It is always in nature where I feel at home the way I once did as a child.
In the long human story of belonging, few questions cut deeper than where we feel most ourselves — and for one woman, the answer was buried in a childhood garden in North Cork, waiting to be rediscovered. When the pandemic stilled the rhythms of Dublin life in 2020, three months in Kerry became a reckoning: the hedgerows and oak trees of Kenmare spoke in the same language as her grandparents' demolished cottage, and the city, for all its hard-won comforts, could not answer back. Six years on, she lives on the outskirts of Kenmare, holding the trade-offs of rural life with clear eyes — proof that home is less a place we choose than one we eventually recognise.
- A woman who spent two decades building a Dublin life — apartment, career, social world — finds that none of it quite silenced the pull of the countryside she had left behind.
- The pandemic lockdown of 2020 does not merely disrupt her routine; it dismantles the story she had been telling herself about who she was and where she belonged.
- Walking Kerry's hedgerows during those three suspended months, she is ambushed by a happiness she last felt as a child in her grandparents' garden — and the force of it changes everything.
- She settles in Kenmare, discovers neighbourliness she never found in her apartment block, and builds a daily life measured in walks, familiar faces, and the rhythms of the natural world.
- Yet the cost is real: four hours from Dublin friends, she carries the ache of Thursday evenings and South William Street mornings, navigating the quiet grief of a life not taken.
There is a cottage in North Cork that no longer exists, yet it shaped everything that came after. When the author returned to Ashgrove in 2020, she found only a modern bungalow where her grandparents' home had stood — the box hedges, the apple trees, the cracked pathway all erased. It was the physical proof that childhood cannot be revisited. And yet, as she would discover, it had never truly left her.
She had spent her twenties and thirties building a Dublin life, eventually buying an apartment in Kilmainham in 2018 — her one concession to her rural instincts being a view of beech, sycamore and oak along South Circular Road. She worked in sales for Gill Books, travelling frequently through Kerry, where she met her husband and spent increasing time in Kenmare. Dublin was home, or so she believed, until the weekend before St. Patrick's Day 2020, when Leo Varadkar made his speech and she found herself in Kerry with a cabin-sized suitcase and a work laptop, expecting a brief stay.
Three months followed. Instead of resentment, something older surfaced. Walking Kerry's hedgerows, she learned to spot forget-me-nots and wild garlic, picked blackberries, watched swallows in the evening light. The sensations were not new — they were Ashgrove Cottage, her grandparents, the Blackwater Valley glowing in summer sun. The happiness she had felt there as a child, unnamed at the time, was suddenly present again.
Six years on, she lives on the outskirts of Kenmare and loves it. Neighbours mind her elderly dog, accept her parcels, chat with her in the coffee queue — a texture of community she had never found in her Dublin apartment block, a lack she now recognises as her own. She takes daily walks through Tubbrid and along Kenmare Pier, with MacGillycuddy's Reeks on the horizon.
But there is a cost she does not minimise. She is four hours from her Dublin friends, and there are Thursday evenings and South William Street mornings she genuinely misses. Her Kilmainham apartment — hard-won as a single first-time buyer — was a real achievement, and she is proud of it. It has simply been put away.
What she understands now is that nature and home were never separate things. They merged in her childhood at Ashgrove and merged again during lockdown when she walked among the oaks of Reenagross, where the estuary opens below Kenmare town. Ashgrove Cottage is gone. The joy she found there remains, and she revisits it every time she steps into the countryside around her adopted town.
There is a cottage in North Cork that no longer exists, but it shaped everything that came after. In 2020, when the author visited Ashgrove in the townland outside Ballyhooly, she found only a modern bungalow where her grandparents' home had stood. The old cracked pathway was gone. The box-hedged gardens had vanished. The conifers and apple trees and blackcurrant bushes—all erased. In their place: neat lawn, new construction, and behind it the sloping pastures of Greenfield farm descending toward the Blackwater Valley. It was a small shock, the physical proof that childhood cannot be revisited. Yet the cottage itself, though demolished, had never really left her.
