'I miss an Ireland that does not exist'

LIKE SO MANY young people leaving Ireland today, my emigration story started with a year backpacking around Australia in 2001. I went on my own and had a great time, travelling around the country by motorbike and working on sheep stations along the way.

Cairns was the last stop on the trip, and while there I met a lovely Australian girl. We fell in love and she moved back to Ireland with me while I finished my diploma in electronics.

A year later, we went back to Australia to start our life together. I had never really thought about the difference between emigrating and travelling until it dawned on me that we were planning to settle there.

Home suddenly felt like a long way away, but I always thought I would be back in Ireland in four or five years’ time.

My relationship began to fall apart a few years later, and my health suffered. I was drinking and smoking a lot, and my weight ballooned. I began to recognise how alone I was here, and I found it difficult to make friends of my own. I had never realised how trusting and nice Irish people were until that time.

I needed a radical change in my life, and decided to start by getting fit.

I had a good pair of legs for cycling, so I joined a cycling club. Within a year, I had given up the cigarettes and had lost 22kg. A year after that I raced bicycles at the highest local level. I had never been a sporting person before but I made lots of friends and we raced all over the state and I had a ball. Since then, I have been cycling up to 500km every week.

My partner and I separated amicably, and I decided to go back to visit Ireland for the first time in five years. It was tough coming back to Oz to live alone, and I had had enough of the job I was in, but the recession was looming in Ireland then and I had no choice but to go back to Australia.

I left my job of four years and moved to a completely new city. I didn’t know anyone, but got the job of my dreams doing very technical and challenging work. I joined a new cycling club and settled well, but six months later I became very ill and remained so for almost two years.

Chronic fatigue, they said.

I took up paragliding and kept active, and I’m almost better again, but it’s been a long road without family support. The phone and Skype are well and good, but not the same as having family close.

I can afford to go back to Ireland more often now, and in the past year I have been back twice to visit sick relatives. Being so far away from home when people in your family are sick is very hard. I got a phone call one day to say my granny had died, and I couldn’t make it back in time for the funeral. Those things weigh on me.

The women I’ve dated over the past four years have also suffered, because I cannot commit to a relationship. I am at the age where I am dating people who want to settle down and have babies, but if I start a family here then that is it, I will be here for good. I wouldn’t be able to fly a wife and three kids back to Ireland for a holiday every year.

In some ways, I have had a fantastic experience in Australia. I am trying my best to do adventurous things and take advantage of what is on offer here while I can. It is very hard to plan for the future. I am grateful to have a job doing something that I am good at and enjoy, which many people don’t have in Ireland. My dad is working a three-day week, and my mum, who lives in the UK, was recently made redundant. I’ll keep going as I am for the time being, but there is no master plan. I don’t see a way out.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the people who are leaving Ireland now eventually want to go home in five or six years’ time. Will they be able to return? I headed off with the same mentality, that I could do what I wanted and have an adventure while I was young. But young emigrants have to be aware that a time will come when you will want to settle down, and it can be hard to get back to the place where you want to be.

When you get to your 30s, emigration is not a lifestyle choice, as Michael Noonan would like to think. I’m 33 now, and it is 10 years since I left. I live in a rented room in a shared house. I’m single again. I have all the toys – a paraglider, motorbike, mountain bikes and a big TV – but nothing can fill the void left by home.

I miss an Ireland that does not exist any more. I recently went back for a holiday and everyone I knew was gone. But I still miss it. I miss belonging to a culture that, however good or bad, is still mine.

In conversation with CIARA KENNY

How emigration has changed me: 'I can do anything I want

The Irish Timesemigration blog has been asking expats to reflect on how living abroad had changed them. Here is a selection of the responses

Captain Liberte:"It's given me the travel bug, a yearning to explore every nation, to understand others and see and hear sights and sounds that I would once have regarded as different. And slowly but surely, I am seeing the beauty of the globe and the wonderful examples of humanity."

Philip O'Toole: "I had the rosy belief that we had great education, social welfare and health systems, and that Ireland was 'the place to raise your kids'. But Ireland measures up poorly against many of its European counterparts. So yes, leaving has changed me, but it's not necessarily a bad change."

Alan: "I left in 2005 and it is the best thing I ever did. I have made friends with people from all over the world and I only had to go an hour from Ireland to do so. It has given me a sense of adventure, that I can do anything I want. I did not have this attitude when I lived in Ireland. I will never forget where I am from but when I go back I feel a stranger."

BenHemmens:"A lot. Struggled with a PhD, thus learning about the realities of having a job. Spent time on the dole. Lost my religion. Learned a new language, discovered I was good at that. Got drunk. Got sober. Did plenty of things I now find embarrassing, or worse. Discovered strange food and drink, some of which I couldn't digest (especially Weißbier); some of which I can (baking my own rye sourdough bread). Had sex. Dropped out of my profession. Set up on my own in a new area of work. Became a campaigner on an environmental/urban issue. Had multiple long-distance relationships. Changed my mind from Eurosceptic to federalist. Became aware that Ireland's history is connected to the rest of Europe; that things were going on in other places in 1848, 1919, etc. Joined a political party. Got married, became a father. Joined the local protestant parish (as an agnostic, to get the babby christened) and realised the odd collection of people there, including quite a few northern/western Europeans, do have some kind of common cultural identity."

Mary Monks Hatch: "My time (20 years) living out of Ireland has, I believe, given me a clearer more balanced perspective on my country. I have learned to question so much that I took for granted, growing up in a society where everyone, broadly speaking, had the same world view, the same assumptions, the same educational ethic and background. But maybe what I gained most by living abroad was an even deeper appreciation than I already had for my own country and its people. Ireland is an exceptional and extraordinary country."

Stef Russell:" Since leaving Ireland, my travel bug has been fuelled further, I am increasingly compelled to experience new things and to develop a deeper understanding of different cultures and societies. When starting out, I travelled for a laugh. Now, years later, I find emigration to be just as enjoyable as travel and each new experience opens my eyes a little wider."

Trays Macdonell: "Many respondents now find themselves in countries which are undoubtedly better off economically than Ireland, or more cosmopolitan. Living instead, for 26 years, on an island in the Mediterranean, which is in much deeper trouble than Ireland, enables you to compare like with like. There isn't a better education system, few parts of the healthcare system work better here, and culturally, although Sicily may have a truly ancient past, modern-day mores leave an awful lot to be desired."

Share your views and experiences with Generation Emigration, The Irish Timesforum by and for Irish citizens abroad, curated by Ciara Kenny

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