Though we may wander, the place we call ‘home’ tends to travel with us, wherever we may go… and it often harkens us back!
For Armagh playwright, author and biologist, Byddi Lee nothing could be closer to the truth.
While we Armachians are proud to call Byddi one of our own, few may know that she is for all intents and purposes – and perhaps quite officially – Canadian.
Yes, born in the The Great White North, Byddi’s parents left Armagh to work on a First Nations Reservation, as a teacher and a nurse.
They returned home to the Orchard County in 1973, when Byddi was just four-years-old. So naturally, she has some memories of her time on the Reservation… but not many.
Her formative years were spent in the Ecclesiastical Capital up until age 18 when she spread her wings and headed to the big city of Belfast to embark on an Environmental Biology degree with Queen’s University.
Once qualified, Byddi taught biology for 15 years, taking a sabbatical for two years… which she spent travelling.
“I just thumbed my way around the world,” she said laughing. “I worked on a dolphin and whale project in South Africa while I was living there and also qualified as a ski instructor in Canada which I could do because I had citizenship.”
Then she and her husband made the life-changing decision to up sticks and move to California’s Silicon Valley, where they stayed for eight years.
“It was really exciting, a real adventure,” said Byddi. “But there came a point where I missed community. I missed going to the supermarket and bumping into people I knew. Here [in Armagh] you walk into town and there’s always someone who will beep the horn or wave as they go by.”
Moving abroad, particularly when it’s somewhere as glamorous as Silicon Valley, can sound dreamy to the wanderlustful.
Byddi’s back’yard’ in the glorious Silicon Valley
But sometimes, it’s just a little bit greener where we left it.
“We did make friends,” Byddi said. “I worked in conservation on a part-time basis because I was starting to write at that stage.
“During that time, I didn’t know anyone and had nothing to do so I always joked that I could get a book written but there was a loneliness to that too.
“I remember, when we first bought the house, we sent a letter out to everyone in the street to see if people would like to drop in for a coffee and some of them did. We tried to create a community there but it was a slog.”
Byddi describes California as a melting pot, with people from all over the world. While it was lovely to have such diversity, it could also be difficult finding that sense of true belonging.
Nonetheless, she very much enjoyed her work in conservation. It was important and she made a real difference environmentally.
“It was great to use my degree. A lot of it is about counting things or measuring things but it’s lovely to be out in nature,” she said. “I was working in county and state parks as well as land that people owned but were happy to mitigate for the environment.
“I spent time looking after the Bay Checkerspot Butterfly and it’s not found anywhere else in the world, so if it were to die off in those areas, it would go extinct.
“We would have gathered them as caterpillars and then moved them to other areas closer to their food source to give them a better chance of revitalisation. We also weeded out invasive European grasses that had taken hold and were competing against the native plants.”
Byddi and her husband bought their home in Silicon Valley. At the start, she admits, “we thought we were there forever”.
Left, the Eiffel Tower from her time in Paris and right, a walkway in Wikwemikong
When asked if she found the process scary or nerve-racking, Byddi said “No. It wasn’t so much that it was scary, you always knew that home was there.
“I always feel for anyone who has to move because of war or because the conditions are so bad in their own country. I always knew that if we weren’t happy we could go home which is a very luxurious fallback.”
After deciding that California just didn’t have enough milk and honey – or grapes – to keep them there forever, the pair made another move… this time to Paris!
“We lived for a glorious year in Paris,” Byddi said. “I loved it but I had the luxury of working from home and didn’t have the nightmare of trying to navigate the metro system.
“It was a big, big city. But it was beautiful. I loved the vibe in Paris but I would have said we were twenty years too old for the area we were living in!”
The couple’s apartment was right above a sushi bar where there were numerous pubs and a thriving night scene.
In chatting about sushi, we got wildly off topic in a tasty discussion of world flavours, but Byddi brought it back in recalling those foods she miss when away from home.
“I probably missed as many foods in America as I missed when in Armagh. In America I had to learn to make my own pavalova, potato bread and scones. I missed all that kind of food. Now that I’m back in Armagh, I miss going for my Pho at lunchtime. But then, when we go to Belfast or Dublin we always see that as a treat!”
The topic also had an almost serendipitous tie-in to Byddi’s new book!
She explained: “It starts off with a couple who are both chefs, running a restaurant in Armagh. She gets offered a job in Paris and he doesn’t want to go and the argument between them brings up the people in Armagh not wanting to eat sushi!”
Again, coming back to Paris, Byddi said they thought they would be there for life!
It wasn’t, however, without its downsides. Continued Byddi: “The problem was it was noisy and very hot in the summer. They don’t do air conditioning! I was so uncomfortable with the heat in June, more than I ever was in California.
“Then, when we went to find a new apartment, you needed to submit your passport, you needed to fill in a portfolio it was like writing a thesis just to view an apartment – not to buy one, just to view it!”
At that point, they reconsidered their move and discussed returning to Armagh.
A stunning photo showing both cathedrals in the snow, by Byddi Lee
“The idea originally was to do a few months and get our ‘Armagh fix’ and then maybe move away again for a few months and in the meantime rent the house out as an Air B&B… pretty nomadic!
“But, we came home and then discovered other writers, Tim Hanna and Malachi Kelly in the Armagh Theatre Group and we found our own creative tribe here.”
Byddi was involved with two other writers in the development of ‘Impact’, a play about the tragic Armagh Railway Disaster. Soon after that, she found both herself and her husband “pulled into” the group where they have forged incredible connections and made firm friends.
Speaking about her love of Armagh, she added: “It’s a great place to live because it’s quiet at night!
“I was able to reconnect with people my age from the Canadian Reservation and one of the women was coming over to travel around Ireland. It just so happened to fall when the Wickerman festival was on.
“In the reservation they would be used to the Pow Wow in Wikwemikong every year. They loved the Wickerman and felt it was a really authentic event.
“It was nice to be able to show that off and on other occasions we were on holidays and we met Australians. They came to visit for two weeks in January and we took them to Tayto Castle and up to the North Coast.”
Byddi says there is plenty to see and do in our little county and especially with visitors, to whom it is all “brand new and exciting!”
“It’s easy to live here even compared to Belfast. Just getting about. I can walk anywhere or park my car just outside the door.
“You meet people here and feel connected. It’s a nice thing that the Armagh people can be so welcoming.
“Maybe when you are younger you feel like the world needs to be scaled-up and when you hit a certain age you feel it needs to be scaled down. But it was certainly easy for my husband and I to ‘plug in’ when he came home.”
Now that they have been proudly “adopted” by four very special cats, the couple are unlikely to pull up their roots and relocate permanently in the future.
Armagh is their home, and perhaps it always has been.
But future travels are never off the cards!
