You need a place that’s home, if only for the excitement of leaving. Home means not being alone, knowing there’s something of you in the people, the trees, the land, something waiting for you even when you’re away.
Cesare Pavese, The Moon and the Bonfires
Is home the place where we are born […]? Or is home the place we die, where we are buried? Or is home the place where we toil in between?
Edwige Danticat, The Penguin Book of Migration Literature
- 1 For further information about Irish emigrants’ ‘other destinations’, see, in particular, Akenson, 1 (...)
- 2 As the distinguished scholar Bronwen Walter observes, «[o]ver seventy million people world-wide, mo (...)
1Over the last three centuries, Ireland has sent innumerable of its men and women away. Whether destined for the United States, Great Britain, or elsewhere,1 the Irish have left in astonishing numbers,2 with women emigrants, long considered «the great unknown» of the Irish diaspora (Akenson, 1993, p. 157), equalling and, at some point, even outnumbering their male counterparts, which makes the island unique in European migratory flows (Diner, 1983; Lennon, McAdam and O’Brien, 1988; Walter, 2001; and Gray, 2004). Emigration and emigrants’ own attitude towards it, however, have significantly changed over the time (Gray, 2000 and Kenny, 2019). While the majority of nineteenth-century Irish emigrants regarded their departure as involuntary ‘exile’ (Miller, 1985 and Kenny, 2000), for most of those who left in the mid and late twentieth century and, even more so, for the ones who are leaving today it has acquired a markedly different meaning: opportunity rather than deprivation. Nostalgia, regret, and/or disillusion nonetheless emerge prominently, albeit in some cases controversially, in most accounts of emigration from Ireland.
2According to Murray, «[e]migration has always been central to Irish life. Even if many chose not to leave Ireland, nobody was entirely immune to its consequences» (Murray, 2013, p. 85). In order to similarly highlight the phenomenon’s inherent importance, and persistence, in Ireland’s history and culture, the Irish-born, then London-based writer Joseph O’Connor contends that «[e]migration is as Irish as Cathleen Ni Houlihan’s harp» (O’ Connor, 1993, p. 16). Although O’Connor himself further laments over the Irish people’s unwillingness to speak and, more importantly, write about it for a remarkably long time because of a general sense of ‘shame,’ which he defines as «a refusal to speak, a fear of the word» (Ibid.), emigration and its consequences have been vividly, most often painfully developed by Irish writers, whether at home or away from home, since, at least, the eighteenth century (Fanning, 1997 and 2000 and Harte, 2011). «[M]igration,» Murray further remarks,
retained an enduring presence in the private domain. As a result, even when it was suppressed in conversation from a sense of shame, as was sometimes the case, it continued […] to exert its presence in the collective imaginary. The psychological and emotional impact of migration on individuals’ lives, and the complex negotiations of cultural identity that this entails, is perhaps best appreciated through the various forms of narrative that migrants employ to record their experiences. Such narratives come in a variety of forms including memoir, letters, oral testimony and personal journals. (Murray, 2013, p. 85)
- 3 Because of its unprecedented, flourishing prosperity, mid- and, in particular, late-twentieth-centu (...)
- 4 For a comprehensive overview of the most notable narratives of return migration to Ireland, see, in (...)
- 5 The four Irish writers taken as case studies in this article – George Moore, Edna O’Brien, Maeve Br (...)
- 6 Emigrants’ ‘impossible return’ is also richly developed, among others, by the Italian woman writer (...)
