Cork broadcaster PJ Coogan: 'We have to trust that the call of home will be strong enough'

I wrote in last year’s Holly Bough about my daughter, Jemma, who’s currently in Melbourne, working as a veterinary nurse in what they call a “referral practice”. She’s gaining huge experience and learning so much every day about the work that she loves to do.

This time last year, we were coming to terms with not having her home for Christmas. I was pleasantly taken aback by the reaction to my few scribbles. I met and was contacted by many other parents of young people who are overseas. They told me how it had struck a chord with them, brought a lump to their throat, but also made them smile.

I won’t lie. Christmas wasn’t the same. How could it be? Our family is divided by a gulf of 17,415 (to be precise about it, like!) kilometres. That having been said, we had a lovely video call on Christmas Day. We have an annual ritual of drinks and nibbles at my brother’s house. She dialled in and joined the festivities remotely for about ten minutes, and it literally “made” Christmas.

Jemma came home in March for a month and we lived every day to the full. We talked a lot about her adventures Down Under, and it was written all over her face how much she is loving this stage of her life. She’s a vibrant, gorgeous, happy, independent, young woman, living her dreams. At 28 now, she’s all grown up – but she’s still our baby girl. She’s also still the one that got (in her Mam’s opinion anyway!) far too much of her Dad’s DNA.

As I turned 60 this year (shock!, horror!), I realised I don’t have many regrets in life. I’ve spent over 40 of those years doing a job I love. I have a fabulous family and a wonderful circle of friends. I am in good health, besides a bit of arthritis. I’m a lucky man with much cause to be grateful. 

If there’s one regret I do have, it’s that I didn’t do what Jemma is doing now. I certainly thought about it. 

Queen Bee and I, dating at the time, even discussed it, but visas were harder to come by back then. I was literally one week too old for the most popular programme at the time, so it never happened.

As I hugged Jemma at Dublin Airport in January 2024, I whispered to her “go, and see what I didn’t. Have those adventures .. but then come home.”

If I’m honest, I am, in a small way, living it decades later through her eyes.

Heading into 2026, I’ve a feeling she has more to see and do. When she was home in the spring, we talked a lot. “I promise you, Dad”, she said, over a beer, “I’ll wake up one morning and decide I’ve had enough, and then I’ll be home. This is not forever, it’s just for now..” We clinked bottles and I said “I’ll bloody hold you to that, kid..!”

There will be an empty chair at the Christmas dinner table again this year, as she continues her adventure. She’s going camping in South Australia. It has to be done, as they say. We’ll see her during 2026, and like the last time, that visit can’t come soon enough, but I’ve thought a lot about families like ours since I wrote in last year’s Holly Bough.

Thousands of young people are leaving these shores for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the wider EU and beyond. The official figures tell us that within anything from one to five years, the vast majority will come home. They will see what they need to see, do what they need to do, live their best lives and then come back to Ireland. Modern technology means we can talk to them – see their faces - on Christmas Day – or every day if we want to. Photos and messages go from Cork to Melbourne or Midleton to Montreal in seconds. 

It’s not, and never will be the same as sharing out the turkey and ham with them, fighting for the last spoon of JJ O’Driscoll’s special gravy, but still, the world isn’t so huge any more.

As I wrote last year, dreams are there to be lived, and who are we to stand in the way. As parents, we give them wings to fly – so we have to be willing to let them spread those wings when the time comes. Yes, some will settle. Some chicks will build their nest in a faraway tree, so to speak. There’s not a parent reading these words, I’ll bet, who deep down, doesn’t fear that. I know I do – but we have to just trust that the call of home will be strong enough.

In our case, my heart tells me it will, and that makes me happy in the moments we miss her most.

Without being political, because the Holly Bough is not the publication for that, I hope our leaders recognise they have a duty to amplify that call. In our case, Jemma and her partner, Ian, are skilled young professionals with every prospect of good jobs to come home to when the time is right. There are thousands like them. Government needs to help create an Ireland where they can, in time, find a place to live and settle back down. Nobody I know blames the Government for our sons and daughters deciding to “head off and see the world”, but if they don’t come back because there might not be a future for them – then we’ll have a different conversation – but I suppose that must be for another day.

For now, from our family to yours – wherever they are, Happy Christmas.

This story appeared in the 2025 Holly Bough .