Anyone familiar with Ireland will know of its primordial nature and its passionate, strong, witty, sensitive, unassumingly intellectual and irresistibly charming people. A people who are also helplessly prone to melancholy deeply rooted its historical struggles of politics and faith. The end result is a keen, resourceful and capable force with unlimited and relatively untapped potential by the world’s standards, definitively both insular and diasporic in its culture. It is for all these things that I find kinship, am drawn and held there, two generations later. Now a Florida and Irish resident, and a career in real estate investment and development mostly behind me, I split my time between there an a renovated field house in County Clare.
Past generations:
As a child my grandfather spent his summers with his brothers swimming and fishing along the banks of the river Slaney in Brownswood, just outside Enniscorthy. He then lived at 46 Manor Place, Stoneybatter, D7, and worked at the Guinness and Powers factories, as so many did, before going off to fight for the Guards in England when Dublin became untenable. Amazingly he survived fighting in Egypt, England, Norway, North Africa, and Italy between the years of 1934-1946. He spent a couple of years after the war working as a park groundskeeper in Croydon when an Army buddy of his talked him into moving his young family to Montreal to work cleaning Air Canada planes, which he did for the rest of his career. I remember him, his strong accent, genuine laughter and innate sense of humour, the whiskey, the reluctance to get serious about things, his kind demeanour, his tolerance for bad cooking. He and his brothers who remained back in Ireland all lived well into their 90’s. My father’s connection to family in Ireland remains constant to this day. It is an easily heartfelt one for a first generation migrant to America.
Montreal
My remigration started when I was 6 months old and we visited my Grandfather’s family in Dublin from Canada. I don’t remember it at all. As a child I spent several years on my maternal grandmother’s farm outside Montreal. She was a first-generation Italian immigrant who grew up farming in Italy. So thanks to the two of them I could speak three languages by the age of 5 and I had a solid old-school Catholic-agrarian foundation. Italy was a frequent destination throughout my younger years, but Ireland wasn’t as easy until middle age when the options for travel didn’t revolve as much around work, children or politics.
Ireland
In 2013 I returned to Ireland on my own to explore and discover a more developed Ireland and the relatives that were mostly only known to me through my father and Facebook, of course. It was a cool misty week in February 2013 when I rented my car and travelled around the Isle in a typical clockwise tour; Dun Leoghaire, Wicklow, Enniscorthy, Cork, Killarney, Recess, Dublin. I only almost crashed once, somewhere on one of the millions of narrow country roads in the West, coming off an even narrower bridge into a sharp left turn where a van was headed straight against me. It was a very near miss, but all in all not too bad for an ‘American' woman with a manual transmission driving on the other side of the road. Were it not for the Tom Tom, I never would have been able to find my way out of the airport, let alone to the more remote destinations I had charted for myself.
That trip was a confidence builder and confirmation that I never had enough time in any of the places I visited, nor enough time to soak in everything I would have wanted to in each. Every bit was splendid and all the more engaging because so much was closed for the season and I didn’t have to wade through the tourists or the attractions. It was a time to assess Ireland on its own raw merits, all unicorns, leprechauns and Dingling aside, for the most part. I’ve always appreciated complexity, and Ireland has it in spades; in its language, in its people, its music, in its landscape and in its soul. It was easy to want to stay, which I never feel anywhere I travel, but this was different, I wasn’t just passing through.
Spain
Fast forward 3 years. The trip to Ireland stuck with me, it identified a part of myself that was unique and clarified so many of my quirks; my alacrity towards the Waspy secondary school I attended in the 80’s, the friends I mentioned came more to light, Lonergan, Pickering, Murphy, O’Brien, O’Connor, Casey, McLoughlin, and I wonder if they too might not experience what I had felt going back, the music that fed my should through my teens: U2 (to both Pauls, the denial of something that is inherent in you seems like an exercise in futility, so best to try to embrace it), Enya the antidepressant, The Pogues, The Cranberries, Clannad, Boomtown Rats, The Irish Rovers and my grandad’s marching and victory songs that no one else seemed to know in America. This all sinking and settling its way during and after, steeping its way to appreciation and awareness, waiting and wanting for more.
