Life
Novelist; born in Ireland; living in Scotland; author of Split Milk (2001).
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Commentary
Judy May Murphy, ‘Dublin can be Heaven - we’re still
happy to be out’, in Irish Independent, 24 Aug. 2001; talks
with Keilyn Wilson (living in Scotland), Dave O’Brien (cameraman
on Hollywood major films), and novelist Lana Citron, author of Spilt
Milk, [who] has decided to work and raise her young son in London:
‘Over here there is boundless opportunity, it’s a massive free-for-all’,
she says; ‘Whatever you want to do you can possibly do over here
- there’s nothing stopping you. There’;s an overall feeling
that you could be anyone and have the possibility of achieving your goal,
whatever it is. / Growing up in Dublin, I found it more parochial; it
had a village feel and it was more about who you know than what you know.
Here in London that doesn’t matter. For example, I don’t know
anyone in publishing, I don’t come from a publishing background,
so there was no one who was helping me. / Although there is some racism,
for the most part it doesn’t matter where you’re from, if you’re
Irish or Japanese or whatever. It’s a very tolerant city. In terms
of lifestyle it’s great. Whatever your taste, you can find something
to suit you, any type of club, restaurant, music, theatre or whatever.
/ Dublin is definitely much more expensive …. But I do believe the
education in Ireland is better and now that I have a child, I can see
that the class structure is very much prevalent in Britain. / I also mix
the proximity of the sea and mountains, so there are some things I’d
miss about Dublin, but I don’t know if that’s enough to make
me want to return. I don’t think I’d every move back to Ireland.
But you can never say.’ [END]
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