‘There’s no place like home...’

There were “a few tears" of joy of course, precipitated mainly by the first in-person meeting of grandparents and grandchild. After, in true Irish tradition, the “kettle was put on”.

For Daniel Keyes from Drumlane, Belturbet, it began with sharing a photo as many Cavan folk did in February 2020 when Cavan Calling ran a competition offering a trip home for two people from anywhere in the world.

Entrants had to post a photo, story, or video explaining what Cavan meant to them on the Cavan Calling Facebook page, with the entry that received the most likes being the winner.

Daniel Keyes, living in Auckland, New Zealand, posted a photo of snowy landscape captured looking out the front door of his home place at Drumrush on a snowy day, taken by his mum Stella.

It was an idyllic scene typifying what it meant to Daniel to be at home. He wrote a heartfelt message to go along with it, describing how special it was to spend time with family and how really there was quite “no place like home”. Others agreed, and Daniel’s photo received more than 3,000 likes!

“Family, fishing and food,” he rhymes off as the immediate things he misses about Ireland from his new adopted home. “All the lakes, and just the feel of the place really.”

The council too were over the moon with the response received, and everything looked on course to stage what was set to be the largest prepared gathering of Cavan people, friends, and family from across the globe. Then Covid hit!

Daniel, an insurance advisor, has been in Auckland 12 years now. “About as far away as you could get,” he laughs.

He met his wife Julia the day he arrived in the largest city on New Zealand. It was a fortuitous turn that took him to stay at the particular hostel where Julia works and not bunk down in one of the city's glut of backpacker accommodations.

He’d been travelling the previous 12 months, through Australia and elsewhere, having finished his university studies in London in 2010 and, like many other graduates at the time, little or no work prospects immediately forthcoming.

Today the couple have a infant daughter, Ivy, aged 19 months. The family flew 29 hours from Auckland to Ireland on December 12, and won’t now travel back until near mid-January. “It’s a good long stay,” he says. “It was interesting leaving 22 degrees in New Zealand and arriving in -3 on the runway in Dublin, so that took some getting used to.”

The last time he and Julia had been back to Cavan was pretty much five years to day. “December 2017, that was the year we got married. We got married in New Zealand and my family came out to celebrate with us, and then we came home after that and had a bit of an Irish shindig here. But that was the last time we were home, because then Covid put a stop to a lot of things and Ivy then arrived too.”

This was the first time grandma Stella, grandpa Cyril and super aunt Tanya got to hold little Ivy. “It was a lovely thing to see. It’s been great being home, really lovely.”

He says it’s great having all the benefits of modern technology to stay in touch with family and friends but nothing matches face to face contact.

Of his daughter Ivy, he says she was bemused at first having only ever been accustomed to seeing her grandparents on screen, often “taking the phone and running off with it”.

When she then met Auntie Tanya, Daniel says there was a palpable sense of sheer excitement. “Mam and dad, we do video calls on Saturdays. She sort of knew them more from video calls... She’s mad about my sister so she was smiling her head off when she eventually saw her.”

While at home Daniel will act as best man at a friend’s wedding, with plenty of other social occasions in between. “It works out nicely. It’s been a real treat being at home, from us and all the family. We really appreciate it and a huge thank you has to go out to Cavan County Council and all those at Cavan Calling for arranging this.”

The long-awaited Cavan Calling homecoming event will now take place from July 27-30, 2023.