights home. thanks for reading x
In 42 years in London, working in music and film, this is the first piece I’ve read that resonates with my experience. Twice I tried to return - once my family rejected the notion, the second time I applied for a significant film industry job, only to be told I was seen as too foreign. Now semi-retired, there is so much I miss that nevertheless seems just out of reach. Great piece, Annie.Thank you.
Ross thanks for your comment. I feel you hugely. It's likely I could be exactly where you are ... i think there's never a right decision. We just have to make peace with our choices.
I feel ya! I did it (moved back to Ireland) eventually because of ageing parents and the desire for community and I don’t regret it. It was the right time for us as a family. I trooped my kids back to Ireland from England but not down south (I went North) because there’s still a part of me that knows I’d never truly fit back in, in fact I’m not sure I ever did. I left Carlow in 1991 and headed to Belfast for university and never looked back- living in the UK for over 30 years! But being back on the Island of Ireland is nice. Funny thing is I never disconnected from England and never will… my job is there (remote now) and my husbands job is there. All 3 of my kids went to uni there and they’re all living in London Town now. They love the fact we moved them to Ireland and are super proud of their Irish heritage but they get to have the best of both worlds. If I had any words of wisdom it would be to say if you really fancy giving it a go then go for it! Rent a house for the summer or even a few years and if the lifestyle didn’t work out then just pivot. Ha ha sounds easy doesn’t it? I’m living on the North Antrim coast but I’m still over and back to London regularly, I’m off to see yourself and Roddy Doyle in a few weeks 🙌
Hello neighbour from a Castledermot girl loving in the Middle East. Carlow is our nearest 'big town' at home, lol.
*living
This resonates so much. I moved from Italy to Ireland 20 years ago and I often find myself grappling with these existential questions. Feeling very much at home in Ireland but also having some moments of un-belonging... and then how to reconcile returning “home” as the person I am today?! Thank you for writing this piece so beautifully
Annie, that’s such a gorgeous piece to read and encompasses the feeling of moving away for anyone I think. I moved to Ireland from England 18 years ago, and have three children here. I sometimes think about moving back (elderly parents, like you, and they can’t travel as easily any more)… but my life is here now - my children are 11,13 and 15 and they’re Irish. We have state exams coming up, and TY, and more school support for my autistic son than we’d get in the UK. Perhaps when they’ve left the nest it might be something to consider, but as you said, I can fly home very easily. I do miss it, but I wonder if I miss the concept of the place rather than the reality. Also, how would I re-engage in my friends lives? For 18 years, I’ve been the one who flies in to visit and we have marvellous weekends together before I go home and our lives go back to the minutiae and routine we all need.
I also think, reading about your Irish pub, it’s funny how we find our people. All my closest fiends here in Cork are women and men who are either ‘blow-ins’ or they grew up here, moved away to live abroad and then came home to raise a family. I found many locals didn’t *need* new friends - they had full lives that started growing from the cradle, with sisters, cousins, aunts, friends from junior infants and beyond, and were content with their lot. Finding a place for myself here was tricky and I’m not sure I want to do that again. Especially given many of my friends were met through the children and there are definitely not any more of them in my future!!!
My Mother was from Wicklow , my Dad from North London - Hampstead, when chimney sweeps lived there rather than millionaires . I was born in London but moved when still tiny - yet our summer holidays were split between Ireland and London .
I left my small Midland town to live in Dublin when I was 18 - getting an Irish passport for myself.
My Mum lived longer in the UK than she did in Ireland and was very grateful for that , but cried on the ferry Everytime she left Ireland behind .
Your roots are everlasting Annie . Mum died 5 months ago age 93 , her last remaining sister Pam joined her on New Years Day .
My beautiful girls have never been to Ireland - my eldest just applying for her Irish passport now at the age of 25. The ties that bind us to each other - it’s in the blood as it is in your sons blood too . Much love x
This has made me think even more about the confusion I have about my heritage and identity.
As the name suggests, I have Irish ancestors. My grandad came to London in the late 1940s to work on a building site, leaving his wife and (approximately) 7 kids behind.
