Why Doug and Monique Howlett are moving back home to New Zealand

Rugby brought Doug and Monique Howlett to Cork but it is friendship that kept them here. Now artist Monique is marking the end of their Irish journey with a beginning of her own, writes Marjorie Brennan.

When Monique Howlett and her husband Doug, with their six-month-old baby Charles in tow, touched down at Cork Airport at the end of December 2007, it was with the intention of staying here for two years.