Ireland Through A Window: My Mother's Youth and an Evolving Nation

I was born in the United States as the son of an Irish immigrant
mother; My whole life has been defined by the understanding that
across the Atlantic ocean there lies a family and cultural cache to
which I belong, but I've still always been acutely aware that the
Ireland I know is quite different from the Ireland of my mother's
childhood in the 70s and 80s, before rapid economic development
and cultural reinvention transformed the nation into the global
leader it is today. This work of creative nonfiction, derived from a
lengthy series of interviews with my mother, is my attempt to
describe Ireland on the precipice of modernization through the
relation of my mother's narrative. I explore themes such as
religious conformity, personal freedom, the influencing power of
media, tradition, and fear in an effort to ultimately explain what
led my mother to leave her home country and start a new life in
the USA. This project has both scholarly and personal dimensions, functioning at once as a historical case study told through a literary medium and as an opportunity for me to explore my family history, gain a deeper understanding of my mother's story, and ultimately better understand her as a person.