Moving to Ireland - lots of questions

[ThatchersCold]

I’ve massively got the fear about what is going to happen in the near future with Brexit in the U.K.

I have Irish heritage (grandparents) and so am going to apply for an Irish passport. My DM has had an Irish passport for about 20 years and she is putting her house on the market and is thinking about moving to Ireland. I am strongly considering moving there too, but am trying to work out if it would be feasible.

I don’t think my dc would be entitled to Irish passports as my DM was not born there, is that right? If so, what kind of rights would they have to live in Ireland, particularly when they become adults?

My eldest dd is disabled which impacts how much I can work, so I would need to claim benefits. I am self employed but don’t earn that much, so currently receive working tax credits, child tax credits, carers allowance, child benefit, housing benefit and my daughter gets DLA. I’ve no idea what my/her entitlement to welfare would be in Ireland. Because of my daughter’s disability I need to be sure I’d be able to make ends meet.

also any other information about the cost of living, healthcare, employment, schools etc would be useful. My DM is planning to move to somewhere around Wexford so would probably be that area. My dc are 8 and 14. I don’t know if this a bonkers idea or whether I could actually do it. Would be a scary thing to do as I actually really like my life here but I’m so worried about what the future holds here, particularly for the dc.

Big differences between Dublin and rural parts in terms of diversity, culture etc.

The Irish are extremely sensitive and defensive about their country, as evidenced in the hysterical reactions to people saying 'southern Ireland' etc and the poster upthread who told the OP she wasn't half Irish (I mean wtf?) It is a young country still trying to define itself and has insecurities around its identity and its short troubled, contested history. How it commemorates the next big centenaries, 2021, 2022, will be very challenging.

I'm Irish, I live in NI and have family who live in Dublin, the cost of housing is astronomical there and I know they find the health system very costly too. if you are going to escape Brexit, just be aware that it will have massive repercussions in Ireland too, both north and south.

Whosafraidofabigduckfart that was some typo 😂

I think youve all done a good job of explaining Ireland your not trying to sell the op Ireland your telling her the good and the bad
I'm from cork I'd move back in a second to live the nice easy slow life and take my English husband and children with me if I thought for a second we could afford it. It's very expensive for stuff like food fuel rent and house prices are ridiculous
My mam of forever saying things like do you want me to buy the children's copys and books for school and they will need a big sack for all the books when she finds out theres no books she thinks I live in a backward country
The other thing I realised this week is Ireland is extremely religious its beat into you from the day you are born and it stays with you. I'm not a religious person but the pope visiting over the weekend I was watching the news I realised how unreligious I actually am my kids knew nothing of the catholic church. They didn't even know who the pope was.
Oh and the hospitals are shit my mam is a nurse she collapsed at work a few weeks ago and was took to A&E and was still sitting on a trolley 2 days later in her uniform she was phoned twice a day when was she coming back to work. In the end her boss came down spoke to someone and they eventually got to her and discharged her within a few hours complete with an undetected lung clot. They never even took bloods or her blood pressure.

With the reaction to my "lack of diversity" comment, I didn't dare mention religion or the role of the Catholic Church

Anepleasebob hasn’t a clue what she is talking about. I'm not going to keep explaining here but I will reiterate that no one has a right to social assistance (ie means tested payments, not social insurance based benefits) in Ireland. You can, and will, be refused certain payments unless you satisfy the HRC test. It’s easily explained in various sources online.

Anoisagusaris, Yes I agree. It was easily explained in the link you kindly provided. For some reason AnEPleaseBob chose to dismiss your information and other posters hospital experiences? Maybe you should repeat the link.

Lurkeycakewoman that sounds terrible! I hope your mum's alright now.

It's amazing to me how much y'all seem to count on housing and benefits provided by the government. Even when I made very little money, I worked full time and didn't qualify for any benefits at all in the US. Here the most people qualify is usually subsidized health care for children, day care assistance, food stamps and maybe some subsidized housing. And no wants to or seems to stay in the subsidized housing here for very long. But it's very very difficult to rely on all this help for years on end.

Welcome to how the rest of the world does things, SusieQ.

The US is very much an anomaly in terms state aid to citizens, and in terms of certain rights such as maternity leave it is rock bottom worldwide..

I was not talking about maternity leave. And I hear horror stories from
British friends about having to wait for necessary health care. Here people on Medicaid don't have to wait for necessary surgery. Also I pay plenty of taxes. But how do people there on benefits pay taxes? Aren't they just using the public funds? I'm not saying the US is perfect or better than anyone. I merely made the observation that y'all seem to be very interested in what benefits (I meant public funding) you can get. Isn't your economy not doing well under this scheme? (I've heard it referred to as a "welfare" state.)

Respectfully, Susie, I don’t think anyone in Ireland or the U.K. aspires to be like the US.

If you don’t have anything useful to contribute to the thread then this isn’t the thread to try and assert your moral viewpoint on people who are supported by welfare. The American system is no place to judge anyone from.

The Irish are extremely sensitive and defensive about their country, as evidenced in the hysterical reactions to people saying 'southern Ireland'

Yes, its entirely hysterical to want your country to be called by a vaguely accurate name and not a colonialist inaccurate nonsensical name. How fucking dare we

The other thing I realised this week is Ireland is extremely religious its beat into you from the day you are born and it stays with you. I'm not a religious person but the pope visiting over the weekend I was watching the news I realised how unreligious I actually am my kids knew nothing of the catholic church. They didn't even know who the pope was

Absolute bollocks. Ireland is not remotely religious any more and you can tell because the fucking pope visited and more people lined up to protest him than were there to say hiya. I don't know anyone who is religious in Ireland.
Stop repeating complete fucking nonsense about a place you don't understand.

No one religious in Ireland???? Let me introduce you to all my aunts, uncles and cousins, yes still all Catholic and all attend church and send kids to Catholic school. I don’t think they stand in church on their own on a Sunday

Oh and I saw plenty of people on TV lining the streets to see the Pope.

Did I say NOONE is in Ireland is religious? There are religious people in every country. But as a nation, Ireland is no more religious than anywhere else.
The streets were near empty to meet the Pope. The places with crowds were where the protests were, I was there so I know.

Ireland is not remotely religious any more
That is what you said and it's just not true, meet all my relatives too, unless it's just our two families?! I read on another thread that Irish state schools are 98% religious, how does that make the country not remotely religious?

No, 90% of schools are owned by the church, but almost none of the children or families actually go to church. Almost nobody is actually religious. Your family might be, but thats unusual. Go to any church on a sunday they are empty, over 60's only and not even many of them.

But it's still very deep in the culture and history

Attendance at the Pope's Phoenix Park mass was down 90 percent from the one in 1979-more if you take the growth of population since then into account. The aerial photos are very reminiscent of Trump's sparse inauguration crowd.

The majority of younger Catholics I know are cultural Catholics only, or as I've heard them described at the weekend Bouncy Castle Catholics. Happy enough to use the church for christenings, communions, weddings and funerals, but not taking too much notice of what the church actually preaches. I know several children who never saw the inside of a church between their baptism and communion.

School patronage is a problem as it no longer the beliefs or practices of the majority of the population.

reflects the beliefs...

But it's still very deep in the culture and history

not in the way you mean,

Do tell me what I mean