Hello from the cottage,
Well, we are all now unpacked and restored safely back into our little home after our big trip down under. I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss the sun (you can tell it’s summer here as the rain gets a little warmer!) but overall, it feels so good to be home.
Today I’m pondering the strange role reversal I have had in the last year. After years as a tour guide, both paid and, because showing people our beautiful country is a national pastime here, unpaid, it was most peculiar to take on the role of foreigner. We have likely all experienced the feeling of being a tourist, however a resident foreigner is a different sensation altogether. Tourists wear bright shorts and lick ice-creams whereas resident foreigners look just like everyone else. But they are not. They are people who largely live with their hearts divided between 2 places. They tend to have lots of stories and large phone bills. The excitement at having gone and explored the world somewhat offset by a little bit of heartbreak for home. And then these people go on to have babies. Babies who hear bedtime stories about places that are almost unimaginably different. And in the case of Ireland, just a little bit magic.
The island of Ireland is home to 6.8m people. About 1m people abroad were born in Ireland. And yet approximately 70m people around the world when asked, tick the box Irish. That’s a lot of bedtime stories of fairies and giants and warriors and queens passed from generation to generation. The department of immigration may have strict rules about where we are from, but, to me, we are what we feel we are. And what informs that, are the stories we are told and the ones we tell ourselves. You are Irish if you feel you are Irish. And how lovely to live in a place where people want to join you, in spirit, as well as in person.
Which brings me to my next book in the Tour series, Kayla’s Trick. Conor is in a spot of bother and what initially seems like a ridiculous way out, in the form of a show called “Grandma says we’re Irish”, may be his only option.
As for this Irish head I am now off to my leaba (Irish for bed) to dream of magical things like fairies, queens and sunshine.
Le Grá,
Jean xxx