Irish Abroad

I tired of living with one foot in, one foot out, uncertain if I’d settle in a country long-term

After 12 years abroad Ciara Martin returned to Ireland. She fits in and she doesn’t, which she says is perfect

Ciara Martin: Living abroad is one thing. But living abroad and not knowing when you can travel home is another.
Ciara Martin: Living abroad is one thing. But living abroad and not knowing when you can travel home is another.
Ciara Martin
Thu Mar 09 2023 - 05:00

I left Ireland aged 22, with no intention of returning. A master’s degree in European law at Edinburgh University was followed by five years in Brussels, two years in India and four years in Italy (two of which were during the Covid-19 outbreak).

It took 12 years of living abroad to bring me back home, but the move had been brewing for several years. Marriage equality and the repeal of the Eighth Amendment played a big role in both my departure and my return. The cruelty of the country seemed to have lifted.

Eventually I got tired of living in a constant state of one foot in, one foot out, uncertain if I’d settle in a country long-term.

Never fully committing to a place made it impossible to fit in.

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I left Italy for Ireland because I missed il senso di comunità – literally the sense of community. I wanted to belong to a community. I lived along the edge of each society, with members who could be warm, friendly and generous but were unable to fully welcome me in. I wanted to be back and grounded on my own terra.

I rethought my life abroad during Covid. After the anxiety that came with the mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine if I returned; knowing that if anything happened to my family, I wouldn’t get to say goodbye.

Living abroad is one thing. But living abroad and not knowing when you can travel home is another.

It became a familiar feeling after I watched my Granda’s funeral online in Florence during a zona rossa lockdown. All flights being grounded meant following his coffin as it exited my laptop screen rather than the church. I thought of his shining pale blue eyes every time I visited, and him always asking: “When are you moving back home?”

All of it brought me, Annarella, Piku and Roley (my three Italian cats) to Dublin, for my new job as an editor in an EU agency. (I hoped working with people from around the European Union would help soften the blow after living abroad for so long.)

I’m often asked what it is like to be back home. Overall, I’m settled and happy. There’s an ease to living in your first home. Life runs more smoothly and can be much more entertaining.

Having friends and family close; hearing long-forgotten phrases like “he’s as useful as tits on a bull” and “she’s as rare as hen’s teeth”; knowing where everything is in the supermarket aisles; morning chats with dog owners; and getting Guinness and chips whenever I want.

And doing it all through English too. There’s a great relief in knowing I’ll never again have to describe a sink plug or mime the snapping of a mousetrap in a hardware store because the words never came up in language class.

But that’s not to say it’s an easy transition as there’s a loss that comes with it all. A loss of all my former selves who seem much more interesting than the person I am now in Ireland. The young woman with a successful political career in the European Parliament and who travelled to Washington, DC, London, and Strasbourg. Or the woman who quit the golden cage to travel around India and ended up staying for two years. The woman who modelled for local designers and acted in film, learning lines in Bengali she struggled to pronounce, let alone understand.

The woman who moved to Florence and learned to drive among cigarette-sucking Italians with assurances that if you can drive here, you can drive anywhere. The woman who had the typical Italian romance that included an uncomfortable eight-hour Vespa ride through Tuscany.

They’re all past lives now. Each one is dead to me.

And my absence from Ireland showed up in different, often seemingly trivial ways while I lived overseas. Once in Italy an Italian colleague had to explain where Achill Island is. A Lithuanian friend educated me on new Irish music by bands such as Lankum and singers like Lisa O’Neill.

Before, when people talked about “EP” they meant the European Parliament, rather than Electric Picnic, which now I am back in Ireland, spells out in my brain.

That created a little separateness.

Many Irish people who move back home say they’ll always feel like an outsider. But I was an outsider before I left Ireland, it was probably what drove me away.

And after a year back in Ireland, I’d say I’m more of an observer than an outsider. I fit in and I don’t and for me, that’s perfect. I’m slowly building community, ci vuole un po di tempo after all.

Ciara Martin was born in Monaghan, She left Dublin for Edinburgh in 2010 and returned in February 2022

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