{"id":202781,"date":"2025-11-27T09:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T09:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/202781\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T09:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T09:53:09","slug":"there-are-troubled-times-over-there-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/202781\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018There are troubled times over there\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

One American couple\u2019s \u201cmost memorable\u201d Thanksgiving was when they got caught up in the Dublin riots<\/a> this time two years ago while out for dinner.<\/p>\n

Tania Etter from Pennsylvania and her husband Marcus from San Francisco moved to Dublin seven years ago as part of his job.<\/p>\n

Thanksgiving, which Americans \u2013 including those living in Ireland \u2013 celebrate today, is his favourite holiday. <\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican<\/a> holidays are very commercialised whereas there\u2019s nothing about Thanksgiving other than eat, drink, family and sport,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Thanksgiving has nothing of the \u201cpretentiousness\u201d of other holidays, he adds.<\/p>\n

Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November and dates back to 1621 when European settlers, or Pilgrims as they were known, were having trouble growing enough food. Native Americans taught them how to grow crops and the Pilgrims invited them to a feast as a thank-you. <\/p>\n

The couple were attending a Thanksgiving event with other Americans when the riots broke out in November 2023 and they couldn\u2019t get home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe walked south of Ranelagh before we finally found a taxi man who we could convince to take us home,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an adventure,\u201d added Ms Etter.<\/p>\n

\"ChristinaChristina Campbell, Tania Etter and Molly Coyle Shibley. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Meet the Americans moving to Ireland for a better lifeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

They have a tradition of putting messages in a stuffed animal known as Terry the Thanksgiving turkey that sits as a table centrepiece. Family and friends write messages of what they are thankful for. The messages become the tail feathers and after dinner, the turkey is plucked and messages read aloud.<\/p>\n

Marcus is thankful for his Irish citizenship which he received this year and their recent move to their home in Blackrock, south Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just went back to America for the first time in four years for our business trip. I can absolutely and unequivocally say I do not miss it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He misses his family at home but Teams and Zoom calls make it \u201ceasier\u201d.<\/p>\n

This year they will celebrate with a pre-prepared meal at home with their dogs. The Late Late Toy Show has become one of their holiday season traditions. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur view is you can\u2019t just be American and hold on to all your Americanisms. You\u2019re living in a new culture, a new world, a new society, you need to adopt that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ThanksgivingThanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November and dates back to 1621.
\nPhotograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

Molly Coyle Shibley moved to Ireland in 2019. She is grateful to live here but feels \u201cguilty\u201d for family still in the US.<\/p>\n

Originally from Massachusetts, Coyle Shibley settled in Rathfarnham, south Dublin with her husband Tom while pregnant with their first child Nora after he was offered a job in Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very grateful to be in Ireland for different reasons every year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, we bought a house. This year my husband and daughter\u2019s citizenship applications were approved and I\u2019m applying for mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Shibley celebrates with the same group of friends every year. \u201cThey have seen my daughter grow up, they\u2019re my family away from home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Margie O\u2019Rourke has been living in Ireland since 1987 and settled in St Margaret\u2019s in north Dublin, where her husband, who she met in her hometown of Philadelphia, is from.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe major thing with Thanksgiving is family so it\u2019s a weird experience being away from family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people here are completely unaware it\u2019s Thanksgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is thankful for her good health and that of her husband and family, and grateful for friends and little things like \u201cthe green grass and a cup of tea\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me 10 years to settle here but life is good. There are troubled times over there [in the US],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanksgiving \u2013 it\u2019s tradition and it\u2019s part of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0US students drawn to Ireland struck by hard realities of rental marketOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One American couple\u2019s \u201cmost memorable\u201d Thanksgiving was when they got caught up in the Dublin riots this time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,68560,18,19,17,384],"class_list":{"0":"post-202781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dublin-riots","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}