A recent survey conducted by FRS Recruitment stated that three out of 10 Irish people living abroad are planning to return to Ireland for Christmas.

The survey also found that 84% of respondents would have come had it not been for the pandemic.

There are two particular countries – long since established hotspots for the Irish abroad – where travelling home for Christmas isn’t an option. Well, not unless you don’t want to go back again.

Of course we’re referring to Australia and New Zealand, where the borders for international travel have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic, and look to remain so until the situation improves significantly.

New Zealand has achieved zero COVID-19 cases for some time now and Australia has very low levels of transmission, allowing life there to return to near normal.

From the good to the bad and the happy to the sad, Irish Country Living discusses Christmas 2020 with three Irish people living in Australia and New Zealand.

We find out how their Christmas plans have changed due to the pandemic, how they’ll be celebrating this year and what they’ll miss most about Christmas at home.

Félim O’Leary,

Wellington, New Zealand via Limerick, Ireland

Félim O'Leary playing hurling for Wellington GAA.

When Irish Country Living rings Félim O’Leary on his day off from psychiatric nursing in Wellington Regional Hospital, he’s writing Christmas cards to his grandparents Eileen and Paudie Holland.

Had things been different, he would have been home to see them at the start of December.

“My flights were going to be booked for the first week in December. I was going to come home for eight weeks this year. When I come home, I’d come home for two months nearly. The way I look at it, when I’m this far away I might as well be coming for that long.

“I was going to book the flights the first week in April, but COVID-19 was kicking off, so I held off. To be honest, I think this Christmas will be one of the toughest.”

From Pallaskenry, Co Limerick, Félim grew up farming with his father, who finishes beef cattle on their farm in nearby Askeaton. He has been away in both Australia and New Zealand for the past three and a half years. He came home two and a half years ago for his grandfather’s 80th birthday and hasn’t been back in Ireland since.

If he were able to come home for a visit, Félim would jump at the chance. The alternative option, returning for good, doesn’t appeal to him right now.

“If I was happy enough to go home, I would go home, but I’m not happy to go home. We’ve talked about this as a group out here, if we were able to go and come back, we’d be gone,” Félim says.

“The way it is in New Zealand now, we haven’t got COVID-19. We haven’t had a lockdown since August, we had a mini-lockdown then. Since the middle of September there hasn’t been a case in the community at all, which means pubs and things are open as normal.”

Travel bug

Having taken a leave of absence from his nursing job in Kerry General Hospital, Félim’s first year abroad was spent in Sydney, Australia. He completed farm work to get a second year visa.

“I did four months in Australia working on a cattle and sheep farm. It was great. When I was there they were having a drought, so everything was scorched. There was no grass. You’d spend hours every day feeding sheep and cattle, because there was nothing in the field.”

During his second year, Félim spent a lot of time travelling around Australia and nearby countries. His parents Killian and Margaret came to visit him. He left it a little too late to get sponsored, so in November 2019 he headed for New Zealand.

“I was in New Zealand for about a week and a half, I was travelling up the west coast and I knew there was a good chance I’d get a nursing job in Wellington. Then I thought, I really want to go driving tractors again and drawing silage.”

After making a few enquiries, Félim got a job drawing silage, which he did from November 2019 to the end of February 2020.

“I got the nursing job in Wellington the first week in March and I was delighted then, because COVID-19 hit the middle of March. It was just lucky that I got up here and got a room.”

Félim will be working on Christmas Day. “To be honest, I’m happy enough to be working Christmas Day, because I’m off Stephen’s Day and the day after,” he says. “The boys I’m friends with here, a lad from Kerry and a lad from Carlow, they’re staying around for Christmas.”

“I probably will go home in the next year, either for good or for a holiday. I’ll definitely be home by 2022. My leave of absence will be up from Kerry General.”

Laura Murphy

Melbourne, Australia via Wexford, Ireland

Laura Murphy saying goodbye to her dog Dolly at her home in Wexford Town before she headed to Melbourne in February.

Laura Murphy studied while working for three and a half years after college to become a chartered accountant, including sitting exams every summer. This left little time for travelling abroad.

However, after graduating in late 2019, she decided to remedy this, applying for a working holiday visa to Australia. She arrived in Melbourne on 23 February 2020. She travelled on her own and stayed with a friend from college at first. Other friends were to join her in two months, but that never happened. By mid-March they were in lockdown.

In that short time, Laura had already found a job and a place to live, but it wasn’t as easy as it may sound. With COVID-19 starting to gather pace worldwide, the jobs market was slowing. But she was in touch with recruiters before and after she arrived.

“On my second week here one of the recruiters rang to say there was a job coming up he thought would suit my experience. I went for an interview. It was just a one to two month contract initially,” Laura explains.

