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As usual we had a couple of difficult moments around alcohol but thankfully there is a wealth of knowledge and experience in the team. A lot of our returnees have a troubled relationship with alcohol and some of those with us are street homeless and street drinkers. How else can you cope on the streets? The difference between today's street living Irish immigrants and previous generations is that nowadays they have access to super strength lagers and ciders. These alcoholic drinks are cheap yet very strong in alcohol. They are packed with mysterious ingredients, which stabilise the drinks when they are brewed to such high levels. These additives seem to have hazardous side effects and habitual drinkers complain of serious health problems and find that dependency on the product itself rather then alcohol per se sets in very quickly. In Ireland there is no beer available over 5% abv and so our people can't get any of their usual tipple. This is good because it is an opportunity to ween them off the corrosive cans of super. It can also be bad because it can lead to withdrawal and epileptic seizures. All of the heavy drinkers are monitored and kept topped up with Guinness or weaker lagers etc but years of super strength use can bring on dangerous side effects.

One evening, out of the blue, Brendan went into convulsions. John, one of the alcohol workers and Charlie, our nurse responded immediately, protecting his head and keeping him safe. As this was happening, Willie, one of the other men in the room started a seizure. We called for an ambulance and one came right away from Wexford General Hospital. We met the ambulance and tried to speak to the attendants to explain what was happening but were met with a very brusque response from one of them who marched into the room where the two men were recovering and still very dazed. His whole manner was very aggressive and he shouted at the men and threatened to leave without them. I can only assume that he thought there was a drinking party going on. When he finally relented and agreed to take them to hospital he would only let Charlie go in the back of the ambulance and for the whole 8 mile journey he sat watching as Charlie (5 feet tall) tried to restrain two big men as they were in convulsions and who on one occasion even tried to open the doors of the ambulance. Finally as the ambulance arrived at Wexford General the attendant admitted that he had never experienced anything like it in his 25 years in the service. So why didn't he listen to us? The doctors and nurses at the hospital were great and by the next evening when we picked up Brendan and Willie they looked brand new and were over the worst. They drank very moderately for the rest of the trip - drinking a few pints in the pub in the evening - something they hadn't done in many years.

Alcohol is the main social lubricant in our society and yet for many emigrants it has become a most anti-social element, breaking up relationships and breaking down peoples' health. On Aisling we try to focus on alcohol in it's social aspect, having a drink with dinner and in the pub in the evening. We have got to know all of the local pubs and some further afield. We also make sure everyone has plenty to eat and encourage everyone to help out in the kitchen. Some take no persuasion. Pat, for instance is a chef by trade and is never happier than when he is in the kitchen and even loved to set the table and wash the dishes. He organises packed lunches for groups going out for the day and superb buffets for when they return. As he says, 'no-one need die of hunger here'. Alan who was listening at the time said, 'I wouldn't mind dying of the hunger but I would hate to die of the thirst'.

Many of the returnees managed to meet family members during the week. One of the main aspirations of Aisling is to make this happen although it is not essential to the success of any trip. To be in Ireland and on holiday is enough. Joe didn't really want to see his brother at first, but as soon as he heard Joe was in Ireland his brother drove all the way from Navan in his camper van with his wife and six children to see him. When he heard that he was coming Joe waited at the gates of the holiday homes most of the evening in case he missed him. Danny, who is street homeless went up to Dublin and stayed with his mother for a few days and we have arranged a hostel space for him when we return to London. Lucy was also apprehensive about contacting her mother, who she was afraid would reject her as she had been out of touch for so long. But when she arrived at the family home in Carlow, her mother welcomed her back with open arms and is now talking about building an extension onto her cottage so that Lucy can come home. Eddie is from the Limerick/Kerry border and he has been away from home for so long that he had never met his brother's wife or their two children. His brother has since died and we arranged for Eddie to meet his sister-in-law and his niece and nephew in a shopping centre on the outskirts of Limerick city. Jim went into Waterford one day to look for old friends. Jim's big hero is James Dean and he wears his hair and clothes in a rockabilly style. He reckons he was born out of time and place and if he was more fortunate he could have been an actor or a musician instead of a street-fighter. He came back the next day looking pretty much intact.

