In Irish folklore, mermaids are known as merrows — sea beings who can move between the water and land. They are said to wear a magical hooded cape, something that allows them to return to the sea. Without it, they are bound to the shore.   Merrows are not caught between worlds. They are drawn between them, longing for the sea when on land, and for land when in the sea. 

When Piper Daken (BPhil’24) was a child, she wanted to be a mermaid. “I always felt like a fish out of water.”  

Learning to belong 

Growing up, Piper moved a lot, attending seven different schools across New Brunswick. With every move came new friends and new versions of herself. She learned early how to adapt and listen.  

She didn’t know it at the time, but she was already learning how to belong wherever she landed. 

As Piper grew older, her dreams became more realistic — neurology, teaching and eventually, pediatrics. In high school, she threw herself into various clubs and activities, such as student council and peer mentoring. She envisioned a future built on helping others. 

When she began her university journey at UNB in kinesiology, she decided halfway through her first year that medicine no longer felt like the right shore. 

Then the pandemic arrived, and everything paused. 

After deciding to take a year off from school, Piper eventually became a manager at a chocolate shop in Fredericton. She was surprised by how deeply the work resonated with her.  

That year highlighted something she had always felt deep down: her work needed to be relational. 

“I liked helping people and working collaboratively as a team. And I liked the responsibility of being in charge of the orders and communicating with different organizations and building relationships.” 

That’s when Piper returned to an idea she had encountered years earlier at a leadership conference — Renaissance College (now UNB’s School of Leadership Studies).  

“From the moment I applied, I was like, ‘There's nowhere else that I would ever want to go. This is the program for me.’ I was really drawn to the small classes, and the community-centred learning.”  

To Piper, learning was understanding oneself in relation to others. At Renaissance College, professors felt accessible, and hierarchies didn’t exist. On Wednesdays, students cooked and ate together. 

“Everyone is just learning from each other.” 

The program’s two internships took her even farther from shore — first across Canada, then across the world. 

Following the current 

In Vancouver, B.C., Piper worked at Lookout Housing and Health Society, supporting men in recovery as they navigated housing, employment and community reintegration.  

“I helped them find sustainable housing, jobs… helped them in their recovery journeys. I did weekly cooking classes. After the Lookout, I kind of found my passion for working within the homeless and community health sector.” 

Piper returned to New Brunswick and began working in homelessness services at Grace House in Fredericton. 

“I did a lot of medication management, a lot of check-ins. I worked the overnight shift as well… a lot of clients suffered from insomnia, and they would sit, and we would chat about literally anything under the sun.” 

Piper loved front-line work. “That's always been my main focus. I love people. I love being with people. I love community.” 

Through her international internship at UNB, she travelled to the Kingdom of Tonga, where she lived with a host family on a small island and worked in environmental conservation. 

During her stay, Piper worked as a conservation intern, documenting and managing invasive species on the island. “There was a specific plant called Lopa. It was a species that was introduced to Tonga… and when it grew, it was taller than all the other trees, and it would take over the entire rainforest canopy. So, no other trees would be able to get sunlight and then they would die. So, a lot of our job was going into the rainforest and taking out the invasive species and properly disposing of them.” 

After her internship in Tonga, Piper worked on provincial mental health initiatives through the Premier’s Council on Disabilities with fellow classmates as part of her studies. “We collaborated with a community entity, proposing a solution for the lack of mental health resources in New Brunswick.”  

After graduating from UNB, the tide shifted for Piper once more. 

While visiting her aunt in Vancouver with only $50 in her pocket, she randomly decided to apply for a working holiday visa for Ireland. 

When she returned home, she received a letter in the mail saying her application was approved. She sold nearly everything she owned, and moved to Dublin, Ireland — home of the merrow. 

An island had called her back. 

Between sea and shore 

When Piper arrived, she quickly found a job with Merchants Quay Ireland, a national voluntary organization supporting people experiencing homelessness and addiction through front-line services, harm reduction and pathways to recovery across Ireland.  

“My job, regardless of the title, is building relationships... meeting people where they’re at. Letting them know they’re safe.” 

Piper says she applies everything she learned at Renaissance College daily: motivational interviewing, cross-cultural leadership, reflective practice and a commitment to dignity over judgment. She works in a multicultural environment with clients whose lives exist under constant pressure — between housing and homelessness, health and harm, trust and trauma. 

It is work that requires comfort with uncertainty. 

As her visa nears its end, Piper has a clearer sense of where the current is taking her next. In September, she begins a master of science in comparative social change, a joint degree offered by University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. The program is another step in her ongoing journey to better understand how people, communities and systems change.  

Through her studies, she hopes to gain a deeper foundational understanding of social change and its processes, knowledge she can bring to community development, social innovation and social program planning. Even with that next step in view, she is, as she describes it, in a liminal space. A place of transition, possibility and becoming. 

But this too feels familiar. 

Merrows are drawn between sea and shore, loving each place in its absence. They do not belong by choosing one world over the other, but by knowing how to return. It’s a way of moving Piper knows well now. 

Renaissance College, Piper says, gave her the confidence to trust that movement. “The world is my oyster,” she says simply. “And Renaissance College has given me the confidence to conquer anything.”