For as long as I remember, Ireland has been the object of my longing and fascination. The Emerald Isle is full of magical creatures, fairy wanderers, and Celtic mythological stories. Being a redhead may have subconsciously fueled my search for a homeland where I could truly belong. As you can imagine, my hair colour and social awkwardness didn’t exactly help me fit in as a child growing up in a small, post-communist Polish town.

Greyness! All I remember from that period was greyness and the dull existence between the first floor of a 100-year-old tenement building and my equally old, gigantic school, where noise, chaos, and bullying were the main stimuli one was confronted with upon entering. All that, and maybe more, pushed me towards dreaming big and dreaming green.

Green became my favourite colour, present in most of my outfits, while Irish folk tunes played on a tape recorder. Luckily, English was always in my daily life. My dad was a teacher, and he taught himself English, German, French, and Italian. He taught us English, but it wasn’t just about the language—we were immersed in English culture, a passion that was contagious in our household. I never felt embarrassed about speaking the language, which was the language of my soul—the songs I grew up with: The Beatles, Queen, King Crimson, Leonard Cohen.

Feelings were tied to English, while stress, unfortunately, was tied to Polish. But that’s how it was. So, years later, I managed to escape the greyness and move to Ireland, where 12 beautiful years of my life unfolded, which became a fond memory of the Emerald Isle.