She had spent her twenties and thirties running from it. After teenage dreams of New York, she built a life in Dublin—first in various city centres, then in a purchased apartment in Kilmainham in 2018. The only concession to her roots was a simple requirement: the apartment had to have a view of trees. It did. From her windows she could see the avenue of beech, sycamore and oak lining South Circular Road, and in winter, when the leaves fell away, a glimpse of Phoenix Park and the Wellington Monument. She worked as a sales representative for Gill Books, traveling half her week through rural Kerry, where she met her husband. She spent increasing time in Kenmare. But Dublin was home, or so she believed.
Then came the weekend before St. Patrick's Day 2020. Leo Varadkar made his speech. The pandemic arrived. And she found herself in Kenmare with a cabin-sized suitcase of clothes and her work laptop, settling in for what she thought would be a brief lockdown. Three months stretched ahead. She expected to resent it—the distance from friends, the absence of restaurants and cocktails and the particular social texture of city life. Something else happened instead.
During those lockdown months, she rediscovered hedgerows. She learned to spot forget-me-nots, celandines, wild garlic. She picked blackberries. She walked beneath oak trees and watched swallows dive and dance in the early evening. The sensations were not new; they were ancient. They were Ashgrove Cottage. They were her grandparents—Nana in her headscarf and Claddagh brooch, Granddad in his cap with his sore knee—bringing her and her sisters to that wild garden on summer afternoons. They were the Blackwater Valley, smooth green fields glowing fluorescent in the sun, forests of sycamore and oak, hedgerows heavy with blackberries and wild plums and crab apples. The happiness she had felt there as a child, unnamed and unrecognized at the time, was suddenly present again.
Six years have passed. She lives now on the outskirts of Kenmare, and she loves it. She takes daily walks—through Tubbrid, along Kenmare Pier, around the wishing well in Dromore. Slightly further afield are MacGillycuddy's Reeks and Carrauntoohil. She knows her neighbours. They mind her elderly dog. They accept parcels from the postman. She chats with them while queuing for coffee. This was not her life in Dublin. She did not know the people in her apartment block, and she understands now that the fault was hers.
But there is a cost. She is four hours from her Dublin friends. There are Thursday evenings she imagines—opening a bottle of wine, putting the world to rights. There are mornings on South William Street she misses, the coffee and gossip and people-watching. She still thinks fondly of her Dublin apartment, hard-won as a single first-time buyer without family money. It was an achievement. She is proud of it. But it has been put away.
The truth, as she understands it now, is that nature and home are not separate things. They merged in her childhood at Ashgrove, in those afternoons in the garden and the adventures through the surrounding valley. They merged again during lockdown, when she walked in Reenagross—the small reserve of oaks sloping down from Kenmare town to the estuary, where greenshanks pick for worms at low tide. It is always in nature, in meadows of uncut grass or forests with dappled light, where she feels at home the way she once did as a child. Ashgrove Cottage may be gone. The joy she experienced there remains, and she revisits it every time she steps into the countryside around her adopted town.
Citas Notables
I remain a country boy at heart, despite my teenage daydreams of living in New York, and ultimately spending my 20s and most of my 30s living in various city centres.— The author
During those lockdown months, I rediscovered within myself a love of hedgerows, of spotting forget-me-nots, celandines and wild garlic, picking blackberries, walking under the sinuous arms of oak trees.— The author
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
You spent your thirties building a life in Dublin—an apartment, a career, a social circle. What made you actually stay in Kenmare when the lockdown ended?
I think I expected to leave. But those three months changed something fundamental. I wasn't just passing through anymore. I was living in the rhythms of the place—the walks, the seasons, the people who became familiar. By the time lockdown lifted, I realized I didn't want to go back.
But you lost something too. You mention missing your Dublin friends, missing Thursday nights. That's not a small thing.
It's not. And I don't want to pretend it is. There's a real grief in that distance. But I've come to understand that I was chasing something in Dublin that I'd already lost—or rather, that I'd left behind at my grandparents' cottage. The city was never going to give me that back.
So it's not really about Dublin versus Kenmare. It's about what home actually means to you.
Exactly. For me, home is inseparable from nature. From walking under trees, from knowing my neighbours, from the particular peace of a small community. Dublin gave me other things—independence, achievement, a certain kind of freedom. But it didn't give me that.
Do you ever regret selling the apartment?
I haven't sold it. I still own it. But I've let it go in every other way. I can love what it was without needing to live there anymore. That's been the hardest part—accepting that both things can be true.