I just got back from New York, not having visited for at least five years.  I used to visit Soho a lot as I worked with a gallery there who showed some of my artists from Ireland.  They were happy days before 9/11 and I have great memories of places and people.  I went back in the October after the disaster and understandably the place was different but people were so grateful that we were having the courage to visit.  To be honest, coming from Northern Ireland, we had no fear at that time.

What I found this time and I hasten to add I was mostly in the Brooklyn area, appeared to be a sort of apathy, as though everyone was waiting for something good to happen.  The papers were full of the gloom and doom of the housing market and television was even more depressing with debates on the forthcoming election.  There was no vibrancy, no buzz, no spirit of expectation.  I had come primarily with some of my family to visit my brother who lives with his American wife in Brooklyn and is having some health problems at the moment.  It was good for me to see that he still enjoys life there.  He's a writer and there are so many things there to inspire him.

In downtown Manhattan I found buildings to let, businesses closed up with sad letters from the owners apologising for having had to close down.  Macy's was just like I remembered, as was Bloomingdales;  there just wasn't the usual hum about the place.  It was my eldest son's first visit to New York and it was interesting to see it through his eyes.  He hadn't experienced the previous vitality I had discovered when I first went there.  All he wanted was for my brother to pack up and come home to where the air is sweet and there is room to breathe.  He was, however, very touched by the politeness of so many people who didn't even know us.

We had dinner in the financial centre and sat in disbelief as young men everywhere talked into their mobiles while they ate, not enjoying the food itself but paying prices we would never dream of for similar food at home.  Yes, there was a huge buzz there but it wasn't for real.

What I will remember most are some of the people we met.  The taxi drivers who shared with us their joy at having escaped the countries they came from.  They owed America a huge debt.  The girl who lovingly blow dried my hair was Russian but told me how all her family had come to live in Queens and what a good life they had considering what they had left behind.  The doorman who adored our baby grandson and told us of his hopes for the future of his own sons now they were promised a good education.  The waitress from Thailand who was working her way through graduate school to provide her family with money.  So many lovely people, all with different stories but all glad to be there.

Coming home was a strange feeling.  Driving down the road towards our home I was overcome by the view of the sea from our front door.  The air was like champagne and the daffodills were out in profusion.  Little Paddy Jack ran wild in the garden, intoxicated by freedom from his buggy and his hotel room.  Our dogs ran to meet us and gave us the most wonderful homecoming.  The most important thing to us all was that we were safely home and home is where our hearts are.  Just as it is for all those people in New York who are working so hard to achieve their dreams.  I don't understand it but I respect it.  Life here just wouldn't suit many of them and our economy couldn't sustain them.  So my wish for New York is that it gets back a lot of what it has lost and that its people can live happily and in peace as they deserve.