When Going Home Felt Like Going Backward and Why It Wasn't

April 24, 2026

At 39, moving back in with my parents felt like failure.

A step backward. A retreat from everything I'd been building for nearly two decades across the UK - Edinburgh, London, Bournemouth, Chester, Liverpool. Each place had held lessons, friendships, chapters of becoming.

It always felt like life was moving forward.

Until one day it didn't.

When Life Shifts Beneath You

After losing my flat in Chester and a relationship that had shaped many of my choices, I found myself alone in Liverpool. Pouring everything into the work. Still feeling disconnected.

The loneliness lingered.

I knew it was time to go home. But knowing that and actually doing it are different things.

Packing day, this was only the living room.

Crossing the Irish Sea

Within two weeks my dad arrived with his van. We packed up my life - the studio work, the frames, the enamel sheets, everything.

We drove through Wales, through Conwy and on to Holyhead. Crossed the Irish Sea in the dark.

Somewhere on the way into Dublin Port I felt a moment of panic.

Had I made a mistake?

Something inside me said no. Keep going.

Driving back through Wales, from Conwy to Holyhead and over the Irish Sea, to Dublin Port

The Art That Came From It

Back in Ireland with no studio, I worked from wherever I could.

A corner of my bedroom. The kitchen table. My dad's shed.

The constraints became the work. The limitations became a kind of freedom I hadn't expected.

And slowly - Ireland began to show up in the paintings. The land, the tide, the particular quality of light. My palette shifted. My themes shifted.

Capall Mara Dubh was born from that crossing.

Capall Mara Dubh (KAP-ul MAR-uh DUV) - Black Sea Horse. In Celtic mythology the seahorse is a guide of safe passage, a creature that carries you through the crossing from one life to another.

That symbolism wasn't planned. It arrived with the painting.