{"id":537079,"date":"2026-07-07T07:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537079\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:30:11","slug":"from-boston-to-ireland-its-been-almost-three-years-but-im-still-a-foreigner-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537079\/","title":{"rendered":"From Boston to Ireland: \u2018It\u2019s been almost three years, but I\u2019m still a foreigner\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Connolly, who moved from Boston to Ireland in 2023, sometimes feels \u201cnot quite Irish enough for Ireland and not quite American enough for America<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old initially thought he was going to take a career break and move to Galway<\/a> for six months on a J1 visa. At the time he was feeling burnt out and disillusioned after working in politics in Washington for a few years. <\/p>\n

\u201cI realised that I needed a break from the toxicity that permeates everything right now in the American political environment,\u201d Connolly says. \u201cI chose Galway because I had relations there and I\u2019d been before. It was a natural place for me to land.\u201d<\/p>\n

His grandparents had emigrated from Connemara to the US, but some of his extended family still live in the area. <\/p>\n

Connolly worked in a coffee shop in Galway and quickly made friends through work. He especially enjoyed how walkable the city was compared to American cities he had lived in. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe best and worst thing about Galway is that you can walk down the street and see the same 10 people every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his J1 visa expired he went back to the US but found it hard to readjust to life there. <\/p>\n

\u201cI quickly realised that I missed Ireland. I missed the craic. I missed the people. I even missed the weather, God forbid.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018My family and friends said, if you can stay in Europe, stay in Europe\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In the end he applied, and was accepted on to, a master\u2019s programme at the University of Galway and returned to Ireland after six months. While he really enjoyed his degree and made many new friends on his master\u2019s course, by the end of it he began to feel he had outgrown Galway. Luckily enough he was offered a job in public relations in Dublin as soon as he finished his degree.<\/p>\n

\"JackJack Connolly: ‘The west is completely different than the Pale.’ Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

\u201cBoston and Dublin are roughly the same size geographically and population-wise, so I\u2019m very familiar with a city of this size with this pace of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Dublin, Connolly found he had to make more of a conscious effort to make friends and develop a community but has found it a rewarding process nonetheless. His friendships in Dublin are more disparate and don\u2019t overlap with one another like they did in Galway. <\/p>\n

While he has found his new life here incredibly fulfilling in many ways, he struggles with feelings of guilt of having to miss out on family events back home. <\/p>\n

\u201cI call my grandmother who is approaching 90 every day, which I do for both her and for me. She\u2019s getting old and it helps with companionship. I\u2019m very close to her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connolly has felt the same way when he was living in the US but away from Boston. <\/p>\n

\u201cI actively remind myself that people are there at the end of the day and that as long as you make that effort you can still maintain those relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s a romanticised view of Ireland, which is not bad, as it pumps up the economy here with tourism\u2019<\/p>\n

Growing up in Boston, Connolly was brought up in a community that celebrated its Irish roots and felt, to a certain degree, Irish. Moving to Ireland made him realise how American he is. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been almost three years cumulatively, but I\u2019m still reminded that I\u2019m a foreigner.\u201d <\/p>\n

Since moving here, he has realised the disconnect between Ireland today and the Ireland that Irish-Americans grow up hearing about: the Ireland that was passed down to them was the Ireland that their ancestors left \u2013 not today\u2019s Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a romanticised view of Ireland, which is not bad, as it pumps up the economy here with tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n

For him, one of the biggest culture shocks was how different the different regions of the country are from one another, given Ireland\u2019s small size. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe west is completely different than the Pale. That goes to history and to the cultural influences and the UK\u2019s influence in different parts of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0A US couple in Clonmel: \u2018America is me-me-me-me. Ireland still has that community feeling\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A lot of the time when Connolly meets new people, and they hear his accent, he is immediately asked about Donald Trump<\/a>. While he understands why people are curious, he finds having to regularly answer this question tiresome. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t vote for the man and I\u2019m not a fan of his, which I think is kind of evident given the fact that I am living over here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes he feels that seismic events in American politics are trivialised in Ireland. An example of this would be how Irish people talk about the storming of the US Capitol Building<\/a> on January 6th, 2022. For Connolly it was the moment when he realised that he wanted to get out of US politics, and a catalyst for his later decision to move to Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Irish people may have the same opinions as I do about certain political topics, there is an inherent disconnect as you cannot understand it in the same visceral sense that I do because it\u2019s not your country.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, when Connolly goes back to the US, he he is reminded of how well he has acclimatised to Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say that moving here is probably the best decision I have made in my adult life, but I don\u2019t know if I will stay. I don\u2019t think anyone knows if they will stay somewhere. But for the foreseeable future, this is where I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com<\/a> or send us two lines about yourself using the form below <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Connolly, who moved from Boston to Ireland in 2023, sometimes feels \u201cnot quite Irish enough for Ireland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,969,615,4500,61,60,37614,5761,90,85573],"class_list":["post-537079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-dublin","tag-galway","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-new-to-the-parish","tag-university-of-galway","tag-us","tag-us-capitol-riot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}