Anna Derrig, from Offaly, writes about how she started to learn to talk as Gaeilge despite moving to Yorkshire as a three-year-old. However, as she grew up it became obvious that people had different opinions about the accents between the place she lived and the place she was born. “I learned to speak with what I thought was neither accent,” she said. She says “learning Gaeilge is a true challenge” despite studying other European languages at school.
Martina Tyrrell and her family were sailing around the world when they anchored on the river Rio Guadiana between Spain and Portugal in the spring of 2015. Her two children were young at the time and it was always the intention to educate them in Ireland. However, the opportunity to enrol in a school in Spain “to be immersed in Spanish language and culture, was too good to pass up”. The family stayed in Spain, using their boat as a base, until it was sold in 2018; when they moved life ashore. Now, Martina works as a ghostwriter and editor from Spain.
Francesca Shaw left Dublin three years ago and made her way to London. A lot has happened in Britain since. She has “watched the British mourn the loss of their queen, seen the constant turnover of Conservative prime ministers” as well as listened to pub talk grow sour as prices rose. Despite a personal hope to move back to Ireland, Shaw is enjoying her time abroad with many other people who have decided to take the same road. “I have, as an Irish person, found a home with our problematic neighbours.”
Belfast native Patrick McKenna writes about his move to Canada. Despite not loving Ontario at first, his move to Montreal three years later “was love at first sight”. McKenna received an E grade in his French exams at school, however, once in Montreal he embraced the language. “I jumped into French and picked it up as I went along. Soon, I was enjoying my second language so much I thought a third would be even more fun.” He received a certificate of fluency in German and took up work as a consultant and then as an English as a second language teacher. Of all my jobs, it was the one I loved the most, he writes.
‘Learning Gaeilge is a true challenge’
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Lawyer Fiona Healy moved to the sun-soaked island of Malta in 2011. In the beginning, she ran a business called Aircraft Corporate Services on behalf of the Alpine Group. “I figured I would give it a few years before returning to Ireland,” she said. However, she did not expect to enjoy working in the aviation sector as much as she did. Thirteen years have passed, and Healy set up her own aviation consultancy company in Malta in 2015 called FCF Assets, following brief stints working in Canada and the UK.
A study released in November showed more than 4,600 Irish teachers are working abroad. The research by the education authorities in Ireland showed 4,672 registered teachers are assumed to be living abroad as they are not active in the economy or receiving social welfare. About 60 per cent of these teachers fall into the 25-34 year old age bracket, according to the study.
Patricia Killeen writes about food in France and lists the must-go places for anyone planning a visit to Paris. “Here, you can generally have a good meal without breaking the bank, but there are also restaurants in the City of Light for which you would gladly break it,” she says. Killeen has lived in Paris for decades and goes on to recommend a number of different restaurants for multiple palettes. She recommends Café Blanche for its French onion soup. Bouillon restaurants offer retro classics while art-deco brasserie La Couple has a varied menu, she says.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon writes about living in Belfast during the time of the Troubles: “I spent a lot of time running up and down stairs during bomb scares, of which there were many.” Muldoon was one of three siblings, “one of them is no longer with us”. He moved to the US in 1987 with his then-girlfriend, now wife, but always stayed in touch with his Irish roots. Despite moving away, he feels a degree of attachment to Ireland having been appointed professor of poetry, working with Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin and UCD.
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