I’ve managed to find out a little bit about him and the family he left behind who weren’t entirely mine. It appears most of his “first” family left Ireland with the majority coming to England.
It feels strange that me and my Dad have always felt more connected to Ireland than England even though he never set foot on Irish soil and I’ve only visited once.
Maybe we’ve been hankering for the roots we knew so little about or the romantic ideals that being Irish evoked in us.
My dad has now passed and the feeling has only grown stronger for me - to understand the man who left Ireland and never went back and also to make sense of why, to my bones, I feel more Irish than English.
Oh Annie, you’ve managed to put into words exactly what I’ve recently gone through/am going through. I left Scotland for London - and Kilburn initially! - aged 19, and spent 27 wonderful years there, my entire adult life, working in the music biz . It felt very much like home. But as the 40’s hit and so many friends moved away, the connection loosened….and in 2020 for the first time ever, the idea of moving back to Glasgow started to seem appealing, so I moved ‘home’.
4 years later, and I just haven’t settled back here. Scotland is wonderful in many ways, but the people, the attitudes, the lifestyle….its different, I’m different. I miss north west London terribly, but maybe I miss the London of my 20’s and 30’s…..I could return, geographically, but maybe I don’t belong there now either. Feeling rootless, and homesick for a place and time that are gone. I’m not happy back here, but is returning to my old life the answer, when my old life isn’t there any more either?
Maybe you’re homesick for the ‘idea’ of Ireland, but the reality of everyday life there wouldn’t match the dream? Or maybe, with so many of your family back there, it would feel like the missing piece of the puzzle. Who knows! I think with immigrants/ex-pats, there will always be that missing piece, wherever we decide to go. Maybe being ‘neither here nor there’ could become ‘being a bit of both’ and the special visits, woven into the London life, will be all you need.
A bit of both is my hope Alison. Sending love to you
Moved to tears - this is also the rhythm of where I grew up in London and almost everyone I know x
Your words hit me in the feels so much. Especially about Ireland and midlife but I think you could make me feel something by writing about the phone book or the shipping forecast!
Well, this piece has made me want to BE Irish, Annie. And to feel such deep connection with a group who’ve settled far from home. Crisp sandwiches and rumbling with the cousins sound like epic holidays for your boys.
I almost moved my four up to the Lakeland of my youth a decade ago, when they were same age as yours are now. We didn’t make that big move but continue to return for icy lake dips and slaty fellside scrambles at Christmas.
We did uproot for two years to live in the US though and I do think that their little, young emerging minds gained ENORMOUSLY from such a resettling. They truly got to know themselves in a new way through that creative experience, of growing friendships and from scratch and learning new cultural habits.
Gosh how exciting to be mulling it over, this move. For everyone.
yes it's so hard to know how it would affect them. My kid is in secondary now and has settled in really well so i feel relieved that staying has worked out for him. But you're right, they are so adaptable..
It’s ace he’s settled in really well. And also, is that perhaps a sign too that he could settle in really well somewhere else ? ! 🤓🤓🤓
They are bloody adaptable laal beings, they really are. And it was one of the biggest joys to watch my kids become themselves all over and thrive in a new place. They did it with such open-hearted acceptance.
Annie, your heart is big enough to welcome inside it two countries and two identities! You're lucky that you've only got the Irish Sea between you and your home country rather than the Atlantic Ocean. You've found out that your short trips to Dublin are a lifesaver so that keeps you connected to your roots, I think it's fantastic.
aaah thanks Paola x The trips home have made the choice to stay bearable. I look forward to them so much
Thank you for this. I, too, was brought up in south Dublin. Moved aged 10 in the late eighties. I’ve been in London since my mid-twenties and miss home more and more. Even though I’m born in England and have now been back here longer than I lived there, Ireland is home and I’m still very Irish in my outlook and ways. I wanted to move back when the kids were little. Felt very panicky about them doing secondary here. When lockdown started, I had vivid dreams of home, including being in the fields and by the sea, for months on end. I still feel the pull, and when the last one goes off to uni in a couple of years, we’ll be spending longer stints with the aim of eventually fully moving back.
this is my dream too Natalie. to be able live there after the kids finish school. Thanks for reading, so glad it resonated with you