A Tale of Two Passports : Anne’s Story

The first passport I ever held was Irish. I remember the pride I felt opening it, the small emblem in gold, the words Éire and Ireland standing out boldly. It was a piece of history, a piece of my mother’s story, and perhaps, a real piece of my own identity.

My mum stood beside me as I traced my fingers over the pages. It was her first passport, too. We’d been to the Irish Embassy together, an exciting but intimidating process. My mum whispered jokes to ease the tension. I thought this passport would be our connection, a way of reclaiming our Irishness together, even though I was born in London and had known little of that life. But for my mum, it was something more—a step back to the self she’d left behind, the Irish self she’d sacrificed along the way.

She’d come to England around 1946 with her aunt and cousin, needing only a ticket for that crossing. Her memory told her she came with a British passport, though it seems she arrived with only papers to rent a flat in Kensington and take up hotel jobs. The crossing was easy; the settling in was easy, and what she thought would be temporary became permanent. She married an Englishman, built a life here, and raised us with an identity shaped more by practicality than pride. Whenever I asked her about Ireland, she would just smile and say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” It was her way of surviving.

For her, Britishness was a decision, and Irishness was something to be tucked away. I think she believed she had thrown it out entirely. Years passed with little sign of her former Irish self, and for much of my childhood, I thought of her as English. But that Irish fire, though hidden, was never gone. I see it now in her sayings, her stoicism, her “all roads lead to Damascus” wisdom that made even hard choices feel like fate. She had learned to live as the Romans did. And, in a sense, so did I.

Yet I always wondered—why did she cling so tightly to her Britishness? Why did she resist claiming her Irishness until so late in life? She’d even felt betrayed by not being considered a British citizen after decades in England. For me, the British passport was just something I’d adopted out of sacrifice, to give my husband rights in a country that held little pride for me. But for her, it was personal, deeper, and those reasons only grew clearer after she’d passed.

After she passed, and even so very recently, I began to find out things hidden from the family and now I understand her choices and her sacrifices I hadn’t seen as a child.

She was a woman of resilience, drawn to those on the fringes, those overlooked and misunderstood. Her clinging to Britishness became, in a way, a private martyrdom, letting go of part of herself so she could give everything to her family. And though she had no words for it, I know now that her silent burdens gave her the heart and empathy that drew others to her. We say now that she was a woman of her era; her story belongs to Irish women and to her upbringing in Ireland. It does not diminish her, or demean her, but sheds light on the Ireland and the people she left behind. A place shaped by faith, family, and communities that knew each other’s history, for better or worse.

Leaving and letting go was both an act of survival and love. Her Ireland was one of hardworking women, those who held families together with dignity and sacrifice, believing some choices were made not for themselves but for those they loved. Holding onto Britishness was her way of letting go of those constraints, to create a path for us, for herself, even as she kept her values close. Her story is the story of many Irish women of her time—women whose compassion carried others, even as they left parts of themselves behind.

In clinging to Britishness, she may have felt as if she were protecting us from the struggles she’d endured, even as her Irish heart remained her compass. Her identity was not diminished by her sacrifices; if anything, they deepened the love and loyalty she gave, a legacy that shaped me and so many who knew her.

Later in life, her Irish passport found her. It must have been her first passport. It was bittersweet. She held it as though reclaiming a life she’d once lived in another world and at first feared it, but it became her key to new freedom.

That small, worn booklet became her doorway to new places, new faces, and new friends in distant lands. She travelled more than she ever had, exploring places, and finding people that seemed to echo that need of a friendliness. I think of her in Tenerife, sitting at a bar beside a young man from Jamaica, a stranger who saw in her something he recognized—a warmth, a comfort, a gentleness that made him feel at home. He told her and everyone who would hear him, that she reminded him of his grandmother back home in Jamaica and he didn’t want to leave her side. In that moment, she wasn’t British or Irish; she was simply herself, a woman with a heart big enough to bridge continents.

And now I hold both these stories within me, both these passports, in a way. I understand the pride of Irishness and the practicality of Britishness, the things we claim and the things we give up. My mother’s Irishness, it turns out, was never lost. It was just waiting, waiting like a memory, hidden until she was ready to reclaim it again.

When I think back now, holding that Irish passport feels like holding her spirit, her humour, her sacrifices with all its secrets, and all the things that made her who she was, and by extension, made me who I am. And while I may not carry any passport for now, I hold her Irish heart, for its where I belong.