Corkonians Abroad: Our creative lives in New York and London

MEGAN HALY

How did you find yourself in London?

I moved to London in 2019 after I graduated from college. I did Drama and Theatre Studies at MTU Cork School of Music so moving to London to pursue a career in the arts felt like the natural next step. However, due to Covid, I did move home for over a year and a half so I sometimes feel like I’m still finding my feet.

What is life like in London?

I love it here. I live with two of my best friends from Cork, which is so great. One of them is a casting director and the other is an audiologist - so it’s a nice mix.

I also have my sister and some cousins in London, which really helped when I first moved over. It’s really comforting to have a piece of home here with you.

What has been the biggest challenge?

For me, my biggest challenge is also something that I love most about living in London. 

I travel a lot between Ireland and London for work, which I am so grateful for, and it’s one of the reasons I chose to move to London because the commute is so easy. 

But sometimes it does mean that I don’t have my feet in either place and I think that can be hard sometimes.

What has helped me is just to really throw myself into London when I am here - go on daytrips and explore new places - and it helps to make it feel like home.

Tell us a bit about the culture of where you live?

I find a big difference between London and Cork is the people. Obviously, this can’t be said about everybody but I was so used to making eye contact with people and saying hello to random strangers and that is something that does not happen here.

I remember being on a walk on my first week in London and saying hello and smiling to someone I passed, and the look I got back! Safe to say I stopped doing that for a while. I also find people are always in such a rush to get to where they need to go.

Tell us about your career?

I am an actor/writer/director. After graduating from college, I made a few short films with my sister Shannon. We would gather a group of like-minded people and get together, (usually on zero budget) and make a film over the course of a few days. This really sparked my interest in creating my own work.

The feeling you get when you get to work on something that you’ve written, with incredible people all working together to make the best thing possible, is really special.

Being an actor is the best job in the world but it is also really hard, the lack of control over your career can be really difficult sometimes, so I do find that having something I can control - writing and making my own work - can really help me to keep busy during the quiet periods.

What are you looking forward to in the coming months?

Shannon and I have written a play together called Cortisol. We are both in our twenties and had been finding this period of our life very lonely, difficult and confusing and we spoke to many friends of similar ages who were all feeling the same way.

We wanted to interrogate the myth we are fed that ‘your 20s are the best years of your life’. The play was developed as part of the CATALYST programme supported by The Everyman, Cork City Council & Cork Arts Theatre, where we had two sold out staged readings last September. It was also selected to be read in New York for Plays in May, a joint initiative between the Irish Rep and Origin Theatre, where we performed another sold out reading.

We are hoping to perform the full production this year in Ireland, which is really exciting.

Any special mentions to friends or family back in Cork?

We are so lucky to have the most supportive family at home. They have come to every show, watched every film, but most importantly been there for us on the days when things didn’t go our way. We wouldn’t be where we are today without them.

SHANNON HALY

Tell us how you came to be living in New York?

I moved here in 2018 to study acting at the Stella Adler studio of acting and have been here for six years now.

What is life like in your new home?

I have always loved the energy in New York. There is an air of ‘anything can happen’ that I think can really benefit you when you’re working in the arts.

I am also really fortunate to have such a strong Irish community over here with people that really look out for each other. The creative director of Origin Theatre, Mick Mellamphy, is a fellow Cork man and has always been so supportive of my work and a great friend, which has definitely helped in keeping the homesickness at bay.

New York is also a great place to become whatever version of yourself you want to be. 

As a 19-year old Queer girl from Cork, I really felt like I was free to be the truest version of myself for the first time when I arrived in New York. It gave me the space to figure all of that out. I feel like I owe a lot to this city.

What has been the biggest challenge?

My biggest challenge having been away for so long is missing certain milestones back home. I left Ireland when my baby sister was 12 and now she is 19 and living in Edinburgh for college. In a lot of ways, I feel like I completely missed her growing up.

The same goes for time with my parents and my grandparents and always missing birthdays and family reunions, etc. 

Even though of course it’s my own choice to be here, it can often feel like you’re on the outside looking in on life back home. I think the only way to tackle that is to be really present when I am at home and being consistent with regular FaceTimes (which can be difficult with the time zones, etc).

My visa expires in March and I will be coming home for a while and I can’t even tell you how excited I am to be close to my family again.

When I was younger, all I wanted was to get out of Ireland and now I’m 25 and all I want is to be back home, it’s funny.

Tell us about your career?

I am an actor/writer/producer. The past few years I have been working a lot on my own work.

My sister, Megan and I have co-written a play together called Cortisol which is all about how being in our twenties has felt like the antithesis to everything we expected it to be.

I have a little role on a TV show We Were The Lucky Ones that is coming to HULU in March that I am really excited about.

I have written a short film Dollar Baby’s that I am acting in, also in March in LA. Megan is flying in to direct it for us, which I am so excited for.

What has been your most memorable moment in your new location so far?

Megan and I performed a staged reading of Cortisol at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC last May for Origin Theatre’s ‘Plays in May’. it was the first time the play was shown to an audience.

Having Megan in the city I live in and performing in an Irish off-Broadway theatre in Manhattan felt surreal and just so special to be up there doing it together as sisters.

If you were back in Cork for one day, what would be the ideal day for you?

I would wake up and walk up to my grandparents’ house next door with my family, and we’d all have a pot of tea and chat about everything.

Then we’d go to the Lee Fields, get a coffee from Coffee Brothers and go for a walk. I’d call over to my best friends’ house, we’d walk into town to get an Alchemy (which we’ve been doing since we were 16), then I’d get in the car and drive to Crosshaven for a sauna swim, get some fish and chips on the way home, and watch a movie with my family in front of the fire.