Corkonians Abroad: 'I’ve lived in 15 countries and travelled through many more'

Tell us a little about your journey and travels across the globe so far, Julie?

I’m one of life’s vagabonds.

Did you know that when we started walking out of Africa, modern humans spread out at 15km a year? That’s how we colonised the planet so quickly.

I reckon 15% of people are born wanting to know what’s over the horizon. I’m one of those - restless. I always knew I’d be on my way early.

The family story is that I ‘ran away to Dublin’ when I was three - I went up with my grandmother to stay with my aunt and uncle and stayed there when she went back to Cork.

My father called after three weeks and asked when I was coming home and apparently I said, ‘I don’t know’.

I’ve lived in 15 countries and travelled through many more.

At 21, I moved to Amsterdam, three years later I left and I spent four months hiking around Patagonia, camping beside glaciers and listening to them groan and move.

After that, I helped run a farm in Vermont for a while (we made a lot of Maple Syrup the old-fashioned way).

Then I bought a sailboat (despite spending all my summers swimming in storms in Myrtleville, I’d never been on a boat before - can you imagine that?) and I spent a year and a half learning to sail and getting her ready, then sailed from the San Francisco Bay to Panama, through the canal and into the Caribbean, before selling her in Mexico.

It was the hardest and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

I remember waking up one morning, 20 miles off the Caribbean coast of Panama, anchored in the middle of a coral reef and looking around. ‘All of these horizons are mine’, I thought. ‘I’ve built this boat. I can go anywhere in the world.’ I’ll never have that sense of freedom again.

How did you end up in Rome?

I was living in the UK during Brexit. I was walking to work listening to the radio, listening to the results of the referendum coming in, and I just thought, ‘This isn’t my country any more. It’s a vote for a smaller and meaner world’.

So I left. I was in Bangkok eight weeks later.

I lived there for two years and thought it was time to try living back in Europe. My parents were getting older and I wanted to see them more. My brothers and sisters were getting older too - they’d collected new partners and friends and babies to love and houses to admire in the time I’d been gone. Thailand felt very far away.

I’d lived in the UK on and off for years, but I hadn’t lived in the European Union since the introduction of the euro.

I got a job in Switzerland, but it turned out they had liked me and offered me a job without really having one to give. By the time they told me, it was late in the year to be looking for work (I am a teacher, and on the international circuit, you hand in your notice in in December and secure a new job by February for a September start - if you are moving countries there is a lot to organise so it is all done relatively early).

The Swiss school told me there was no position in May, so it was a bit of a scramble to find work before the end of the school year.

A school in Rome offered me a job. I’d always been fascinated by ancient Rome and dreamed of going there my whole life, so I was thrilled to take the job.

What is life like in your new home?

I moved to a new apartment two years ago and I love it. I got it from an old lady who had lived here since the 1960s and I’m surrounded by her furniture - it’s very ‘dolce vita’.

I’ve painted the walls bright green. I have a chandelier in the bedroom, which feels extremely fancy. A friend told me the other day it’s very granny chic.

I live in a working-class neighbourhood 2km from the Colosseum. It’s off the tourist track, but just a short walk from the Tiber River. Along the riverbanks, there’s a park with a cafe where I enjoy relaxing on warm evenings.

The entire neighbourhood turns up as the temperature cools and takes a ‘passeggiata’, eager to get outside again - they’re a social people, after all, and we’ve been trapped inside by the heat all day (we get weeks of 35C).

The volume rises. The foosball tables fill up, and the ping pong. Mamas and papas leave children in the play area and get a drink, idly watching them. Old people sit under the cafe umbrellas and laugh with friends they’ve been meeting here for 20 years, mothers argue with adult daughters about how to raise the kids and the proper way to cook chicory while evening turns into night-time.

There is an amp stand you can hook instruments up to and on summer evenings I’ve watched children plug in their cellos and perform. Then someone will come and run a swing dance class.

There are art exhibitions and information days about the wildlife along the Tiber. I sit there with my spritz and I think, ‘Why would I be anywhere else?’

What has been the biggest challenge?

If you had told me - anyone - that Italy would be an example to the rest of the world on what to do in a pandemic, I would have laughed at you.

I think it is because ‘big’ society doesn’t function properly here, ‘small’ society does. And Italians really care about their health.

The government said to Italians, ‘Do you want to kill your nonna?’ and every Italian said, ‘F**k no!’ So the government replied: ‘Well, stay inside then!’ And we did, at enormous cost to our mental and financial health.

I had a broken back during the lockdown: three herniated discs. Lots of painkillers. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t speak the language. The army was bringing out the dead. I couldn’t get help.

It was the biggest medical emergency in 100 years and no-one knew what to do with me. It was the most disempowering and bewildering period of my life.

Tell us about your line of work/career?

I spend all day with little people who believe in magic. It’s good for the soul but trying on my patience.

I teach Junior Infants, Senior Infants and First Class in international schools. I love it.

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

In Italy, the government gave you a day off when you got your covid vaccine. Travel restrictions were still in place, so I booked my vaccine for early in the morning and spent the rest of the day in a practically deserted coliseum and forum, imagining the past.

Walking around the empty streets of Rome, exploring the old buildings, was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The Roman opera house moves to the ruins of an ancient baths in Rome for the summer season and they project the set of the opera onto the massive old ruined walls behind the stage. It’s an incredible experience.

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

I’d go down to Myrtleville and look at the ocean. Rome has a lot of things, but quiet is not one of them!

What are you looking forward to in the coming months?

I have rented a place in the Alps in the north of Italy for the entire month of July. I am going to escape the heat of Rome and spend every day hiking and reading and breathing real air.

Is there anything that you especially miss about Cork?

In Cork, we do not have the food culture that Italy has. We come from potatoes and milk, basically. But we did have long evenings and fires, and that’s where our culture comes from.

In Ireland, you are expected to be able to entertain - you can sing a song if you want, but we are storytelling people. Even the anecdotes we tell each other need to be entertaining.