3If emigration has historically been considered a crucial component of Irish life and identity, also return migration and, more recently, immigration must necessarily be acknowledged as determining factors of Ireland’s contemporary cultural scenario.3 Although returnees have figured prominently in Irish literature since, at least, the late nineteenth century (Moynihan, 2022, p. 19), it was nonetheless in the mid and, in particular, late 1900s that Irish writers,4 most often themselves away from ‘home’,5 focused more extensively on return migration. Mostly concerned with the sensations generated by migrants’ very homecoming, these writings aim to investigate the meaning of ‘home’ for those who leave and at some point, regardless of the reasons, return – whether temporarily or permanently. As well as conveying returnees’ ambivalent sense of (not) belonging (anymore) to the place they once called ‘home,’ these narratives also shed light on those who stayed put, whose role acquires major importance in determining migrants’ ‘(impossible) return’.6 Going back ‘home,’ needless to say, does not only imply being physically there; it involves, in particular, migrants’ necessity to forge a new relationship with the place and the people, as well as, more significantly, to negotiate a new identity, a new sense of belonging (Ní Laoire, 2007 and Ralph, 2012).
- 7 Fitzpatrick’s words qtd. in Akenson, 1993, p. 5.
- 8 Kate Kavanagh, the protagonist of «The Wedding Feast», for instance, leaves for America in order to (...)
4Among the earliest, most notable literary testimonies to departures from and returns to Ireland undoubtedly figures George Moore’s The Untilled Field (1903).7 While some of the short stories in it collected shed light on emigration as ‘escape’ (Ward, 2002, p. 219), it is notably in «Home Sickness» that Moore focuses in closer detail on an Irish emigrant’s ‘(impossible) homecoming.’8
- 9 The journey ‘home’ acquires a strong emotional meaning for Bryden: «As he sat in the railway-carria (...)
- 10 «[A]fter Bryden had told Mike everything about America that he thought of interest, he asked Mike a (...)
- 11 While, at first glance, everything looks the same as before leaving, soon after his arrival ‘home’ (...)
- 12 Mike, indeed, «had forgotten Bryden even more completely than Bryden had forgotten him» (Moore, 197 (...)
5Following his doctor’s advice, James Bryden returns to his hometown after thirteen years in America in order to recover from illness. Eager to see again his native land9 and meet the people he left behind him, he nonetheless experiences desolation as soon as he arrives ‘home.’ Everybody asks him about America, but reluctantly speaks about ‘home,’ most probably in order not to focus on Ireland’s terrible economic conditions:10 «The people and the landscape,» Ward suggests, «are even more impoverished than when he first left»11 (Ward, 2002, p. 218). In particular, it is his encounter with Mike Scully, one of the villagers, which bewilders Bryden: while, at meeting him, memories from his ‘previous life’ before leaving for America suddenly come to Bryden’s mind (Moore, 1976, pp. 33‑34), Mike cannot even remember him, as if he had become a stranger, a ‘visitor,’ in his native place.12 That certainly is the inevitable result of long-time emigration.
- 13 «[K]eeping company», Margaret tells Bryden, «isn’t the custom of the country, and I don’t want to b (...)
6As time goes by, Bryden re-gets accustomed to the place; in particular, he develops a close connection with Margaret Dirken, to whom in short time he even plans to get married. However, the man’s intention to start a life anew with a woman who is, for Ward, «a figure emblematic of Irish femininity»13 (Ward, 2002, p. 218) has soon after to cope with the harsh reality: the man, indeed, eventually proves not to be able «to come to terms with the Ireland he has come ‘home’ to» (Ward, 2002, p. 218), which definitely is not as it used to be thirteen years before. Evidently, neither is Bryden the same as before leaving.
- 14 His wife passed away and sons and daughters married, Bryden «reached the age when a man begins to f (...)
7In the end, the man acknowledges the impossibility for him of accepting «the pathetic ignorance» (Moore, 1976, p. 46) and «the weakness and incompetence of the people about him» compared to «the modern restlessness and cold energy of the people he had left behind» in his adopted ‘home’ (Moore, 1976, p. 43). Unwilling to cope any longer with the pervasive sense of not belonging to Ireland which he suddenly, unexpectedly experiences, Bryden leaves again for America, alone, albeit intentioned to come back, sooner or later (Moore, 1976, pp. 47‑48). Once in America, instead, he cannot silence «the thrill of home that he had not found in his native village» (Moore, 1976, p. 48), although Ireland never abandons him: the life he decided not to live is meant to remain a lifelong reference point in his memory.14
8A return migrant’s impossibility of belonging to his native land is richly developed also by one of the most celebrated, albeit highly controversial, Irish women writers of all times: Edna O’Brien, who often vividly explores the consequences of departure from ‘home’ and, therefore, emigrants’ sense of not belonging anywhere – either to their homeland or hostland.
