Somewhere Over The Rainbow (2021). My parents' arrived separately from Ireland to the UK in 1954. They didn't talk much about their arrival here, but constantly referred to Ireland as home. Throughout their lives, they held onto the notion of 'returning' to the motherland. For both of them migration offered an escape from difficult social circumstances as they followed a long tradition of Irish migrant labour. Their expectations like so many others were at odds with the realities of post war Britain, but despite having the choice to do so, they remained here in the UK and died in Birmingham with the request that their ashes be strewn in Snowdonia somewhere along the route they drove from Birmingham to Holyhead to catch the ferry to and from Ireland. They like so many others were trapped in a place of in-betweenness. A liminal place of disconnect, reaffirming the homelessness or lack of 'home' embedded within the breath. Sometimes consciously, most of the time unconscious—passed down from generation to generation.


