Patricia Lyons: Her children 'missed out on the influence of Irish culture here'. “Nobody had heard of Ireland, it was amazing,” she says, adding that people would think she had mentioned “Holland” as her home country. “Even quite educated people would have no contact with Ireland or Irish people.” She would then have to explain Ireland was in fact an island beside England. Many of her women friends were college graduates who had studied abroad: “Intelligent young divorced Dominican women, against the status quo... Her children, she says, “missed out on the influence of Irish culture here”.

Source: The Irish Times December 08, 2025 06:00 UTC