9In particular, O’Brien’s «Shovel Kings» (Saints and Sinners, 2011) extensively focuses on the alienating, lonely life of an Irishman in London. Aged fifteen, Rafferty – that is the man’s name – left Ireland and relocated, with his father, to Camden Town, «the strangest, sootiest place he had ever seen» (O’Brien, 2011, p. 6). Looking forward to the prosperous future that awaited him, Rafferty nonetheless suffered on his first day in the place that had to be ‘home’ at the sight of the enormous mass of Irish young men, as himself, who gathered at the station to be recruited for any job (O’Brien, 2011, p. 6): «I believed […] that a great future lay ahead of me,» Rafferty himself recalls, «but the look of despair on the lads left behind standing in that street was awful, and one I can never forget» (O’Brien, 2011, p. 7).
- 15 In particular, Rafferty recalls that, at work, they all used to talk about «everything and anything (...)
10Over the years, Rafferty manages to settle down in London – although it has never been easy for him, especially at the beginning15: «Camden was where I first came,» he recalls, «and though I cried my eyes out in the beginning and walked those hopeless sullen streets, it was where I had put roots down» (O’Brien, 2011, p. 16). Immediately afterwards, however, his positive attitude towards London as his adopted ‘home’ is betrayed by his following assumption: «The odd thing was that you can be attached to a place, or a person, you don’t particularly like» because of «mankind’s addiction to habit» (O’Brien, 2011, pp. 16‑17).
11When, unexpectedly, the time comes for Rafferty to return ‘home’ for good, he does not spend more than two weeks there: «the rolling stone gathers no moss,» Rafferty himself revealingly claims (O’Brien, 2011, p. 34). «Nothing was wrong, […] but nothing was right, either» ‘at home’ (Ibid.): the Ireland he had returned to simply no longer was the place he used to call ‘home,’ which had remained the same as forty years before only in his memory. As, evidently, he himself and his acquaintances eventually acknowledge, he merely «doesn’t belong in England and ditto Ireland» (O’Brien, 2011, p. 35): «exile,» indeed, «is in the mind and there’s no cure for that» (Ibid.).
12Although it most often is returnees’ own sense of not belonging anymore to the place they once called ‘home’ to annihilate any attempt to return, the community’s reaction to their homecoming undoubtedly acquires equal importance. After ten years in Australia, Mabel McCann is destined for Ireland – for how long, however, nobody knows. Her family and, in general, the whole community are eagerly waiting for her homecoming:
How long would she stay? What would she look like? Would her hair be permed? What presents, or what knickknacks would she bring? Would she have an accent? Oh, what novelty. These and a thousand other questions assailed us, and as the time got nearer, her name and her arrival were on everyone’s lips. (O’Brien, 2003, p. 73)
- 16 Originally published in Returning (1982), O’Brien’s «Savages» was then republished in A Fanatic Hea (...)
This is the general mood which opens O’Brien’s «Savages».16
- 17 Mabel, indeed, has acquired a strong Australian accent (O’Brien, 2003, p. 79), which, nevertheless, (...)
- 18 «Mabel said she should never have come home and that when she woke up that morning and heard the ra (...)
