AN IRISH AUTHOR living in France has asked the public to vote on Facebook as to whether or not she should return to Ireland after 10 years living in Normandy.

Liz Ryan, 57, is the author of French Leave: An Irishwoman’s Adventures in Normandy and has been living in a remote Normandy village since 2001 after becoming fed up with Ireland.

Ryan, a former journalist, told TheJournal.ie about what sparked her decision to leave the country: “One of the reasons was at that time Ireland was just not fun to live in anymore.

I had a couple of nasty incidents and was on the receiving end of assaults, burglaries and my car was vandalised so I felt the quality of life was going down the drain.

In her book she charts her gradual immersion into French village life and explains what she finds as the often paradoxical French attitudes to food and dieting, sport, shopping as well as discussing their attitude towards Anglophone residents such as herself.

At end she says she misses Ireland particularly her family and friends and puts the decision on whether or not she should come home to readers, asking them to vote on Facebook.

She insisted that she would really make her eventual decision based on the poll when it closes in six months time:

Yes I will absolutely. I will be very influenced by the outcome of the poll and I’d be interested to hear the reasons people have to offer for coming home.

So far the poll overwhelmingly backs her to stay in France, with one commenter telling her she’d be crazy to come back as the country’s broke.

Ryan says the poll will stay open until September when she will decide whether or not to end her time in France.