A New Life:Irish American Colleen Dollard felt such a connection to Ireland she moved here, she tells Sylvia Thompson
The pull back to the native land experienced by children of immigrants is as natural as it is strange. So deeply felt is their unlived experience of their parents' homeland that many make the journey back and some even decide to settle in the old country.
And, so it has been for Irish American, Colleen Dollard, the youngest of five children of an Irish woman from Moycullen, in Co Galway, and a man from Pennsylvania with Irish roots.
After more than 15 years working in the United States, Dollard has come to live in Ireland and finds that she has never felt more at home. "I feel we were programmed for the Ireland that my mother left and she assumed that life hadn't changed. In fact, she was trying to hold on to the Ireland she knew," says Dollard, whose interest in coming to live in Ireland grew out of her love of the Irish language.
"I grew up in Rockville, Maryland, did a degree in French and Spanish and started working for a property management company looking after 80 apartments whose residents were mainly French and Spanish speakers," she says.
Although Dollard had initially planned to do a Masters in Linguistics, the lure of a good income put paid to that.
"I had been a self-supporting student and I had bills to pay. I was tired of being poor. I loved the job, as I could be a resource to people there. I knew everyone and I was completely in charge of running the eight 1940s buildings, which were set in a nice courtyard."
However, as time went on, the area "became quite gentrified" and Dollard's role as interpreter and manager changed. "I was losing my base of people as the area - Silver Spring - started to get a higher clientele of people."
Meanwhile, her first nephew and her mother's first grandchild had been born. "When my mother put her hands on Tim for the first time, she said: 'Seoithin seothó, a stór é mo leanbh." It was then that Dollard realised that her mother was bilingual. She was instantly hooked on learning the Irish language.
Over the next few years, Dollard began to immerse herself in Irish, while continuing her job in property management. "I got very involved with the Irish language group, Daldaí na Gaeilge, travelling to cities in the United States and Canada for weekends in which everyone spoke Irish to the best of their ability at all times. It was great fun."
A broken relationship, increasing dissatisfaction with her job and dwindling numbers in her local Irish language group finally pushed Dollard into making a change.
"I had been to Ireland already - both visiting relatives and doing Irish language courses - and was here again to do a two-week course in Irish when a friend brought me to University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin (TCD) to check out the courses in linguistics.
"By then, I was interested in teaching Irish at university level but needed further qualifications."
To her great delight, Dollard was accepted onto the one-year Masters Degree in Applied Linguistics at TCD in 2003. Since then, she has never looked back. Explaining how she learned to speak Irish way before she learned its intricate grammatical structure, she emanates a love of Irish that is infectious.
Dollard now works in the Irish language promotion board, Foras na Gaeilge by day (where she speaks Irish all the time) and teaches language modules in the Centre for Language and Communications Studies at TCD three evenings a week. "I'm also working on a PhD on the use of technology in the Irish language learning environment," she explains.
In Dublin, Dollard is also immersed in various Irish language communities. "I'm on the committee of the Conradh na Gaeilge club. I sometimes go to the Ionad Buail Isteach Irish conversation group on Fridays at lunchtime in the Connolly bookshop in Temple Bar and I'll be running an Irish language immersion day on Saturday in the Axis Arts Centre in Ballymun as part of their Borradh Buan Festival."
Dollard has also taught Irish to some of those who recently immigrated to Ireland. And why are these people drawn to the Irish language? "People are interested in Irish for various reasons. Some want to show Irish people that they are here to stay, so they learn Irish. Others learn it for their children and others simply value minority languages and they hear the sound of Irish and are enchanted by it," she says.
Meanwhile, her own love of Irish continues to blossom. "When I first came, I went crazy, trying to do as much as I could because I thought I'd stay for a year. Now, I realise that I'm still greedy for Irish. I don't want to miss any opportunity.
"I realise that the Irish language has provided the momentum to my life. It's almost like it has picked me up and taken me places. At the moment, I can't imagine being anywhere else but Dublin."
The Irish language has provided the momentum to my life . . . it has picked me up and taken me places