When I was 17 I read the book Stephen Pollak wrote about the decade leading up to his move to Ireland. How did it feel to arrive on the doorstep of a conservative, Presbyterian Northern Irish family and move into a community where he was labelled as “the European”? In recent years, people have often asked why I express such interest in the lives of refugees. Like nearly every Irish person, I am descended on my mother’s side from emigrants (from Cork) who left for the United States. I have grown up with the awareness that had my grandmother’s Northern Irish family not welcomed my grandfather, the future of my own family could have turned out very differently.

Source: The Irish Times April 18, 2018 04:52 UTC