On a run to Dublin we stopped at a roadside service station in Wicklow for breakfast and the waitress having read the Irish Times story about us gave us our meals for nothing. Unfortunately we had already filled up with petrol. In Dublin Tom visited his old haunts including Jervis Street hospital when as a boy, after his parents had died and he was left to fend for himself, he had spent nights in the mortuary, surviving on the coins people had left on their loved ones' eyes and cowering from the noises of the corpses as the gasses escaped from the dead bodies. Tom was taken under the wing of a street trader from Moore Street who was like a mother to him. Her daughter still has a stall there. Tom has travelled the world since he left Dublin when he was 16 but this was his first time in Ireland for 50 years. He would like to return permanently to 'end his days'. Jim came to Dublin to find McDonnell's jewellry shop on O'Connell street where he bought a claddagh ring to replace the one his mother bought for him in the same shop 40 years ago and he lost because it wore through and fell of his finger.

Peter was brought up in an orphanage in Dublin run by nuns and later in a school run by the Brothers of St. John of God. He learnt nothing except hardship in these institutions and even now at 59 years old Peter, while clearly damaged by the experience, is not bitter but faces the world with a serenity and spiritually which was totally lacking in those entrusted with his upbringing. His one way of taking his revenge is to make jokes at the expense of the clergy, where nuns or priests are found out in the end to be greedy and corrupt. He does this in such a way that even members of the clergy can't take offence. We took Peter to Dublin for the first time in 43 years to see the home in Blackrock where he spent his youth. The grounds are now mostly taken over by bright shiny houses and any children living there would have everything they could possibly want. But the church and the school are still there while the Brothers are long gone. If they are alive at all, they are old men and although Peter has given written evidence to the child abuse tribunal, which is about to convene in Dublin, he does not want to face those demons from his past in court. Peter does talk about those times but he still carries around a heavy burden and perhaps standing in the grounds of the old school, seeing the dormitories and the school buildings making way for new homes and families can help him to move on and put his past in perspective. Betty has had a similar experience at the hands of the clergy in Ireland. She was brought up by nuns and has also made a submission to the tribunal, not because she wants to receive any compensation, but because she wants to do all that she can to make sure nothing like it happens to any other children in the future. As a footnote to that story, Betty lost her handbag one day on the beach and, as she said herself it had her 'whole life inside it'. She was distraught. The next day we got a call from Kelly's, the big hotel further down the beach. It had been handed in. The receptionists had gone through her address book trying to locate the owner and had talked to sisters and cousins of Betty who she had been out of contact with for several years.

We visited Waterford crystal and had a spiritual retreat on Our Lady's Island. We went to Kilkenny Castle and on board a famine ship in New Ross. We ate ice cream in Wexford town and spent a day on a farm. A friend of ours working in London brought us out to his father's farm where we walked the fields and stroked the horses, looked intelligently at the cattle and cast a critical eye over the farm machinery. Ninety per cent of us were only a generation or two off the land and it was really like coming home.

Sometimes the best things are those you least expect and the changes that come over people in a week's holiday can be remarkable. Michael has a ready and dry wit that can sometimes disguise his deeper feelings. He has consistently denied any wish to return to his home town in Kerry or to contact his brother who still lives there. As far as he is concerned there is nothing to be gained from raking up old memories. All the same he thoroughly enjoyed his trip until a couple of days before we were due to come back to London. Michael took to his bed and wouldn't eat or drink or talk to anyone. On the last night before we were due to leave we had a big get together in the local pub and Michael rose from his bed to join us. That evening he said he was very curious about his home town and that he would like nothing better than to take a few days and go for a ramble around and see how it looks today. That is one for next year.

END.

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reports on other Aisling trips