Meet Sadhbh Warren, a Cork-born blogger now based in Sydney

Sadhbh Warren, an enthusiastic and avid blogger from Co Cork is now living in Sydney, Australia. We spoke to her about meeting and marrying a cute Australian, wax in Cadbury's chocolate and why she made the leap from Ireland to Australia.

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What enticed you to move from Co Cork to Australia?

It was a bit of an accident, a bit of an opportunity and a lot of the love of a cute Australian! 

I came over to Sydney on a whim and a backpacker visa in 2006 and just instantly fell for the place; the lifestyle, the people, the weather, the opportunities to see so many amazing new places. I lived and worked in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and a place called Wagga Wagga (not as much fun as the first four). I had a wonderful time exploring, and managed to swing a second visa (through working on an organic farm, as a fruit-picker and with a traveling funfair). 

In my second year back-packing I kept bumping into this cute Australian bloke called Peter and we ended up dating. Being Irish, he had to explain to me what dating involved, as my normal method of meeting nice men was to go to the pub with them - and another 20 or so friends. We got on very well, and I was in no rush to head home to Ireland – Australia was fascinating and the Celtic Tiger was starting to choke on hairballs so there would have been no job for me. I ended up settling in Sydney with plans to stay for a few years, and got a great job, and then Peter and I got a place together – and now it’s five years on and we’re married and both pretty settled in Sydney. 

I’m not sure we’ll stay here forever – Peter likes the idea of living overseas at some stage, and I’d like to head back to Europe for a while at some point – but with jobs plentiful in Australia and making a living in Ireland so tough right now, it’s not a tempting prospect to move back right now. I also think I'd really miss Sydney's weather - there are many things I love about Ireland but the climate was never one of them.

What do you think now living abroad? Do you miss home or have you built an Irish community in Australia?

A lot of my friends here are Irish – the four of us who came back-packing out here in 2006 all ended up back over here oddly enough, and all in different ways! I have met a whole bunch of fun Australians and some Irish people I didn’t know in Ireland, so if I really want a big session surrounded by Irish voices and beer I don’t have far to go.

I do miss Ireland sometimes - I am sure everyone Irish and abroad does - but I'm very happy I moved to Australia and so are most of the Irish I know here, which you never hear back home - everyone makes out we sit around in the evenings, watching Glenroe on YouTube and sobbing into our inferior foreign tea, which is just bollocks. When you read those emigrant stories the Irish newspapers publish they’re a bit miserable, they’re all "my family and friends are far away and the tea is funny-tastin' and I have no Taytos”. And it can be like that some days – especially when a friend is celebrating a wedding or new baby, or when Ireland is doing well in the rugby – but most of the time I am very happy to be where I am. 

You can be proud to be Irish, and love the country and the people and the many wonderful things about it, while still enjoying what another country has to offer.

Blogging helps for staying in touch, so does Facebook and Skype. I'm very hard-of-hearing so written communication is what I tend to gravitate towards. I try to make to it over to Ireland at least once every two years, and I am very lucky in that some of my friends and family come out to me. And yes, they bring Irish food, usually Cadbury's – they have it here too but they put wax in it to stop it melting at the higher temperatures and it’s just not the same! 

Did you always want to write and do you think that the web contributed in kickstarting your love for blogging?

I’ve always loved writing and reading – English was my favourite subject at school, and long before email I would scribble these massive letters to my Irish college-mate, many of whom I’m still in touch with. The web just gave me access both to reading and writing for a much bigger group of people from far more places and I love that about it.

I blame LiveJournal for getting me blogging, back in its heyday in the very early 2000s when dinosaurs roamed the net and Mark Zuckerberg was some spotty git with an interesting idea. There was a point when almost everyone I knew was on it and posting about their lives – I think the ability to set entries to friends, or just a limited audience, is something I really miss while blogging and that G+ does quite well.

But with the advent of newer, easier social media people floated away from LJ [Live Journal], and that left a me with the urge to continue writing but nowhere to put it. So I ended up branching out a bit from just writing for friends and starting a blog. 

Yes, I still have an LJ too, I’m sentimental like that.

What blogging really did for me was let me write what I wanted to write, not what I thought writing was, if that makes sense. Writing doesn’t have to mean stories and novels, and working in a cold garret in a beret as you churn out Booker prize winners – there’s lots of space for short and interesting prose out there and blogging is really suited to that form. Which is good as it turns out I write terrible long fiction but good fast travel and humour stuff, and that’s what I make some of my money from these days. I sometimes get paid to write about what I enjoy, and when I’m not getting paid I tend to write for enjoyment anyway.

What started you off on your blogging career?

My blog, the incredibly unimaginatively named Sadhbh.blogspot, is a bit of mix to be honest; part personal, part-professional and mainly documenting my beer and travel addictions! I write a lot about my hobbies, about reading and running and adventures abroad, which makes me sound far more active and on the go than I am. But I’m guessing no one wants to read blogs about me coming home, cooking dinner and deciding to watch a few episodes of something on TV rather than go on a 10km run.

My blog started off as somewhere to write bits and pieces about travel so I could update interested friends without bombarding people with emails. A bit down the track I started a bit of freelance writing and I needed somewhere to keep my clippings so I popped them in there. Then I was doing a lot of craft-beer tasting so I put my notes and recommendations up, and then I needed to drop the beer weight so I took up running, so I ended up blogging about all that too... 

A few months ago I looked at it and realised it really is a little bit of everything I enjoy and I’m good with that. Beer and books and running and whatever I fancy talking about today!

Whatever I feel like writing that day is what tends to get written, whether it’s an article or rant about getting my arm stuck in a vending machine. Because the blog is in my name, both my Mum (hi Mum!) and prospective employers can look at it, so I generally try to keep it reasonably clean but still fun – it’s a fine line. My mum thinks I cross that line far too often.

How much are you willing to share on your blog?

I am conscious it’s a public forum so – while I’m pretty personally shameless, and happy to tell embarrassing stories about myself – I try to keep it, if not professional, at least reasonably work and family-safe. I certainly swear a lot less online! I also try not to put too much out there in terms of identifying information - I post about holidays after I get back, not when I am away and the house is wide open to get burgled. (Note to burglars: our house-sitter is a ninja-werewolf who works out daily).

I think most people who blog have a reasonably good handle on when to share, and when to shut the hell up. Facebook is a far more common place to find the over-sharers; I have a younger male relation who keeps “liking” strip-clubs corporate sites and posting links with semi-naked pictures and I’m all “I did NOT need to know that, thanks”.

Do you ever find yourself feeling a bit lazy and not wanting to blog at all or does it come as a natural flow?

You can tell when I have lots of freelance writing on as my blog gets horribly neglected! It’s hard to get enthused about writing interesting stuff when you have spent the last eight hours hunched over a keyboard cursing but writing is like any other skill – you need to use it to keep it in shape. I certainly notice it's a lot easier when I get into a rhythm and stick with it. I don't blog daily though, just don't have that much time!

I do frequently get bitten by the urge to write and fun ideas for things to say. Whether it’s blogging or emailing a close friend, it would be rare that a few days go by that I don’t sit down and write something. Sometimes, when I write a hugely epic email to a friend, I just prune out the personal bits that I’d prefer not to have plastered all over the web and pop it up as post!

Many thanks to Sadhbh for taking the time out to chat with us! Have a read of her blog here.