A Welcome Assessment

Which way for the place from the ad? Predominantly on this blog, I tend to either slate or (very slightly and quietly) applaud hotels, airlines, attractions, meals, food, prices, whatever – generally related to where I was, where I’m going or where I am. But it occurred to me lately, what would I actually think if I arrived to Dublin for the first time to go on a holiday, and what would I make of our supposedly great welcome? At the moment in... Read More

The Tale of the Returning Emigrant

Home! In the last three weeks, I’ve done the very opposite to what most Irish people my own age and status are doing – I actually returned to Ireland.   For anyone not already aware from my 2008-til’-now ramblings, I finished college, did two interviews for jobs here (both of which I was deemed unsuitable for) and then decided not to wait a second longer. I went from Ireland to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a period of months, where I did... Read More

Was I Really There?

Clouds setting on this awful development... One of the great things about being in Germany and not Malaysia (for the time being), is the ability to go back home to Ireland whenever you want – if, of course, you want. So far, that’s meant I’ve been able to be back three times in total this year; which would have almost certainly been only once if we were still in Malaysia, if at all. This weekend, I made a very impromptu ad-hoc last-minute (you... Read More

Re-Uniting with an Old Friend…

And that was the last time I was seen in this get-up... It seems strange, but only this time last year, I took part in the ‘Wicklow 200’, an event that puts your love of cycling, or insanity, to the test. You get to cycle all around the Wicklow countryside for the afternoon for a distance of 200 kilometres, wondering why it’s taking you 3 hours to go between two towns that you know to be only 20 minutes drive apart, only to realise that the... Read More

Greetings from Ireland…

Dublin, it’s been a while. Last August, with great excitement and a degree of anxiety, I left the country bound for an unusual emigration outpost; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Over there, I took up what was by all means a quite successful internship for six months, where along with the work at hand, I made contacts and all that good stuff, and wound up with plenty of work on my plate from others. Roll on a few months and March 2011 sees me standing,... Read More