Saoirse Ronan's New York

Saoirse Ronan's New York.

- Colm Toibin, photos by Erik Madigan Heck

The woman next door to us had two sisters. One emigrated to England, the other to America. The English sister worked in an office in Liverpool; the American sister was a housekeeper for a family in Connecticut who were, my mother said, “fabulously wealthy.” Each summer, both sisters came home to Ireland for a few weeks. The English sister was quiet and remained in the shadows. The American sister, on the other hand, was all glitter and fascinating talk. She came with suitcases filled with clothes that had been cast off by her American employers. Women visited from all parts of our town to look at these clothes, to marvel over the bright colors and the fashionable cuts. Every afternoon, you could hear the noise of cooing coming from the house next door as the American sister produced another dress or costume or cardigan, or showed them the sort of shoes they had only seen in the movies.

Saoirse Ronan’s parents came to New York in the 1980s, two decades after our neighbor’s sister and three decades after the protagonist of my novel Brooklyn, whom she would come to play onscreen. Saoirse was born in New York and then taken home to Ireland when she was 3. Having parents who had lived in America singled you out in Ireland; even the idea of living there until you were 3 gave you a sort of glamour, a glamour that was often belied by the sort of work that Irish immigrants did in New York in the 1980s and by their living conditions.