In 2016 both my boys were leaving me, gone to college, and they had been my every priority. While it meant a lot of sacrifice, my bucket list grew every time I felt an inkling of unrest. I was healthy and able to work remotely, so I wanted to offset the transition with something big, something that had been planted in my head a long time ago when I was studying philosophy and had read about the pilgrimage.
So I spent September 2016 walking 500 miles from the Pyrenees in the South of France to the West coast of Spain. It was a journey of forgiveness, redemption and peace. I walked it on my own, without planning or expectation and met so many people along the way. Those people are called your Camino family, they come from all over the world and you keep in touch with them forever because of the extraordinary shared experience that you want to keep alive. Being in Spain, I never thought to see such an international blend. The ones I gravitated to, the ones spent laughing and in long conversation with, were the Irish and the Scandinavians. Now I don’t know if there were more of them than any others on the trail, but it certainly felt like it.
About halfway through at the monastery in San Juan de Ortega, I met a bunch of Irish who had gathered together before mass, one of which was a big man named Paul. I ran into him again in the derelict hospital in San Anton a couple of days later and we ended up finishing the walk a day apart in Santiago. Since then it is a relationship that's been threaded with all sorts of adventurous vignettes, life events and adaptations.
Dublin
I spent another 4 month in 2017 taking graduate classes at TCD for the Michaelmas semester. I soaked every bit of it in, the academics, the environment. I wasn’t expecting Dublin to be so cosmopolitain. I was tucked away in a small apartment by the Docks on Windmill Lane. My weekends were spent exploring the countryside, spurred by stories from Frank Delaney’s Ireland, visiting family members and enjoying long walks and adventures with Paul.
Leixlip
The time flew by and afterwards we decided on an apartment together in Leixlip and we were able to work our schedules between Ireland and America so that we were never apart too long.
In 2018 I decided to apply for citizenship through my grandfather. My father had gotten his and I was thankful he still had all the original documents that were required. I also decided to purchase Paul’s mother’s car, a 2016 Diesel Fiat Panda 4x4 she had purchased for her life in the countryside.
And so began the task that lingers and sits on the periphery to this day. Almost longer than any other. My boys completed school, Paul’s transfer came through, both our mothers have passed away, seasons have come and gone, as has a pandemic, several marriages, babies, I have even gotten fairly good at 45, you get the picture… Anyone who knows me knows I am not one to procrastinate. If anything, I amoverly proactive in getting fussy details out of the way. But I’ve come to learn that the fussiest, most inordinately bothersome and seemingly frivolous things have something to teach us and maybe even help accompany us in our life’s journey and personal growth. And so I’ve come to befriend the process of getting newly insured as a resident and citizen in Ireland.
Bureaucracy in Ireland is a thing of its own, it’s almost endearing in its quirkiness. There are hundreds of blogs on this very topic. Over the years people pulling out their hair trying to work with the system to no avail, and then in usual form, finding a way around it that doesn’t do anyone any good.
I can drive a rental car with a US driver’s license in Ireland, I can drive a friend’s car with a US driver’s license in Ireland, but I cannot drive my own car. I ask if I can get insurance with a US driver’s license. No. Can I get insurance with a learner’s permit, yes, but it will cost you three times as much until you learn to drive. Learn to drive? I’ve been driving 40 years and have nothing on my record. That doesn’t matter, you are a new driver in Ireland, you need at least an Irish learner’s permit to get insured at three times the regular rate.
Now the minimum required insurance in Ireland at the time of this writing is third party liability. So maybe I can drive with my American worldwide insurance liability coverage which is underwritten by the same major insurance company that underwrites insurance in Ireland. I enter the policy number on the online application form and he-hey! insurance disk issued and we are good to go until I can get the learner’s permit and more expensive Irish learner’s insurance.
I study, I take the written exam at City West along with a thousand other immigrants. I pass, learner’s permit issued at the NDLS in Naas. Onto the 12 practical lessons.
