Patrick Holloway: When I moved back, Crosshaven had kept something of me and gave it back

After 15 years of living abroad, Patrick Holloway moved home to Cork in search of a better life for his girls. He didn't anticipate the impact returning to Crosshaven would have on his own sense of self.

Author Patrick Holloway at Crosshaven House, Cork, with his new book the Language of Remembering. Picture: Dan Linehan

After 15 years of living abroad, nine of them in Brazil, I decided to move back to Cork in the middle of the pandemic. 

My wife and I packed up our lives in the strangest of times and got ready to return ‘home’ with a baby, a toddler, a dog, and a cat.