Set of photographs #23

Commentary from Participant

1. This is a mocha coffee machine. I bought it because the coffee is not strong enough here, too watery.

2. This is the Park Run. Every Saturday morning there are runs of 5 kilometres in some parks in Northern Ireland. You meet new people each time as well as the regulars. It is a community. And it is exercise. I wrote to them to see if the Park Runs could be established in Spain. I like this concept, the sense of community, the amount of volunteering.

3. This is the Bog Garden at Peatlands Park [on the south west shore of Lough Neagh, it is a Wetland Park]. I had not seen anything like that, coming from a dry area. In Spain there are also special parks, protected sites.

4. This is near Keady, a village near the Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. How green it is. In Spain I worked with a company to do with environment, but the grass was all brown. And in Spain, there are no boundaries, here hedges everywhere. I like also that the landscape is constantly changing every few miles. Landscapes are related to my job. Here the management of the landscape is very well organised – all these boundaries. It is easy to follow where one farmer’s boundary is. Most of the people in this area are farmers. The Department of the Environment has put a lot of effort into environmental protection.

5. 6. These are photographs of where the border is – that small river. But really the border is invisible. During the Troubles there were a lot of military people here.

7. This is the Catholic cathedral in Armagh city, about 13 miles from Keady. The architecture is very different from Spain where is a lot of gold and gilt. Here it is very simple and elegant. I also found it remarkable that people here form a queue [line-up] to receive Holy Communion. In Spain they just press forward.

8. This is a tin of beans. I cannot understand this idea of beans in a tomato sauce.

9. This is called morcilla. It is like chorizo and also like Black Pudding, made from blood. I made a mistake, I tried to make Spanish dishes with the original ingredients, but it is hard to get morcilla, only in Spanish week in Lidl. I decided to adjust to what is available here.

10. This is called pipas. It is a sunflower seed snack and I love it. Also here there is a tin of artichokes and chickpeas. The funny thing is that when you are in Spain, you miss things here.

11. This sign was given to me by my mother and it means 'God bless every corner of this house.’ I am happy with this, but we live in a a kind of Protestant area, and I thought from what I had been told in my own country, that there would be consequences; I misunderstood what I had been told in Spain.

12. This is St Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh from below.

Summary

‘At the start, I didn’t think I belonged here, but now when I am in Spain, I want back here. It is a kind of No Man’s Land. I reflect that my four-year old has three passports. Different generations' experience of the original culture can be problematic.’

Participant 19, ‘When something like that clicks, you start to feel a connection with the place. Adaptation – things are different, but can we still use these different things for the same purpose?'

‘My son started to like football. There was a match between Italy and Northern Ireland. He did not know whether to cry or shout. He said ‘your kind’ to me. There was confusion.

Other participant, ‘I have been here 20 years. The border now looks so different.’