Shannon
Paul was getting a transfer to Limerick for work. We bought a 100 year old field house outside of Sixmilebridge that was converted to a wannabe English cottage that had been neglected for several years. It was perfect. I can’t tell you how enthusiastic Paul was about it’s potential and I spent a lot of time in 2019 coming and going between Dublin and Shannon getting the place fixed up and ready for us to move. It’s an easy, lovely drive with the motorway now, and my heart just settles when I'm driving up the gravelly avenue between the fields to our tiny, old, wood stove heated house. It suited us both better than I think we could have anticipated and Shannon in good times is an easy hop over from JFK or BOS.
Shannon may have the most roundabouts per capita in the nation. I think that's an actual statistic. If I ever had any worry about whether or not I should signal before the 12 o’clock mark of a 5-road intersection, well I’ve been thoroughly coached in the best training grounds possible, with every possible permutation and combination. I don’t think any testing instructor could ever trip me up there, but I can’t help but feel a little discriminated against. Americans are notorious for coming to Ireland not knowing how to use a stick shift or understanding the rules of the road and doing damage to rentals and maybe, so just maybe the testing instructors hear that accent and think CAUTION!
But I was trained by the best. Marino, my grandmother’s driver, started teaching me at 10 years old in Canada. Canada, with ice and snow and hills. I drove in the country, I drove in the city. I drove myself to school when I could barely see over the steering wheel and I would stop and pick up my friends and they would look at me like I was crazy. I’ve driven to Canada and back to Florida no less than 20 times. I learned to drive on a manual transmission. I've driven on the other side of the road in South Africa, Ireland and Bermuda for over 30 years. I’m still alive and my premiums are pretty good.
The Irish who new me were helpful in suggesting I circumnavigate the system. You’re Canadian, just get your Canadian license and you can trade that in for an Irish one. They are right, there should be absolutely no difference between a Canadian and US driver’s license given that the rules are pretty much the same and you can trade your Canadian license in for a US one and vice versa. But, I wanted to be fair, respect and adhere to the Irish process the way everyone in the country does.
I called a local driving teacher. He was charming, experienced, helpful, and willing to do everything he could to help me pass the oral/practical test in Shannon. I did everything correctly - according to him.
Test #1 - Male tester, mid 40’s. Oral - pass. Practical - completely unimpressed with how much I downshifted before breaking at a light or a stop - FAIL
Test #2 - Female tester, mid 40’s. Oral - pass. Practical - said I did not look in the left mirror enough. Otherwise perfect. - FAIL
Test #3 - Male tester, mid 40’s. Oral - Pass. Practical - I don’t even know, but it was clearly inconsistent with the other two and I was pissed - FAIL
I asked every one of them, did you ever feel unsafe? No. The first told me, “Cleary you know how to drive.” And the third said, “This test does not take experience into account.”
Mercy. So I listen to talk shows about people with the same problem. People who have had their learner’s permits for over 10 years. It’s a bit ridiculous, but I do what I have to and my crazy premiums should go down this next year.
The Bridge
COVID hit and the differences between America and Ireland were so different. I was able to keep going back and forth. Paul was not, which was very hard on us. In Ireland I would go into lockdown, barely allowed out of the house, no cards, no restaurants, no family for a while, and in Florida life was as usual. But life in the country affords outlets that make quarantine manageable, and Leo was so comforting compared to Trump. The horses and sheep and cows around us never changed their routines. The garden grew and flowered and needed tending. The seasons changed, the vegetables grew. We could walk and like so many, tend to the things that never got tended to when normal life got in the way. In America I felt the need to self-quarantine in my apartment, and that felt almost more restrictive.
America and Ireland are integrated parts of me. If I had to pick one in terms of values, I would pick the Irish. If I had to pick one for productivity, I’d pick the US. They can be completely opposite or completely complimentary, depending on how you look at it. For those of us living away from our homes in one way or another, I find it best to try to embrace the good wherever you are, and if you can’t, find an Irish pub!
