I qualified as a second-level art teacher in 2006 and travelled and worked abroad before returning home to Derry in 2008 to start my teaching career. I was very lucky to be a really busy substitute teacher and gain a lot of experience in Derry, but the financial crisis gave me little hope of finding a permanent job.
I thought about going back to make a life in New Zealand or Australia, where I’d worked on my travels, but I was offered the opportunity to teach in the Madrid state schools as part of a bilingual programme.
I was in Poland, on my 30th birthday, in 2012 supporting the Ireland soccer team when I was offered the job in Madrid and had to find an internet cafe in Toruń to agree to the offer. It was an easy transition moving over, with lots of Irish/Scottish/English teachers and they became flatmates and friends. My Spanish school was really accommodating too.
From the time of my arrival, I really enjoyed the lifestyle here and felt that it was a great place to make home.
‘Toledo is very much a Spanish Derry for me in that we are part of the neighbourhood’
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I met my Argentinian wife Mariana in 2013, I think my attributes were mainly because I was taller than her and could speak English. She is someone who initially moved to London from Buenos Aires, but was repositioned in Madrid, her mother’s city. Inconceivably, she could understand my Derry accent from day one, except when I say “now”. I have a lot to thank her Madrileña and her English teacher mother for.
There are a lot of ties between Ireland and Spain too.
I moved to Toledo to work at San Patricio (St Patrick’s) International School, and also worked with Academia Dublin (Dublin Academy). There are quite a few street names with Irish connections here in Madrid and lots of Irish pubs.
A lot of Spanish people have memories of studying and visiting Ireland and have a fondness for the place. My wife’s family even have a Dubliner, David, married into it. Our son Liam was born in 2018. We imagined it was an international and easy-to-say name which hinted at his Irish heritage. A name shared with my godfather – as well as Liam Neeson and Liam Gallagher – but the pronunciation still seems to throw a lot of people here.
The bilingual programme I initially worked on finished, so I had to search for work in the private sector. I’ve been teaching in Legamar International School in Leganés in the south of Madrid for five years and Liam now commutes with me as a pupil. It’s an international and bilingual school. Despite the fact that Liam understands everything in English, he only responds in Spanish for now. The school has adopted the International Baccalaureate recently, so we hope he will benefit from a more global curriculum.
Legamar has been like a family to us in incorporating my son and sticking by me through the pandemic. I worked a little in the infants’ department and was amazed at the things the kids do, so it’s great to see how things work as a both as a parent and as a teacher.
I teach art at primary and secondary level through English. I also prepare the pupils for the Cambridge English exams and there is a great importance placed on being bilingual here at the school and in Madrid in general. About one-third of Madrid’s population is from somewhere else, so there is a big international community.
Now we live in Toledo. It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site and has now become home even though we both come from other countries. Toledo is known as the City of the three Cultures as it is proud that for centuries Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together here in peace.
We love the benefits of living in a small city, but being close enough to Madrid to enjoy the benefits of a capital.
It’s very much a Spanish Derry for me in that we are part of the neighbourhood and know our neighbours through walking the dog, taking Liam to the park, and going to the gym, etc.
As the crow flies, Derry isn’t so far away either, but the only flight being to Dublin complicates the travelling.
- Tony Brown from Derry is an art teacher at Legamar International School in Madrid.
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