Any cow will doflickr: smn

There’s an old Irish proverb, Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin. Literally this translates as “there’s no hearth like your own hearth,” or, more commonly, as “there’s no place like home.” I must confess that I don’t speak Irish fluently, but after 12 years of compulsory lessons I’m fond enough of the language to miss having people to practice it with. As anyone living on my staircase will tell you, I have a YouTube playlist of songs translated into Irish which I tend to blast out whenever I’m feeling particularly homesick.

When new friends ask where I’m from, the easiest answer is “Dublin”. In truth, I live just south of the capital in a small village most people have never heard of. Actually, it’s more of a collection of houses, lacking the amenities that would earn it the title of “village”.

Its main claim to fame is that it is charmingly situated next to the N11, the giant motorway running from the outskirts of Dublin all the way down the south coast to County Wexford. In this way, I suppose, we get the “best of both worlds” – as we get the trees and open spaces of the countryside, while still being within reach of the centre of Dublin city in half an hour.

I’ve never lived in a city before (yes, to me Cambridge is a city), so I’m delighted to be within walking distance of shops, clubs and other people my age. On the flip side, I miss the oddly therapeutic drive to and from school every day. The problem with living in a city is that there are people everywhere – at home I could go for an hour-long walk and not see a soul. Emmanuel College has an impressive wildlife population, from ducks and squirrels to surprisingly large fish, but nothing can quite make up for the lack of birdsong and clean morning air.

Living beside a farm at home, I was also used to hearing the sounds of livestock. In fact, I became so accustomed to it that, for the first three weeks of living here, I would occasionally hear the lowing of cows from my room at Emma, only to eventually realise that it was the sound of a door swinging shut, rather than that of cattle on St. Andrew’s Street. I must admit that on more than one occasion I have searched YouTube for ‘cows mooing’ and nearly cried at the bittersweet homesickness that the noise provokes.

It would be terribly clichéd of me to mention the ‘friendliness’ of Irish people. It’s one of the most oft-cited characteristics of the locals, and something everyone from Ireland always claims to miss. But clichés develop for a reason. A few days ago I was cycling alone at night when a man approached me – it felt like the beginning of a horror story. But when he asked me for directions in a thick Limerick accent I couldn’t help feeling an illogical sense of relief. We chatted about Ireland for a while, and when I cycled past him on my way home later that week, he remembered me and stopped to say hello. Maybe I’m biased in my homesickness, but English people really don’t seem as eager to talk to strangers.

When an English friend and I stopped at an ATM late one night, I wandered over to talk to the man giving out flyers for a nightclub while she was busy getting cash. It seemed like a boring job and he was happy to chat for a while. At home in Ireland, we tend to talk to everyone and anyone, making a string of temporary ‘friends’ that we may or may not see ever again. And yet, over here, my English friend was astounded that I would be so ‘forward’ as to approach a stranger for a chat.

I love being in Cambridge. The shock of having made it here still hasn’t worn off, and I often find myself wandering around my college musing over how lucky I am. I wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else, but that doesn’t stop me missing home – the people, the language, the countryside, the buses, the trains, even the dodgy combination of dairy milk chocolate with Tayto cheese and onion crisps, which no-one here seems to understand.