“It turns out I actually got on really well there and one month turned to two, turned to three. After about three months they told me they wanted to keep me on long-term and they would sort out the visa sponsorship documentation. I was pretty lucky in that, I fell into the right company. They’re a start-up finance company and I’m in a credit risk role at the moment.”

Laura was just one week in the office before she was sent to work from home. Melbourne had one of the longest lockdowns in the world, which was difficult at times, Laura says, but she felt very lucky to have had a job and good friends around her.

In recent weeks the state of Victoria, which Melbourne is in, has had no new COVID-19 cases. Life has started returning to some form of normal. Laura is now going into the office one day a week.

Nan’s pavlova

Laura’s parents lived in Clongeen, Co Wexford, up to two years ago, when they moved to Wexford Town. The plan pre-COVID-19 was they would come to Australia for Christmas 2020 and she would then come home next March to visit.

“Obviously, it’s so disappointing and it does make it hard, that I won’t get to spend it with them,” Laura says. “It will be my first Christmas away from home and away from my family.

“It was something to really look forward to when I came over first, knowing they would get over at Christmas. I think given the fact that it’s not going to be normal at home makes it a bit easier to be away, though.

“It being my first Christmas away from home, what I’ll miss the most is actually being at home with my family. I’ll miss my friends. I’ll definitely miss my mam’s cooking; I don’t think I’ll get anything like it over here. I’ll also really miss my nan’s pavlova.”

With internal Australian borders now open interstate, Laura is going to Sydney for Christmas to visit some friends.

Overall she feels, given the circumstances, she settled quite well Down Under. “I’ve surprised myself in terms of, I didn’t think I’d be over here this long. I probably didn’t think I’d agree to sponsorship. I do feel it’s very much a home away from home. Obviously the hardest thing is missing family and friends, knowing you can’t get home [and get back]. It’s a worry when you’ll be able to get home again.

“Obviously we’re hoping that next year the Australian Government will make announcements on borders; non-Australian citizens that have visas, that they could come home and go back when it’s safe to do so.”

Erick Collins

Methven, New Zealand via Galway, Ireland

Erick Collins at work in Methven, New Zealand.

In October 2015, after he finished his ag science degree in University College Dublin (UCD), Erick Collins decided to travel to New Zealand to milk cows. From Belclare, Co Galway, he always worked on his uncle’s cattle and sheep farm and was a relief-milker. He also specialised in advanced dairy and grassland management in college.

Initially his plan was to go to New Zealand for a short period, but Erick really settled in Methven, a town in mid-Canturbury, about the size of Athenry and an hour from Christchurch.

“I was into milking cows, so I was mad to do six months out here, that’s all I came for. Sure then I said I’d do a year, one more year. Every year seems to be one more year,” he laughs.

The first two and a half years he spent working on a 1500-cow dairy farm in Methven. For the first eight months Erick was a dairy assistant, before getting promoted to assistant farm manager.

Both Methven and that farm have strong Irish connections. The guy who got him the job is from Galway, but moved New Zealand 30 years ago; the man who owns the farm is from Roscommon and a Dublin couple run an Irish pub in the town.

After two and a half years Erick thought about coming home, but decided he would do one more season driving machinery for another local farmer. A further two and a half years later, he’s still there.

Tight-knit community

Erick came home the Christmas after he left in 2016 and was home in the summer of 2018 for the Galway Races. With the busy silage season falling during Christmas, coming home isn’t an option. He usually gets Christmas Day and Eve off. During the festive season, the Irish community in Methven really pull together.

“We’ve always done it since I got here, Christmas Eve we’ll head to the Irish pub. It’s like going to the local at home. Christmas Day, the few of us that don’t have families living here, we normally get together and do the big Christmas dinner at someone’s house.

“Last year we did it in our house and there was 60 of us. Christmas Day in Methven is a great occasion, everyone pulls together. A lot of the seasonal guys, it would be their first time away from home. You just invite everyone, you never leave anyone out. Stephen’s Day we have a big charity football match.”

With so many Irish in one place, of course the GAA isn’t far behind.

“We had a bit of a GAA team going for a couple of years. It wasn’t competitive now or anything, just a kick around. It was back when there was a lot of UCD and Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) students. We used to play football on a Wednesday evening.

“The guys from the pub got the lights turned on in the rugby pitch for us to play through the winter. We’d go to the pub then for a few beers after. It was just something once a week to look forward to.”

Both Erick’s parents and his sister have come over to visit him at different times. After getting a taste of life abroad, his sister, his only sibling, moved to Perth and got a nursing job.

Not too worried about himself, Erick feels this Christmas will be difficult for his parents.

“The hardest thing of the whole lot is, with the two of us away, I’d say mam and dad find it a bit difficult. Before the sister was there. I think this Christmas will be hard with the two of us gone.”

Erick does plan on coming home, but is keeping an eye on restrictions in Ireland to see how things pan out.

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