It’s September 2024. I land in Dublin Airport, with my whole life for the next four months neatly packed into three 23kg bags. It’s far too warm, but the skies are grey as we make our way to the unassuming Trinity Hall. A single bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a bathroom. All unpacked, and after a trip to IKEA, that’s it. Now ready for the joys and sorrows that define the first year at Trinity College Dublin.
Now, I am an ‘international’ student in the loose sense of the term. Hailing from just over the Irish Sea and fortunate enough to have an Irish passport, it wasn’t like I had to wrestle with immigration or student visas. Dublin had many familiar sights: Tesco, Boots, even a Nando’s. I had applied to several universities in the UK, however having visited Trinity I decided to apply. The city life appealed to me, after growing up in rural Leicestershire, and there was a chance for change which I was desperate for since no one from my secondary school would be there. Being British at Trinity is like being a hybrid student. Not really international, but not Irish either. It’s not far for me to go home, but I can’t fly home every weekend. It’s also difficult to be proud of one’s home country (not that I am especially patriotic) with the complicated historical background. I didn’t encounter a language barrier, I can even drive, yet it was an uncomfortable first year at Trinity to say the least.
I recall a distinct feeling of loneliness in my first few weeks. That feeling that everyone already knew each other was permeating. And really, in Dublin, everyone does. It’s a small place where I learnt to observe many conversations that followed the structure, ‘Oh so and so? I know their sibling’. Compared to London, the city was claustrophobic. I’d spent a fair amount of time in places like Nottingham and Leicester as I grew up, but Dublin felt smaller, and less anonymous which was difficult as someone who knew no one. The feeling that I stuck out was inescapable. The cultural difference of people living at home for college came as a shock to me, as back home all my friends had left for new cities, new student flats, a new lifestyle away from the comfort of our small rural town. As a British student, it felt other-wordly to be at my friends’ childhood home for prinks, when my school friends were drinking strange concoctions in a mouldy flat in Newcastle. I had Irish friends who still were able to see their school friends on a weekly basis, whereas I had bid mine farewell for four months. When you hear of the ‘fresher’s experience’ at home, it is marketed as a completely new beginning for everyone. We were given talks in my secondary school about the stresses of moving away from home, of being in a new city. But for a lot of people I met, it was a city they knew very well with friends they had seen lose their first teeth and that added to a feeling of isolation. Not everyone was in the same boat as me, and I needed to learn to row quickly.
Nevertheless, the beginning of lectures was a lifesaver. In an academic context, it became easier to connect with people, to discuss novels or poems, to go for a casual coffee after a tutorial. The campus itself was an oasis in the city, where it became easier to settle into a routine and keep myself busy. Even if all I’d done in the lecture was the Wordle, I’d laughed with the girl sat to my left and copied notes off the boy to my right and it was as if I’d finally stopped playing the part of a college student. Further, the level playing field of the campus that every student knew allowed me to integrate better with the native Dubliners. Trinity College culture became a shared one, one that didn’t distinguish between nationalities. The communal language of ‘the pav’, ‘the Ussher’, knowing the best student lunch deals and finding any excuse for a Wowburger created common ground that felt steady. I went on dates in St Stephens Green, took library breaks in Butlers and spent birthdays at Bambino. As I integrated more into college, the wider city became less intimidating. Joining the great 12 pubs of Christmas felt like a goodbye ritual that cemented a first semester well spent and I left for the break wanting to stay an extra few weeks.
However, when you are in a different country, what do you do when a crisis hits? I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t go meet a friend from my childhood. I couldn’t rot in my room. I went back to my room in halls and realised that I really was rather far from home. It became blatantly obvious I was, very unfortunately, responsible for keeping myself alive. Two very shocking realisations, I know. There were familiar places I could go to, but nowhere that offered the safety and comfort of home or a fully stocked fridge. I could call and text people from home, but the distance ached. I’d been at the same school, in the same town, with the same friends for eight years. And suddenly, I wasn’t. Even if I were to go back, my friends were elsewhere and the life I had lived no longer existed. The solution? I leant on friends I’d known four months as if they were my blood relatives. The amount of love and support I was shown was, and still is, indescribable. More importantly, the compassion displayed for the fact that I was not in my home country was immense. My friends, both international and Irish students, recognised me both simultaneously as part of their community in Dublin and as someone adjusting to a new environment. And in a strange way it was freeing.
Now, returned for my second year I am immensely grateful to be able to return to friends, both Irish and international. I met up with some hockey friends, and caught myself calling Dublin ‘home’, which earned a laugh. But it has begun to feel exactly like that, a second home. The learning curves of laundry and how much pasta to cook for one have been conquered and second year promises to have less of those initial challenges of moving away from home for the first time. I’ve learnt to embrace the freedom of living away from home, and accept that my experience of college life is different to my Irish friends. But that doesn’t mean it is any less rewarding, if not more so.
