http://curlydena.com/index.php/2009/05/03/wherever-i-lay-my-hat/ Adventures Of A Curly Girl Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:31:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 http://curlydena.com/index.php/2009/05/03/wherever-i-lay-my-hat/comment-page-1/#comment-27 Nick McGivney Mon, 04 May 2009 11:15:45 +0000 http://adventuresofacurlygirl.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/wherever-i-lay-my-hat/#comment-27 Living in between is a funny place to be, but most people live there. You're part of Ireland's largest ethnic minority. But culchies are Dublin's biggest group of outsiders. There's a palpable difference between the Northside and the Southside. Two dozen different skin colours are trying to reside alongside one another in the city these days. Very few people are 'at home'. And look back a bit and you'll see that we all came from east Africa. Huh? I guess that the lure of the familiar will always be the biggest magnet. I was born in Manchester, but my formative years were spent on a farm in Cavan. I can't walk past the statue of Patrick Kavanagh on Grand Canal at Baggot St without his poems flowing through my head. He died the year I was born, but was a rural poet from neighbouring Monaghan, and everything he said resonates in me. And I can't go back there either, because it's not 1976 anymore and time has a habit of not allowing repeats. Getting a bit philosophical now, but I guess what I mean is that here, and now, and you, is mostly what the reality is. That Manchester, like that Cavan, lives on inside, but won't mean the same, or not exactly, to anyone else but you. But it's kinda nice to have it all to yourself too. I think they call it nostalgia. Or is it neuralgia? I'm never sure... Living in between is a funny place to be, but most people live there. You’re part of Ireland’s largest ethnic minority. But culchies are Dublin’s biggest group of outsiders. There’s a palpable difference between the Northside and the Southside. Two dozen different skin colours are trying to reside alongside one another in the city these days. Very few people are ‘at home’. And look back a bit and you’ll see that we all came from east Africa. Huh?
I guess that the lure of the familiar will always be the biggest magnet. I was born in Manchester, but my formative years were spent on a farm in Cavan. I can’t walk past the statue of Patrick Kavanagh on Grand Canal at Baggot St without his poems flowing through my head. He died the year I was born, but was a rural poet from neighbouring Monaghan, and everything he said resonates in me. And I can’t go back there either, because it’s not 1976 anymore and time has a habit of not allowing repeats. Getting a bit philosophical now, but I guess what I mean is that here, and now, and you, is mostly what the reality is. That Manchester, like that Cavan, lives on inside, but won’t mean the same, or not exactly, to anyone else but you. But it’s kinda nice to have it all to yourself too. I think they call it nostalgia. Or is it neuralgia? I’m never sure…

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