Spaces and Places

I was in the Dún Laoghaire Lexicon Library yesterday, looking out the window, trying not to worry if Roger Casement might need sunscreen.

And also trying to figure out the narrative for a piece I am writing - about migration, movement, and changing spaces....

I feel it is from a distant time, when we would tear our togs on the slides at the Rainbow Rapids, yet Casement yesterday seemed more present in spirit than those days, perhaps even more than in his own time.

Looking at the new walkways that trace the shoreline and lead to him are more than pathways; they are arteries of connection.

Linking us to one another and to the past, while urging us to embrace what is yet to come.

These spaces speak of brave moves—not just in infrastructure, but in the future of a community that dares to dream.

They allow us to pause, linger, and take in life around us, giving us the space to be.

And although we will always argue about choices, directions, or paths, in our work and life, this is part of the process.

Change, after all, is rarely born without controversy, but given time to mature, spaces can fully open up.

I was thinking of my own migration story—from Cork to Dún Laoghaire, to Vietnam, to Galway, to Meath, to Australia, to Wicklow, to Mayo, to Spain…..and back to Dún Laoghaire again...

I was thinking of it being 10 years since the Lexicon Library opened (almost to the day - and also under controversy.)

And how that is another space that has given people so much food for thought within it's granite walls.

I was attempting to weave a philosophical exploration of identity, belonging, and the quiet, steady changes that shape both self and society, and how and when we decide to call home 'home'.

Informed by thinkers like Foucault, de Beauvoir, and Lefebvre, and planning autoethnographic approaches, hoping to consider how spaces can become sites of connection and creativity—and how headspaces can move along with them.

Then, I thought I was finished for the day....

Until I packed away my laptop, a young girl sitting opposite me whispered

'Excuse me, what are you writing?'

She was from Brazil.

Mother from Medeira Island.

Living in Dun Laoghaire for the past six years.

I pointed out the window and answered her question with a question -

'See the statue. Do you know who that is?'

'No' - she said.

I said, 'That's Roger Casement.

He's your statue.

And he’s my statue.’