Return to America-- how I failed to make Ireland my home

Well, Maura Mulligan, it's been 23 years since I saw you last (you danced at my wedding in Park Slope). You (tried to) teach me Irish and children's songs to get the Irish into my head. I've lived in Ireland now for the last 13 years and I adapted very quickly. When I'm back in New York/New Jersey for family events, I enjoy the hussle and bussle, the theatre, the life of the city. But I am sooo glad to be getting on the plane and back to my adopted home where I enjoy so much artistic and creative freedom, being involved in many community and voluntary groups. I am sorry I didn't know you where in Achill (one of my favourite spots)or I would have driven over to see you. In any event, I am glad for you that you've found happiness on the other side of this getting-smaller-every-day pond. And, by the way, I'm 61 years young. Good luck, health and happiness to you. Le gra, Maire Treasa ni Choileain bean Ui Dhubhlan.

I wish I had her opportunity... I would still be in that Atlantic seaside cottage, listening to the wind and rain and happy as a clam.

Why?

I enjoyed the prose of this story besides the happy ending. (...the winds moaned down the chimney and whisps of dead leaves) I wonder what else she wrote while in the Boll house?

I had the opposite experience to Maura’s. Working as a student in the US during summer student days, I disliked the experience so much that I’ve not been back since. I've even received a wedding invitation to NYC that I will decline. Most Irish who’ve immigrated to America over the last decades come from the West of Ireland (ICentral’s Niall O’Dowd, by his own admission once an illegal immigrant, is a prime example) and certainly other rural areas too. There is this image of their ancient forebears having made it good in America, sending money back home etc., that they feel they too are going to make it good if they emigrate there. It doesn’t really work out like that for most. I know Irish and Irish-Americans trapped in poverty in the USA. I’ve never had a desire to go back to the US and ‘make it there’. Yet, I have many friends there and I will go back to visit them.

First off I think she should have paid a visit to Cork,if not live there awhile.Also from reading her romantic ramble it soulds like she was here at the time of the flooding.So its probably a good job she did'nt come to Cork as there was no water here for 12 days.This resulted in the women smelling like horses and the men were made grumpy cause the women refused to fetch water.

I think GeorgeDavis' point can be applied here in the US as well. Illegals here are reaping all the benefits that we work so hard for. I think in general, given my mothers experience, the Irish government has given her more benefits and support as a senior person. They actually offered it to her, not like in the US where you are clueless about a lot of things you are entitled to until you stumble on it yourself and then have to fight for it.

After time in America, life in Ireland would be a crushing bore.

Good article. A point the author might have mentioned is one I have heard from several Irish who went "home" after many years abroad. That is that the Irish government puts no structures in place to facilitate their homecoming and reintegration into the country. This is in contrast to the foreign migrants and so-called asylunm seekers, who have various government organizations set up to look after their needs, even though these people are not Irish. The fact is that the Irish state takes better care of an illiterate Latvian, Romanian etc. than it does of one of its own citizens who has decided to return to his/her ancestral homeland and share the skills & experience they have garnered abroad.

Well, maybe the old adage is true that "you can never go back home again." Humans being the way they are tend to remember only the good times and not the hardships.

So many I have known have tried to go back and settle and for various reasons, end up returning to the US. My mother is on her second attempt at living back in her hometown and it has now become just during the summer months. She spends the winter in the US which most people think is nuts given the cold, snowy winters we have. For her, I think it really has to do with city versus country and where she has become more accustomed to.