When I was 18, I left Dublin and moved to Paris. I didn't speak French. I didn't know anyone. I felt like a fish out of water.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I didn't start traveling abroad until I was 17, but I spent many summers on the beaches of Donegal in Ireland.
I came to Ireland 20 years ago as a student, hitch-hiking round for a week and staying in Dublin.
The next thing that happened to me was that I, we, were living in Paris where I then grew up.
After I graduated from college, while traveling around Europe, hitchhiking, doing the tourist thing, I went into a church in Dublin.
I had quite a scattered childhood. I was Irish in London, because I had my secondary school education there. I never really fitted anywhere. I didn't feel it was a negative thing, and I was never made to feel different - I just knew I was.
I was born in Paris and raised in the suburbs and then lived in the countryside.
When I moved to Paris at 16, I held a dinner party in my first apartment and served only red wine, French fries, and mashed potatoes. Unable to cook, I relied on people taking me out.
We spoke French at home and I didn't know any English until I went to school. My mother was French and met my father when he visited France as a student on a teaching placement.
Six months later I was in Paris. I was 16, and it all started to happen.
I'm completely English, but I grew up in Paris and went to school here. My parents moved when I was five.