About
The Early Years
The Move
Emigrating to a new country with your families sounds like a really exciting thing. Alas, your hopes of a ‘Coming to America’ or “‘Off the Boat’ tale end here, skip to the last chapter now. As a white Irish family emigrating to Southwest Florida in the late nineties, you don’t get classed as exotic. You’re white, speak the same language (which shocked people a lot), and the cultures are not so vastly different that you need to ask for help turning on the tv. We went under the radar as immigrants. The most exotic thing about us was our volume. I am one of six children, with two parents still married. To Americans, this was always the surprise. I also think that sometimes when you said you were from Ireland, people sort of knew where it was, so they thought they couldn’t ask; or they had a great-great grandfather who sailed the Mayflower to love to chat about St.Patty’s Day.