Home thoughts from abroad

I've been reading Browning, Keats and William Wordsworth
And they all seem to be saying the same thing for me
Well I like the words they use, and I like the way they use them
You know, Home Thoughts From Abroad is such a beautiful poem

A couple of weeks ago we went to the “Leaving Dublin” exhibition at the Melbourne Immigration Museum. This was a collection of photographs taken of people who were about to emigrate from Ireland. The accompanying stories were sad and despairing, telling of families ripped apart, economic necessity and the safety valve that emigration offers whenever Ireland gets into trouble.

I noticed that most of my fellow visitors at the exhibition were also Irish, not only from the accents but from their facial appearance. Most Australians don’t believe me, but it’s possible to spot an Irish person at 50 meters here. Sometimes it’s the ridiculous red faces from inappropriate exposure to the sun that gives them away. Sometimes it’s the GAA and Glasgow Celtic jerseys they wear (you never see anyone from Glasgow wearing a Celtic shirt, but that’s a discussion for another day).

But more often than not, it’s the freckles, frizzy hair and deep blue or green eyes that tells me that these people are Friends of Seamus. I obviously share these looks (although my hair lost its frizziness years ago) because I’ll often pass a similar looking person on the streets of Melbourne and we’ll raise an eyebrow to each other or mutter “How’s it goin’” as we pass.

We moved around the exhibition slowly and quietly. Most of us it seems, were pondering our own reasons for leaving Ireland. By their ages, many could have arrived here in the 1980s during the last deluge from Ireland’s shores. Some, no doubt, came for adventure and stayed. And some, like me, left for a number of reasons. Because we could see Ireland was going down the toilet in an orgy of consumerism and right wing politics. Because Ireland is a small and suffocating place and because there is a light beyond these woods and we should go and see what makes it shine.

That last aspect probably drove me onto the plane more than any. I’ve always felt like a citizen of the world and not tied down to a particular place. It’s a big and varied place and those of us who come from rich western countries have the opportunity to travel around it and live in many different places. Most of the world doesn’t have this luxury which makes me wonder why more people who can don’t try it. I do love my home country but I love the world too and if I could afford it, I’d live in Ireland for 6 months each year and somewhere else in the world for the rest of the time. Many people do this already, including the great and good of the racing scene and those property developers who got their cash out before the market went belly up. These guys spend one day short of six months in Ireland so that they can avoid paying any taxes there.

But unless I win the lottery, that’s not really an option. So I’ll have to make do with reading Irish papers on the web, listening to Irish radio on my digital radio or watching Irish television on DVD or on a live stream. The Internet has changed an emigrant’s life, that’s for sure. When I lived in London in the late 1980s my only connection to Ireland was through a weekly mad hatter phone call with my Mother when I would be read a list of the recently deceased on our street with a hushed summary of their past indiscretions. Occasionally, if I found myself in a certain part of the City after crashing on somebody’s floor, I’d be able to pick up a copy of the Sunday Press, which was a paper I’d never dream of buying when I lived in Ireland.

Now I can spend any free time I have indulging in Irish media or consuming goods bought from the Taste of Ireland website. Close your eyes and you could imagine you were in Connemara, if it wasn’t for the lack of rain banging on the roof or the need to wear a sleeping bag in doors.

In that respect, you have the best of everything here. The good weather, the exotic and multi-cultural food, clean streets, beaches, bicycle paths, efficient trams and trains and a health system that prioritises patients on the size of their ailments and not their wallets.

At the same time you can access a lot of the good things about Ireland from the comfort of your sofa in Melbourne. The humour that is unique to us Gaels, the story telling and intelligent writing. And curry Chips and Guinness if you look hard enough. The only thing that’s missing is the spontaneous fun you get from meeting friends and the tactile comfort you can feel from your family that is not available through Skype.

A friend here said to me that it’s actually harder to be an emigrant now because the Internet (and Skype in particular), make you feel close to home but not close enough. There is something very tantalising about a nephew’s hand reaching for a screen 17,000km away and trying to touch you.

The picture that will stay with me from the Leaving Dublin exhibition was of a young woman standing by the Royal Canal in Dublin. She was wearing a pair of vibrant red shoes. In the caption beside the picture, she said that she was bringing the shoes with her to her new life in Australia. “If I get very sad”, she said, “maybe I could just click my heels and I’ll be back in Ireland.” If only it was that simple.