I’ve always, as my mother is fond of telling me, been a jealous person. “You’re like my friend Allison*,” she’ll tell me, referring to a friend of hers who died of cancer in her early forties. “She was always very jealous, even when we were children.”

That Allison is dead makes no difference to Mum’s assessment of her – truly, the two things I know about her are that “she was always dyeing her hair” (not meant as a compliment, although any critique is more to do with the damage all of that dye must have done) and that she and I are the most jealous people Mum’s ever met.

My mother, to her credit, is not someone who will suddenly pretend a recently deceased relative had no flaws. “I mean,” she’ll say, as we chew funeral sandwiches while milling around with their nearest and dearest, “they were always very cheap. They’d be horrified at the expense of this.”

That jealousy has only entered Moanery Lane now, some half dozen installments in, is surprising (to my mother as well as to myself, I’m sure).

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But here we are: I’m jealous, or, honestly, very homesick, and the two have merged in my mind to the point that I’m not really sure which is which, or why.

The homesickness rears its head in weird ways. I’ll get a yearning for a Superquinn sausage, or for the smell of the hops from the Guinness brewery. When I see seagulls in people’s Instagram Stories it sparks something primal in me; I remember, fondly, the giant, feral gulls who used to perch right by the glass partition on the rooftop cafe of Marks & Spencer on Grafton St, thrilling and terrifying me in equal measure.

A few summers ago, I went to Lake Michigan with Beatrice and her children. We swam in the lake at St Joseph and I was shocked by the sand at the beach, by the tides of the lake, by the presence of seagulls, so many thousands of miles from the sea. (Shocked and delighted, obviously.)

Last week, my homesickness struck me when I watched the Instagram Stories of a group of fashion editors, journalists and influencers, all of whom had been invited to Co Donegal by Magee, the heritage Irish brand known for its tweed and its tailoring, traditional fabrics and classic silhouettes.

I wasn’t there, so I can’t say exactly what went on – but I do know they drove in a Land Rover Defender (my dream car, but the old version, covered in dirt, fulfilling a fantasy where I live in the countryside and own an Aga) to explore the great outdoors; there was a trip to the woolen mills; a stay in Lough Eske Castle; and a presentation of their autumn/winter collection – with canapés.

It was the kind of trip I used to go on. I travelled to the UK with Dr Martens and to Sligo with Voya. I went paddle boarding in Spain with Fitbit; I explored Turkey with the Turkish tourist board; I was invited to Italy with Davines. I enjoyed my fair share of press trips, and with them, my fair share of goodie bags – I understand that a lamentation of “I don’t get to go on free trips any more!” is not a very legitimate complaint.

To be honest, though, it’s not the freebies themselves I miss the most. I do miss them, of course; it’s hard, in the way that I imagine it’s hard for Taylor Swift to truly enjoy a shopping trip (that is to say, LOL, poor her), to go from having your pick of the most expensive skincare, for which you have paid zero pennies, to having to buy your own, especially at a time when you suddenly find yourself earning less than ever before in your adult life. (Life is not a zero sum game, so when I complain, know that I’m doing so with tongue firmly in cheek, one eye on my privilege, the other on my good fortune.)

Rather, it’s the sense of being included that I miss, along with, honestly (will I regret admitting this? a question I rarely ask myself but maybe I should do so more often), the sense of being someone.

In Ireland, I was “one of” the influencers who got invited to things; I was “one of” a group of journalists who could pretty reliably be expected to show up to the Avoca party, or (the best party of all) the Marks & Spencer summer barbecue; I was “one of” the influencers who was given a car to drive (two years in a row, Volkswagen provided my ride, a fact I declared to Revenue although afterwards, regretted that, as I suspected very few other influencers were doing the same, it being such a new and unregulated industry), a new phone to try, a laptop to work from.

But it was the sense of being in a gang, of sorts, that was – in hindsight, a point of view from which everything becomes if not quite clear, then at least less opaque – so nice about that time.

Yesterday, I saw a fellow influencer-slash-creative-slash-journalist (we’re all slashies, in one way or another) sharing photographs from the Brown Thomas fashion show, a showcase of the designer clothing that has been selected for purchase from Brown Thomas during any given season.

It was always one of the events of the year (twice a year, in fact, for spring-summer and autumn-winter), an event where you’d see people you knew from every job you’d ever had in media. I remember when influencers began to be invited, how scathing those of us in “traditional” (print media, websites, TV and radio) media roles were about these young women (because the earliest influencers were all women, at least any who were being invited to the BT show).

There would be a fashion show and then a breakfast, or canapés, along with a goodie bag which included a €200 voucher for a pair of shoes of your choice (crucially, this couldn’t be used for Christian Louboutin, Chanel or Hermès, but everything else was fair game).

One year, when I worked at The Irish Times and was feeling guilty about all of the free swag I was getting, I offered my voucher as a reader gift. Brown Thomas’ PR team reached out to me to tell me the voucher was non-transferrable; I simply couldn’t give it away. I said that was fine, but I’d have to tell my readers why the competition had been removed. They let me transfer the voucher. (I was always causing trouble, clearly; that I stopped being invited to the show a year or two before I left Ireland feels, again in hindsight, unsurprising.)

There is no voucher, any more, as it happens. Instead, attendees receive a bottle of perfume, the smallest size of which costs €155, (So? eau de toilette this is not).

Attendees still clap at the end of the catwalk show, which always felt hilarious to me. At regular fashion shows, you clap for the designer, who emerges from backstage looking slightly awkward, takes a small bow and then retreats, once more; at Brown Thomas, you’re clapping for the buyer, who’s done a great job at, er, picking clothes again this season! They stand up and smile beatifically at the applause. (LOL!)

But there’s such a great sense of camaraderie at these things! I miss that a lot. Not to mention the gossip; press events were always great for the gossip. Who’s quit their job? Who’s been fired? Who’s threatening to sue for unfair dismissal; and do you think that person’s really having an affair with the CEO of that legacy newspaper?!

The Magee trip made me think, too, of all of the great friends I made through my career in media. There’s the boss who became the person I go to for career advice, for whom I would strongly consider donating a kidney if she needed one (I said “strongly consider”, so I’m not 100% there); the fellow blogger I don’t speak to half as often as I’d like to but who, as I told her this week, will always be one of my favourite people; and the celebrity stylist who I could always trust would have as cynical (I thought about writing “b****y” there, but I feel as though, in a lot of ways, we’re in a post-b****y world, what a dismissive, misogynistic word that is) a take as I did.

Interestingly, the vast majority of my favourite people no longer work in media, at least not in the type of roles that would garner them an invitation to the BT show, or to Donegal with Magee, or to much in between.

At a certain point, I think, we all started to look at our vast collections of perfumes and our dwindling bank balances and think, perhaps this whole thing isn’t working out all that well.

So maybe it’s not jealousy, per se, that I’m experiencing, but a certain wistfulness for a life I once had, freebies I once got, trips I once experienced (the insincere clapping I once did).

It was, in a lot of ways, the best of times. I wouldn’t like to go back, at least not all the way. But I wouldn’t mind the odd €150 bottle of perfume.

In case this whole thing has left you with a bad taste in your mouth – jealousy is a sin, after all! – comfort yourself with the knowledge that I find jealousy very motivating altogether. And I’m not alone!

P.S. Since writing this, I GOT MY GREEN CARD! So I’ll be going home as soon as I can (a) get the money together and (b) get baby Romy’s passport! SUPERQUINN SAUSAGES, HERE I COME!

*names have been changed

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