I left Ireland 30 years ago, a naïve, idealistic graduate off on a one- or two-year stint in France, feeling priviledged to have landed a cushy position as lectrice in a university just outside Paris.
I had no plans to make my life here; in the mid-80s, we all had to get away from dull, dirty Dublin and experience the glamour and thrill of more sophisticated destinations, but I had already picked out the house I aspired to buying along the Grand Canal once I had made my fortune.
The first couple of years in Paris were exciting, exhausting; cramming in theatre, cinema, museums, learning how to be a savvy commuter on the RER and metro, and trying to emulate chic Parisianisms but frequently failing.
After three years, I moved south to Grenoble, which was so different to Paris. It is a very manageable city surrounded by breathtaking mountains, and is small but cosmopolitan thanks to a large university, research centres and multinationals, and is easy to cycle or walk around. It is a great place to bring up children.
In the first few years I navigated quite easily between French friends I met with my then husband, and English-speaking friends I met through my teaching job at the university. Regular trips home and summers on the beach in Connemara with their cousins meant my children not only learned to speak English but were also able to identify with the culture of home.
Despite the occasional smiles from family at their odd syntax and their rather formal phrasing, my three boys would rapidly pick up more natural expressions from their cousins and friends. There were smiles also from their English teacher in France, as when one described something in an essay as a “ yoke “.
I get impatient with the French sometimes, but am repeatedly surprised by the politeness of my students, by the " Bonjour Madame" at the bakery, by the daily handshake or bise (kiss) between colleagues. All that French sophistication reassured me as year after year I seemed less likely to return home, looking down on the dreary Ireland of the late 80s to convince myself I was better off in France.
The bewildering Celtic Tiger years (what, better restaurants in Dublin than France? What’s with all the SUVs?) gave way to a secretly satisfying I-told-you-so as it all came tumbling down.
Although monitoring what is happening in Ireland has become so much easier, checking The Irish Times website daily still doesn’t match the pleasure of finding the rolled-up copy that would come through the letterbox weekly as a gift from my mother, to be leisurely perused over a cup of tea.
And now, as France still struggles to maintain a semblance of economic decorum, Ireland seems to have begun back on an upward slope. Where will my children make their home? Have things come a full circle as my second son finds his first job in Galway? Where is home?
So much of me is settled here. I have so many close friends, a satisfying job, an easy lifestyle, but the daily vista of spectacular Alpine peaks around me will never move me as much as a single glimpse of the tide opening on Omey strand.
Last November, The Irish Times invited readers abroad to submit reflections on their relationship with the land they left. This story is one we received. To read more, click here. The Irish Times 'Ireland and Me' eBook is available for download here.
