Kelly Gilbert: I don’t sound Irish, but I am (BSL)

Saint Patrick’s Day always brings up mixed feelings for me. There’s a sense of pride — remembering where I came from, Dublin, and my family, who tried so hard to instil that Irish identity in me. But there’s also sadness. My parents are both gone now, and I don’t have any strong, tangible ties to Ireland anymore.

We moved to the north of England in the 1970s when my dad got a new job. I was very young at the time. I have faint memories — a ferry journey, and my mum panicking when I wandered off and she thought she’d lost me. After that, things blur.

I spent much of my childhood in my own little world. I was deaf and didn’t have hearing aids yet, so it was easy to drift into daydreams. In fact, I didn’t get hearing aids until we had been settled in England for quite a few years. By then, so much of my development — including how I spoke — had already been shaped.

My older brother would go out to work with my dad, and I stayed home with my mum in the evenings and at weekends. She missed Ireland deeply — her large family, the familiarity, the life she’d left behind. She would often tell me stories about her childhood, the things she got up to, the people she loved. That’s how I came to know Ireland, really — through her words, her memories, her longing.

It wasn’t until I left school and started working as a dressmaker that someone asked me where I was from. I told them, and added that I had been born in Ireland.

“You don’t sound Irish,” they said.

I remember feeling strangely stung by that. I didn’t fully understand why, but it stayed with me. When I got home, I asked my mum, Do I not sound Irish? She gently confirmed that I didn’t.

I couldn’t quite explain why it upset me so much. Maybe because being Irish felt like such a big part of my family identity — and suddenly I felt as though I didn’t quite belong to it.

Of course, there was a reason. My mum knew it too. By sending me to school in England, surrounded by English voices, my speech — what I could hear and reproduce — would naturally follow those patterns. Accents are learned through listening, and my experience of sound had always been different.

I can’t easily identify accents myself, even now. But I can hear enough to communicate, to get by, to be understood. And over time, my voice became something shaped by practicality rather than place.

Years passed. Life moved on. Eventually, it was just me and my brother in England, and even then, we only saw each other now and again. My parents both passed away, and with them, it sometimes felt like my strongest connection to Ireland had gone too.

I built a life of my own. I have a family now. But recently, something shifted — a pull I couldn’t ignore. I wanted to go back.

For my birthday, my son bought me an ancestry kit, and I started exploring our family history. I spent hours building our family tree, learning more about my parents and the generations before them. I loved it — piecing together where I came from, reconnecting with something that had felt distant for so long.

Eventually, my husband and I decided to make the trip to Ireland together.

My husband is hearing, and he’s always been incredibly understanding of my deafness. I manage best in calm, quieter environments, and although I don’t sign fluently, I’ve picked up quite a lot through television and online programmes over the years.

Going back to Ireland was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I found the street I was born on, visited my parents’ old addresses, and simply allowed myself to be there — to take it all in. There was something deeply comforting about it. It was restorative. Like reconnecting with a part of myself that had been paused rather than lost.

The night before we flew home, we went to a country pub with live music. I was enjoying the atmosphere, even if I couldn’t follow the conversations around me. At one point, a couple of men came over and started chatting to my husband. I couldn’t make out what they were saying over the music, but he laughed and eventually said goodbye to them.

Afterwards, I asked what they’d wanted.

He told me they’d asked where he was from, and then commented that I looked Irish. When he said I had been born there, they seemed pleased — as if that confirmed something they’d already decided.

I remember thinking how odd that was. How can someone look Irish?

And yet… it stayed with me.

It felt like a small moment of recognition. A quiet kind of belonging. As if, despite everything — despite my voice, despite the years away — there was still something in me that connected back to that place and to my parents.

We’re planning another trip to Ireland later this year, and I’d love to connect with the deaf community there too.

I know my parents moved us for a better life — more opportunities, more stability. And I’m grateful for that. Truly.

But I’m also beginning to understand that no matter how far you go, or how much changes, there’s something about home that stays with you.

I don’t sound Irish.

But I am.

Written by Kelly Gilbert.