Two-and-a-half years ago, Léna Descottes (29) thought her time in Ireland was over. Despite being a traditional-music performer who had played in venues across the country, she had spent the previous six months sleeping primarily in her car. Descottes was unable to find accommodation after, she says, the apartment she had been living in was converted into an Airbnb.
“I wouldn’t say that I was homeless because if I had called my parents in France, they would have given me money to stay in a hotel,” she says. “I didn’t tell them that I had been living on my friends’ couches and in my car, and that I had to squat in places sometimes. That was really hard because I have two degrees, I speak two languages, I play four instruments. I’m supposed to be quite a serious, independent person.”
At the time, Descottes was working in a music shop when she wasn’t performing.
“I went back to France for a few months to rest and heal as I had got really sick because my lungs and eczema was pretty bad as I had been sleeping in really bad places.”
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Being back home with her parents in Normandy gave Descottes time to reflect on why she loved living in Ireland so much.
She had been introduced to traditional music as a teenager by her cousins, who perform and dance to Gwo ka and Bélé, music and dance forms from the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, both French overseas departments in the Caribbean.
“From the first tune I knew that [Irish traditional music] would be a big part of my life. I was like, all right I’m going to do this. I started listening to it and trying to find videos of it.”
As soon as Descottes could drive she started coming to Ireland for a month every summer to travel around and attend every trad session that she could.
At around this time, her mother revealed that when Descottes was a baby her parents had taken her on a road trip around Ireland.
“My mum said that I did my first step on Irish land and that the only time I was able to sit down on her lap for more than 20 minutes was when I was listening to Irish music in pubs.”
Eventually she bought a bodhrán and started performing trad music in France.
“I was like, this is great but I need to be in Ireland. I can’t make traditional music in another country; it doesn’t make sense.”
After graduating from university in France with a degree in art and performance, Descottes moved to Ireland. She enrolled at the Irish World Academy in Limerick before moving to Galway.
“One thing I love in Ireland is how I feel safe with men. In France it’s different. Sexual aggression happens way more in France than in Ireland. In Ireland you can be by yourself in the middle of the night with an instrument worth €7,000 on your back. I arrive at trad sessions and there’s just five older men and I feel confident sitting down and asking for advice. There’re so many women who play Irish music for a living here. It’s insane. In France, we struggle to sit down as a woman in sessions because the men are leading.”
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While back in France recovering from the difficulties of being unhoused in Galway, Descottes concluded that it was the freedom to reinvent herself and her love of traditional music that drew her to life in Ireland.
“Expressing myself in a novel language kind of helps me get rid of the parts of me that I didn’t like as a French person. I didn’t have to talk about my life, my background, my trauma. I think if I went back to France one day, I would have to face some stuff, but in Ireland I have to face the fact that it’s not my culture and deal with the crazy accent that I can’t understand sometimes but you feel special and it’s very heart warming to be in another country.”
Descottes decided she was going to stay in France for a while; she found a job and an apartment in Brittany. She then went on a goodbye trip around the west coast of Ireland to perform in some of the places she had always wanted to go to. One of those places was Inishbofin, off the Connemara coast, where two friends invited her to play in a trad session with them.
“I came here and I met Colman and I just never left. Colman and I were meant to be together. I called my parents after two weeks and said I’m not coming back, you can give back the keys to the flat.”
Today Descottes lives with Colman King (39) and his family on their farm in Inishbofin. While she still travels the country to perform and attend trad sessions, she has recently started to make and sell sheep rugs on the island.
Some aspects of island living are difficult for Descottes, who last year was diagnosed with a degenerative disease for which doctors recommended cutting out certain inflammatory foods.
“Sometimes I spend a day a week going off the island getting all the different things I need. It costs me a fortune, like €100 a week for specific food that I would find in France in any supermarket. It’s hard but at the same time this life cannot be perfect.”
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish
