In the beginning ...

I've lived in England now for almost 20 years, and it really has been a great home to me.

I swore when I left Dublin, that I was different, that I'd be back in Ireland's bosom again in a few months. As the song says: "Months turn into years. How quick they pass". Now almost 20 years later, I've started this blog to tell some of my story.

Ireland has many faults, and I am a huge critic but being Irish means that you have a unique view of the world that others often envy. And like so many others, I always think fondly of my homeland.

I was one of the last who left Ireland, through forced emigration. That probably made it all the more difficult watching Ireland grow as a country, as I scratched through my twenties trying to forge a life in London, hanging out at the Swan in Stockwell or the Archway Tavern in north London dreaming of a country that I would find very different if I ever went home.

That distance strained most of my friendships, as every time I went home we had fewer and fewer common stories to talk about and we grew apart.

And so I took a job that allowed me to travel to strange and wonderful corners of the world: Israel, Europe, the US, Saudi, the Far East, you name it.

The taste for Lyons Tea and Tayto crisps soon passes, but the feeling of being Irish in Exile never does