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My father's parents were Irish. Only a year before my father died, he and I went back to Ireland for a week to look at the old homestead.

I was brought up Irish, where there was room for my own private world.

I'm from an Irish Catholic family.

I know Irish-American people. I know what their homes look like. I know what they have for dinner. I know how they turn a phrase.

Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me.

I'm a product of my Irish culture, and I could no more lose that than I could my sense of identity.

I own nothing; I just stay with friends all over the country.

I grew up in northwest London on a council estate. My parents are Irish immigrants who came over here when they were very young and worked in menial jobs all their lives, and I'm one of many siblings.

I don't really go around feeling very Irish at all. I don't go to Irish pubs. I've lived so many places, and I'm still so curious about the bigger world. It's grand to be alive in a time when mobility is so accessible.

I knew I was going to lose my house in Ireland and all the other properties. It's all gone. But my house was the one material thing that was very important to me.