13Soon afterwards, however, her family and neighbours painfully realize that there was nothing to expect from Mabel’s return: «It seemed that the homecoming was something of an anticlimax and that even Mabel’s father couldn’t understand a word that she had said.17 It seems that the men who had come to vet her agreed that she wasn’t worth tuppence and the women were most disappointed by her attire» (O’Brien, 2003, p. 78). Evidently, Mabel has not prospered in Australia: she has not become a glamorous, successful woman; conversely, her extreme thinness and skin «tough and wizened from the heat» (O’Brien, 2003, p. 77) hint at a life of hardship, most probably markedly different from the one she herself expected to lead prior to her departure. Disappointed by her parents’ attitude towards her since her very homecoming (O’Brien, 2003, p. 78), Mabel nonetheless spends quite a long time ‘at home’: as she herself confesses, she had been thinking about Ireland all the time in Australia (O’Brien, 2003, p. 79), and, therefore, certainly is not looking forward to going back there. Once in Ireland, however, she realizes that «she had made a frightful mistake»18: it only is «[f]araway» that «hills look green» (Ibid.).
- 19 Because of her pregnancy, Mabel «was shunned at Mass, shunned on her way down from Mass, and avoide (...)
- 20 «No one went near her. It was as if she had taken on the marks of a leper. Her mother glared in tha (...)
14Unexpectedly, it is Mabel’s pregnancy which prolongs her visit ‘home.’ Despite the initial shame which surrounds the unmarried woman,19 Mabel’s family – in particular her father – eventually accept her back, supposedly for good, only when they are told about the violence she had been victim of (O’Brien, 2003, p. 93). Months afterwards, however, they all realize that «some terrible trick had been played of them» (O’Brien, 2003, p. 94): Mabel was not pregnant, but most probably looking for some way to stay ‘home’ longer. Resentful and, more importantly, unwilling to shelter her any longer, her family and the whole community refuse to even meet Mabel,20 the «rotten egg» since her very birth (O’Brien, 2003, p. 95). Then one evening, unnoticed, Mabel leaves again, forever: «[F]rom that moment her memory was banished. The only reminder was that next day on the clothesline were her blankets, her patchwork quilt, and some baby clothes. Her parents had a Mass said in the house, and in time it was as if she had never come home, as if she were still in Australia» (O’Brien, 2003, pp. 95‑96). Mabel, therefore, realizes that she had failed again: she had not been able to start a life anew neither in her adopted Australia nor, even more significantly, in her native Ireland. As a consequence, she is condemned to perpetual exile, from her ‘home’ and, by extension, homeland. In the end, indeed, Mabel «died without ever having been reinstated with family or friends, and […] is buried in some strange and unmarked place» (O’Brien, 2003, p. 96).
15A returnee’s family’s unwillingness to welcome her/him back ‘home’ is also vividly, painfully developed by the Irish-born, US-based woman writer Maeve Brennan in her posthumous novella, The Visitor (2000). As for Moore’s James Bryden, also for Brennan’s Anastasia King the journey ‘home’ acquires a pervasive emotional meaning: «Ireland is my dwelling place, Dublin is my station» (Brennan, 2019, p. 5), the young woman thinks in the attempt to persuade herself that Dublin still is, after all, her ‘home,’ which she had left six years before. The «sudden melancholy» that she unexpectedly feels (Ibid.), however, hints at the ambivalent sensations generated by her very homecoming: «The future is wearisome too. I can’t imagine it now,» she had just thought (Brennan, 2019, p. 3).
- 21 «It’s nice to see you again, Anastasia. You are looking well», Mrs King tells her granddaughter (Br (...)
- 22 Anastasia’ parents’ relationship had always been negatively influenced, readers are told, by the in (...)
