Manorhamilton Transfer

`Wherever you go - that's where you are", are words that resonate for me every time I walk up Main Street in Manorhamilton, where I now live. I should be more specific: I actually live on Lower Main Street, a postal address which baffles most of my Dublin friends, not to mention the credit card companies. "Don't you have a house number?" they ask, before I explain you could mark the envelope with just my name and "Manorhamilton" and it would get to me.

It's part of the economic reality of Dublin these days that I would choose to live full-time in a place which I would not describe as my natural habitat. I'm bringing all the complications of modern, urban life with me to this tranquil town. Transplant EastEnders's Bianca to rural Ireland, and you'll get where I'm coming from - without the bad fashion choices of course.

I moved here because it finally dawned on me that I would never be able to buy a house in Dublin and I was sick of spending my time worrying about how freelance work would pay the rent on my apartment.

How I bought the house in the first place is all part of the minisoap playing out, right here, in down-town Manorhamilton. Having moved house nine times in eight years, my ex-partner (and father of my child) and I finally landed here as blow-ins in May, 1997. With the benefit of hindsight, that many house moves might have indicated that all was not well on the domestic front. In fact, things were in such terminal decline that I bought the house without ever seeing it. This bizarre gesture was meant to indicate that I no longer cared where I lived, as long as the relationship was right.

The gesture turned out to be in vain. And so it was that I found myself, after six months and a lot of DIY, with a house in Leitrim, a small child, and my ex-partner living 10 doors up the street.

The prospect of entertaining everybody with the comings and goings between a house in Lower Main Street and a house on Upper Main Street did not appeal to me in my then fragile state, so I headed for Dublin in search of a new home.

Sometimes I'd sob to friends in The Front Lounge: "And, you know, I own a lovely house." "Yeah, in Leitrim - duh," being the usual response.

But it's a sign of how critical things became for everyone that, a year and a half later, these friends started buying in what I'll kindly refer to as "the suburbs", while simultaneously telling me how lucky I was to own a house anywhere - even in Leitrim.

Economic realities began to change my perceptions. And the return here after my one-and-a-half years in Dublin was clinched by my new partner, Tony, when he embraced the move with enthusiasm. He grew up in Ballyfermot and, as he has spent the past five years in Manhattan, to say it's been a culture shock for him is something of an understatement.

Work takes him to Dublin two to three days a week, but he swears he enjoys the pace of life here, though adjustment to reality continues. He still doesn't get that salad means coleslaw here, not Caesar, and I've a sneaking suspicion he draws his understanding of small town life from Straw Dogs. Then again, maybe that's because he's an actor.

I bought the house for £47,000. It has four bedrooms, a converted attic for my office, a living-room/ kitchen and a basement with three rooms I haven't even tackled yet. The garden is 130 feet long, and it comes with a small mews attached, referred to in these parts as "d'outhouse". I'm going to renovate it as an apartment, to supplement my income and take advantage of the recently introduced tax incentives. I don't let the fact that I know zero about gardening or tourism put me off. and, anyway, the move here is not so much a choice as a necessity.

Let's put it this way, I don't expect to be decked out in Birkenstocks and track-suits anytime soon. Nor do I take any notice of the "organic lifestyle" gang, who keep going on about keeping the old fruit trees in the garden, because, you know, I might want to make damson jam. I've secretly been stocking up on weed-killer, which I use with abandon anytime they're not looking over my shoulder.

The thing which makes it all worthwhile is the happiness of my seven-year-old son, Leo. He, of course, is oblivious to the difficulties and challenges which surround our choice. My first weekend back in Manorhamilton, the owners of the Mace supermarket, Noel and Rose, said their "hellos" to me, while Leo looked at them and said, "That's my mum you know". It was like he was proving that I really existed, since people here have only seen him with his father every second weekend since my unexplained exit a year and a half ago.

Thankfully, he no longer needs "play-dates", since kids here move up and down between each other's houses with an ease and freedom that makes me think, "Now that's how it should be." He also gets to spend more time with his father, something about which he is delirious. Nobody has asked directly, but I know there is curiosity about who exactly the new Dub fella in my life is. Since Tony is divorced, his nine-year-old daughter Hannah lives in Dublin with her mother and step-father, but we're looking forward to her visits here in the near future.

What people will make of the new addition to my family, I don't know. I presume it will just add to the speculation. But we have given up worrying about this, just like we've given up worrying whether or not we will bump into my ex-partner in the pub. Anyway, we've heard from our sources that he doesn't drink in the one we like, and that there's an "X" on the door anytime we're in residence.

At the moment, all these complications and details seem like a small price to pay for economic freedom and a happy life. My main preoccupation late at night is fantasising about the Chinese take-away in Clontarf. They've recently installed an ATM machine on Main Street, so maybe a Chinese take-away could be the next big news.

I'm here for eight weeks now, and have finally sent my "We've moved house" cards to all the friends I was afraid would think I was mad. But maybe that's what it takes to escape the jaws of the Tiger - madness and the willingness to take risks.

Hannah recently asked Tony why he was living in "Manorhatten", confusing his old US address with our new abode. It captured the surreal quality of the move more eloquently than I could, proving that wherever you go, that's where you are.

Emer McNamara will write every fortnight on her new life in Co Leitrim.