Emigrant voices
American Wake (video): for everyone who has gone, everyone who is going, and everyone left behind
May 21st, 2012 | Emigrant voices
“You’re going, and the trail of love you have left here is smouldering a redness in the dregs of this party…” In the interim between her boyfriend’s departure for America and hers, Sarah griffin wrote and recorded a poem about his ‘American Wake’.
Emigration: Selfish, or necessary to “get ahead”?
May 19th, 2012 | Emigrant voices
Living abroad is giving me experiences I could never have gained if I had stayed in Ireland, but it comes at the price of feeling that I have abandoned my family, writes Shauna Browne from Korea.
A city that has thrived against the odds
May 18th, 2012 | Emigrant voices, Features
I live with an insurance worker and his cat, I have a little identity card that allows me to eat lunch in the Bundestag, and there is new graffiti on my street nearly every morning. Welcome to my little part of Berlin, relates Kate Katharina Ferguson.
Raising kids in the US is a whole different ball game
May 15th, 2012 | Emigrant voices
The relentless materialism that surrounds our family here is reminiscent of where Ireland was headed during the boom, writes Kitty Clark.
They drink green tea in Ireland, and other misinterpretations
May 8th, 2012 | Emigrant voices
Despite her best intentions, Sadhbh O’Dwyer has found herself promoting erroneous images of Ireland repeatedly to eager audiences abroad throughout her life, she writes from England.
Remembering where we came from but embracing where we are now
May 5th, 2012 | Emigrant voices
We should be embracing the opportunities that emigration offers us rather than wistfully yearning for the past in Ireland, writes Jonathan Drennan.
I have a lot of Ireland in me, but now I also have a lot of Denmark
May 1st, 2012 | Emigrant voices
Singing Irish songs with my Danish colleagues, without obligation or alcohol, highlights just one way that I have been made to feel welcome in Denmark since I made it my home, writes Brendan Doyle.
Aerograms
April 26th, 2012 | Emigrant voices
Philip Lynch remembers his parents as two middle-aged and capable people, as he wasn’t around to watch them grow old; the aerograms his mother diligently sent to him in Australia are all he has left of them after their death.
Living in a place where difference is embraced
April 23rd, 2012 | Emigrant voices
Irish people are obsessed with being “normal”, but we could all take inspiration from the Swiss, who embrace diversity and encourage individuality, writes Keith Cregan.
I’ve made a life abroad, but it isn’t ‘home’
April 20th, 2012 | Emigrant voices, Features
I’ve just returned to Zambia after a trip back to Ireland, and while my life is now “abroad”, it’s hard to imagine anywhere else will ever replace Ireland, with all its familiar sights and sounds, as my home, writes Ceire Sadlier.
