Kevin Lyda

“And I…was I returning? Or was I emigrating?”

Well. That took a little longer than intended. And sorry so long - I wrote during build cycles. And sorry if it’s disjointed as I kept jumping between writing code and prose. I don’t think I put any for loops in here…

Not sure how interesting my story is. I had two tough acts to follow as my mom spent the first decade of her emigrant experience in the U.S. as Sister Francis Kevin. And that was the decade my dad robbed a bank. All I did was move to a suburb of Boston - Glasnevin.

Prior to being my mom and kicking the habit, Bernadett McCormack grew up just outside of Ballymahon, Co. Longford. Six of my grandparent’s kids lived to adulthood and of those, one was given to a childless relative in Westmeath, three emigrated to America as teenagers and finally my mom emigrated at the age of 20. Six months after she left she found out her father died; she wouldn’t make it back to Ireland for a decade.

By the time she had me she had a pretty good nursing job and an American husband. And she could afford to go back home more often. I think her past made her desire to visit “home” regularly stronger than for her siblings.

I was born in March, 1971. The picture here was taken in May, 1971 - I suspect passport officials would be unimpressed by it these days. And my first trip to Ireland was to Dublin in August, 1971. I don’t recall it, but my Irish relatives were rather taken with my dad and the fact that he carried me around in a papoose-like thing. My mom was carrying a penguin passport at that point so I kind of wonder if that might have been part of the motivation for that. Ireland is a small country - a woman with a passport picture in a habit while carrying a baby might be talked around the place.

Trips to Ireland happened every few years ever since then. For holidays and the odd wedding. And likewise we had Irish relatives visit in America. Bar the odd few months here and there I’ve always had a passport. Though none with a picture as cute as my guest appearance in my dad’s passport. Moving to Ireland first occurred to me after university in 1992. I went to SUNY at Buffalo and I wasn’t all that interested in staying there. The economy wasn’t great in Ireland though and I didn’t yet know I was an Irish citizen. Instead

I moved to Boston - where I ended up making friends with a bunch of Irish immigrants. In Boston of all places, what are the chances?

One day on a whim I did some research and discovered I was an Irish citizen and how to get a passport. As it happened I was working right around the corner from the Irish consulate in Boston. I got the paperwork I needed from my mom and in early 1997 I got my first Irish passport. I tossed it into a drawer and kind of forgot about it.

By early 1998 my house - share developed drama and my employer had burned through their VC money and were clearly about to lock the doors. So I did some research on working in Ireland, booked a one week trip and set up four or five interviews. It was the start of the Celtic Tiger and I ended up doing two or three interviews a day. I’d first job hunted as a CS major with no experience in the U.S. recession of the early 90s and the Irish job market of the late 90s was like a different world. For the first time in my life I picked from several job offers - to start in a month.

My mom guessed I’d make it six months. She was always happy that I liked “home” but she had left an Ireland with few jobs and limited futures. This new Ireland was hard for a lot of us to comprehend. A generation might not have to emigrate - and for the first time there was the idea of returning. Some of my Irish friends in Boston did. And I…was I returning? Or was I emigrating?

A cousin in Dublin just had her son and she and her husband had bought a new house in some new estate that had the word “cyber” in it (the council did not let that stick). She wanted to rent out her flat but wasn’t sure how to find a tenant. Which was good, because I didn’t know how to find a flat. Two problems solved. Not the typical immigrant experience, but then it was the immigrant experience for several of my relatives when they went to America.

Working and living here was odd at first. I had the distinct impression I was on holidays - because that was my Irish experience up to that point:

"I didn’t yet know I was an Irish citizen."

Meeting relatives, watching Coronation Street, staying up late at night reading a Stephen King or Roddy Doyle novel. Instead I was going to work - boo! But there were no more checks and posting out bills - they just came right out of my account. And I got four weeks of holidays. And I could book a flight to anywhere in Europe for not much money at all and essentially no jet lag. As time went on the idea of going back to the United States seemed inconceivable.

After six months I asked my mom to sell my car. And in two years I’d bought a house. When my mom retired in 2003 she did return - and she renewed the Irish passport she emigrated on.

In 2011 she started dropping teacups and so began her five year journey with ALS. While some initial treatment was done in the U.S. and involved arguments with insurance companies, most of her care was in Ireland. And none of it involved insurance companies or arguing about bills.

The only horrible part was the ALS - and for the life of me I don’t understand a society that would seek to add to that. My largest difficulty in dealing with the health service was after my mom passed - returning all the things they’d given to us.

At this point if I was to leave Ireland it would be to move to Spain or France. Somewhere with warmer winters. Twenty years on the consequences of the Generation That Stayed continue on and are making Ireland a better and fairer place - even as the old guard seems determined to mess that up. For all the rain, it’s a place with a hopeful future.

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