She had seen my leaving Dublin work and liked it and so we started a conversation.
Some months Later Claire was home in Ireland preparing to follow work to London which she did.(move 2 (this is when i photographed her for the project))
Whilst there Claire met her partner Brian Maxwell and so they started to plan as a couple,thinking of the future and wanting a life together which involved full time work,love and happiness.Working towards this aim they moved back to Ireland.(move 3)
this now is a three year old story and last week I caught up with Brian and Claire and took a trip to the Pheonix Park tea rooms.We talked about her picture which is hanging in the Immigration Museum in Melbourne as I type.
Claire and Brian there explained to me the route they where taking and I was not surprised to hear that Brian had just got a visa to travel for work to Australia(Claire has Australian papers after spending some years there as a child),and they were about to take off again perhaps around the summer to Perth in search of their dreams(move 4)
Claire is strong.She is not going to stop and let the reality of life in Ireland repress her.All she wants is to get out there work and make a life for herself and now with Brian there is a new dimension to it all.
In our conversation on friday last we resolved to make another parting shot before they leave for Perth.
She will be the first of my sitters to make it onto the case twice,but this time she will not be alone.
She knows where she is going,and she is going there in love.Fantastic!
Claire,Brian,and those like her are the people who can make hope from a desperate situation and find a way forward.Claire has an irrepressible spirit the type we desperately need to rebuild this ailing country. Lets hope Brian and her make it back here again to give all they can when our misguided government realize who they are, the embodiment of the spirit of our time.
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