16Mrs King’s (unwelcoming) welcome back ‘home’ imperfectly hides her deep resentment against her granddaughter.21 Initially, however, Anastasia does not care about her grandmother’s manifest unwillingness to have her back there if not for a short visit (Brennan, 2019, pp. 18‑19): the young woman’s primary need, indeed, is to retrace her memories in her family house (Brennan, 2019, pp. 7‑8), her one and only ‘home,’ which had been the scenario of the happiest moments of her life prior to her family’s separation and, more tragically, her father’s and mother’s premature death.22
17Despite her naive efforts to please her grandmother and live up to her expectations, Anastasia gradually has to come to terms with her only close relative’s request to be left alone: «I’m afraid you’ve been counting too much on me. You mustn’t do that. I have no home to offer you. This is a changed house here now. […] It’s natural that you should want to pay a visit here. But more than that, no» (Brennan, 2019, p. 19). Then, Mrs King revealingly adds as follows: «It might have been different, maybe, if you’d been with me when he died. But you weren’t here» (Ibid.). It is precisely because of her decision to follow her mother to Paris, indeed, that Anastasia no longer has somewhere to call ‘home’: «the Ireland that Brennan depicts in her novella,» Palko revealingly suggests, «is unwelcoming to those who dare to align themselves with the mother» (Palko, 2010, p. 22).
18Although Anastasia’s visit ‘home’ lasts several months, there is nothing the young woman can do to turn from unwelcome visitor into welcome inhabitant in her grandmother’s house – which, by the way, she continues to call ‘home’ in order to highlight her deep need to belong to that place. When she eventually, painfully comes to terms with her ‘impossible return,’ Anastasia leaves her grandmother’s house. These, however, are the last words of Brennan’s novella: «Goodbye, Grandmother. […] You see, I haven’t gone yet…» (Brennan, 2019, p. 100). Readers are not told whether Anastasia is eventually destined for Paris or elsewhere, and neither are they told whether she left Ireland at all or stayed there on her own, somewhere else. What is certain, however, is that from that moment onwards Anastasia had to forge a new sense of belonging, and negotiate a markedly new relationship with the place she once called ‘home,’ which, however, has doubtlessly continued to be «a place in the mind» (Brennan, 2019, p. 8).
- 23 «The house couldn’t have been prepared any better for a god coming home to his old place on earth» (...)
19In his latest novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002), John McGahern narrates the vicissitudes of a community located in the rural north-west of Ireland (Murray, 2014, p. 93), whose everyday life, mainly dictated by the phases of nature, is nonetheless altered by the ghost of (e)migration. The whole novel, indeed, «is framed by the experience of return migration» (Murray, 2014, p. 93): not only does it begin with the community’s preparation for Johnny Murphy’s visit ‘home’ from England23 and finish with his last visit, which sadly coincides with his death, but it also focuses on the successful re-integration of Joe and Kate Ruttledge, themselves previously emigrated to London. «By revealing how an emigré’s sense of belonging to his homeland can be fatally affected by the actions of the community he leaves behind,» Murray revealingly remarks, McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun «provides subtle insights into the psychological and cultural dynamics of diaspora» (Ibid.).
- 24 Johnny’s decision to leave, indeed, was not made out of economic necessity: «You went and had no ne (...)
- 25 In order to sever his emotional ties to the homeland (Murray, 2014, p. 93), before leaving for Lond (...)
20Johnny’s departure, which took place at a time when «[t]he whole country was leaving for England» (McGahern, 2009, p. 5), was not his own choice,24 but a woman’s he was desperately in love with, who, however, «was using him. […] She had only to say the word and she’d get anything she wanted» (Ibid.). Although, effectively, that woman did not reciprocate his feelings and got married to another man, Johnny nonetheless remained in England on his own, but was never happy over there: leaving was, according to his brother, «the move that ruined his life. He’d have been better if he’d shot himself instead of the dogs»25 (McGahern, 2009, p. 6).
- 26 Despite his voluntary departure, Johnny nonetheless retained his Irish identity almost intact: «Sun (...)
- 27 Most probably, Johnny regrets his decision to leave. During a conversation with one of his friends, (...)
- 28 At their refusal to welcome him back ‘home’, «Johnny wrote that he completely understood what a bad (...)
- 29 «If he was to come home, if he was in the house», Johnny’s relatives claim, «we’d have to leave. It (...)
