We have been in Dublin ten years this actual week! I think if I add Dublin and 12 years in the Northern Ireland I have lived longer in Ireland as a whole than I did in England...
I still have my English accent...
Unfortunately this labels me as constantly 'British', not that I am not proud to be, but I am not necessarily 'English' since my mum was English but I was born in Wales.. therefore I am Welsh..but I lived longer in England, having moved there when I was 7. That I have lived longer in Ireland still, makes my home Irish and having a Dad who was born in Dublin makes me even more Irish! I perpetually never belong. I am one of these people who can't properly lay claim to anywhere or can choose where I want to be a part of depending on who I am with or what it will look like. Consequently I never understand properly national pride and allegiance to one place. I think it might be nice to have lived and remained in one place all of the time, to have my sisters just calling by and to bump into a friend I went to primary school with...
the phone rang..
It was a little lady we know from our church who lives in Dublin. She comes from India and phoned to tell me her problems finding somewhere else to live, today she has trudged around the streets looking for somewhere new to rent with no luck.
At the moment she lives in a little one room appartment, we have visited her there. Whilst she is every bit from India, maybe my inability to lay claim to one nationality loses its significance when I think about her fragile life in rented accommodation and my life here in Dublin, with my family and my home.
Maybe, who I am, is more about 'me' than the place I was born, the place that I live or where I claim to come from. Maybe this little Indian lady with her one room appartment in the centre of Dublin just wants as much as anyone else to belong to some place she can call 'home'.