21Despite twenty years in England, Johnny has never managed to call it ‘home’ and, more importantly, belong there:26 regardless of the long time spent in London, indeed, the man, in the end, «has kept his social ties with Ireland intact»27 (Murray, 2014, p. 94). His strong emotional bond to Ireland and the dear ones left behind emerges in particular when, unexpectedly, he loses his job, and writes a letter to his family about his prospect of moving back to Ireland for good, at which he receives the courteous advice not to return ‘home,’ where he would certainly experience outsiderness (McGahern, 2009, p. 198). «Such is Johnny’s naive respect for their judgement,» Murray suggests, «he fails to see that the letter (while well-meaning) represents the self-interests of those who stayed over those who left»28 (Murray, 2014, p. 95). Johnny’s family, indeed, evidently does not want to welcome him back: «They could not live with him and they could not be seen – in their own eyes or in the eyes of the others – to refuse him shelter or turn him away»29 (McGahern, 2009, p. 195), but it basically is what really happens. In the end, they persuade him not to go back ‘home,’ where, indeed, he is effectively perceived as an outsider, a man who voluntarily abandoned his ‘home’ not to ever return if not for short visits (Murray, 2014, p. 95). Paradoxically, it is not even Johnny’s brother who writes the letter, but the aforementioned Joe Ruttledge, himself a return migrant who, instead, had eventually managed to re-settle in his native village. Despite a good job and an «easy and comfortable» life (McGahern, 2009, p. 20), Joe and his wife, Kate, had not ever felt ‘at home’ in England: «[I]t’s not my country,» Joe claims, «and I never feel it’s quite real or that my life there is real» (McGahern, 2009, p. 20).
22It is during his last visit ‘home,’ however, that Johnny unexpectedly passes away: «it appears», Murray observes, «that his frustration at being denied the opportunity to determine his own destiny has accelerated his demise» (Murray, 2014, p. 95). Not only had his relatives’ refusal to welcome him back, if not for short ‘visits,’ deprived him of his ‘home’ and, by extension, homeland, but also of the feelings that Johnny associated with that very place, the one and only site of his belonging. «Condemned never to achieve the home he desires,» Murray contends, «his identity appears to be adrift from its moorings on both sides of the Irish Sea» (Ibid.).
23While it is certainly true that leaving ‘home,’ regardless of the reasons, impresses irreversible, incurable wounds on emigrants’ heart and mind, returning, whether temporarily or permanently, potentially has similar devastating effects on those who, at some point, decide to go back to the place they once called ‘home,’ but soon after realize they no longer belong there: inevitably, neither are the place nor they themselves the same as before their departure.
24Although deeply influenced by each one’s distinctive experiences of departure and return, the protagonists of Moore’s, O’Brien’s, Brennan’s, and McGahern’s writings analysed in closer detail in the previous pages return ‘home’ because, after all, that is where they want or, better, need to be and belong, the one and only place which infuses them with positive memories dating back to the earliest phases of their life: the one and only site of their identity. It is only in their memory, however, that their very ‘home’ has continued to be the same: sooner or later, all returnees have to come to terms with the ambivalent sensations generated by being back to somewhere which is only meant to be the scenario of their ‘previous life.’
25While it most often is migrants’ own pervasive sense of not belonging anymore to their ‘home of memory’ to determine their ‘impossible return,’ in some cases even for short visits, their family’s, friends’, and dear ones’ reaction to their homecoming undoubtedly acquires equal importance in returnees’ re-integration into their native community. Torn between their native and adopted countries and most often disheartened by their sense of not belonging to either of them, return migrants’ have to cope with the resentful, unwelcoming ‘welcome back home’ of those who stayed put, themselves compelled to construct a life anew because of someone else’s selfish decision. As one of the characters of McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002) revealingly remarks, indeed, «[t]here’s a big differ between visiting and belonging» (McGahern, 2009, p. 99).