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.

No one has mentioned that Irish teenagers have to work much, much, much harder than British teenagers.

There is no comparison.

Five, six hours of homework a night. Do it or do nothing for the rest of your life. This is the truth, I promise.

@heartsease68 very true. Unrealistic expectations. But then again I suppose that's why we have fantastic education. The limits in secondary school are very ridiculous though.

ot every school is catholic? Lol I live in a city in Ireland and yes 9/10 schools are catholic. The ones that aren't are schools that people claim are for 'hippies' other people's words not mine. Yes in Ireland you are looked at different if you're not baptized, or had your first holy communion. The general response would be 'oh, well why not? What happened?'

What are you talking shite for? Thats not true at all, its pure bollocks. Nobody gives a shiny shit that my kids are not baptised, they are far from the only ones, its really common not to be. Theres loads of kids not doing Communion, my kids school friends are hindu and muslim and buddhist and atheist as well as catholic.

As for school for hippies, not sure where you live but it sounds like its the 1970's there . Maybe move to 21st century Ireland, its nothing like whatever hole you live in!

Five, six hours of homework a night. Do it or do nothing for the rest of your life. This is the truth, I promise

More bollocks! I've one just done leaving cert, he did nothing of the sort and got 460 points, first choice college course!

What planet are some of you on?

AnEPleaseBob

Er, the Irish one.

Your son must be a genius. Thank your lucky stars.

If you're interested, next year try taking a quick poll of his pals who go outside Ireland to study next year. They will have discussed their experiences of sixth form with students not from Ireland. They will be indignant. Trust me.

Five, six hours of homework a night. Do it or do nothing for the rest of your life. This is the truth, I promise.

Total bollocks ime. I know a lot of kids who went to the traditionally high achieving schools (way up in the league tables) and this isn't the case. Maybe it was where you are, but definitely not for all.

Five, six hours of homework a night.

Well, it depends on what you want to do. The problem with Leaving Cert is that for university places you are competing against everyone else who wants to do the same course as you, and you don't know exactly how well you need to do until the exam results come out as offers of university places are made a few days later. So the onus is on students to do as well as they possibly can in the LC and score more points than their competitors in order to get into the course of their choice. It can be very, very stressful, probably more so than for UK students who hold their offers in advance and who know they have a university place if they achieve the required grades and so are really only competing against themselves.

I know how it works from both sides as I did A levels myself and my three DC have done Leaving Cert. I can tell you I never, ever want to have to go through the stress of LC as a parent ever again. Those days between LC results and offers day nearly broke me, never mind my DC.

The problem with Leaving Cert, in my opinion, is that it can be harder than A levels for the average student in that you have to do seven subjects instead of three or four. Each LC subject is worth about 2/3 of an A level so they aren't studied in quite such depth. You are tested on what you know & can regurgitate in exam conditions, not so much on how you apply it, and you have to memorise a lot. You do have a choice of whether to do higher level or ordinary level in each subject, but ordinary level grades are worth less points.

Students have to do English, Maths and Irish as well as four other subjects of their choice, so unlike A levels unless you are a complete all-rounder you won't just be studying the handful of subjects you like and are good at, so you do have to work harder on your weaker subjects.

The main advantage of the Irish system as I see it is that students come out with a generally broader education on leaving school as they don't specialise so early as they do in the UK.

I can well believe that there are many students doing 5 hours of homework a night. Many, many students have to make the decision on whether to keep up honours Irish along with honours maths purely because there is only so much time in the day - something has to give and quite often it is Irish because you only need a pass in ordinary level to matriculate. With the bonus points for honours maths students feel taking that option is worth the extra time and effort involved. But other time consuming subjects (honours Irish isn't the only one) are avoided as a result.

Those Irish students who made it to a British university definitely had to work much harder to get there, no question. IMO they also tended to be more able /focused than the usual calibre of British student and were kind of over qualified for first year /found first year easy while British students were blindsided. It didn't seem as if they would have found it easier to get into Irish universities either. Without exception they described secondary as utter hell with a totally unreasonable workload.

@AnEPleaseBob they clearly don't tell you they think it's odd your kids are not baptized. I know in my family and people I know.. they'd be asking questions.

Non catholic schools yes they would be deemed the 'odd ones out' type of schools.

And it does rain so much. This year is an exception. The endless rain can be very depressing. I don't know why people deny it. It's what gives the lovely dairy produce etc.

Yeah maybe if you're down the country then people would question not having your kids baptized and going to nondenominational schools. Where I live in a Dublin suburb it's normal not to baptize your kids, some do some don't. Lots of people are very anti church. The kids aren't seen as hippy kids, non denominational are some of the most sought after schools here.

" Without exception they described secondary as utter hell with a totally unreasonable workload. "

yes that is what I have heard as well...

@AnEPleaseBob they clearly don't tell you they think it's odd your kids are not baptized. I know in my family and people I know.. they'd be asking questions

Thye don't tell me because they don't think its odd, because its not odd.

You can't claim that "everyone thinks your weird for X" and then follow it up that no-one will actually tell you that they think that. Thats called paranoia.

Your son must be a genius. Thank your lucky stars

He's not a genius. He's a smart kid, but he's the same as most of his friends. None of them did six hours of homework a night, and if yours are and still struggling to make the grades, I'd be very worried about that.

They don't have to work incredibly hard to get into UK colleges, they are already well ahead of their UK counterparts and frankly piss all over them educationally. Its easier to get into a UK college than an Irish one.

Children of cousins of mine worked really hard (many hours a night) and applied for medicine in the UK, breezed through once admitted. So I agree with both AnEPleasantBob and those claiming the hours of slog, on different points.

Maybe it comes down to teachers and how they organise their teaching?
Some teachers are better able to predict what will come up on the LC and make students focus on what turns out to be the jackpot, some can better help students focus on relevant elements of any given syllabus/skills and give less busywork. Some are maybe not as experienced and students end up doing massive amounts of work just so the teacher can feel he or she has covered everything.

I know students who did repeats and found the teachers in the repeat year had the LC approach down pat whereas their original LC teachers had been all over the place.

I've heard that parents fleeing UK with their children go to Ireland. They receive a more just and fair treatment from the Irish social services.

I've heard that parents fleeing UK with their children go to Ireland. They receive a more just and fair treatment from the Irish social services

some do, because they think they can hide from Social Services as they won't be known to them. They generally get caught up with.

I've heard that parents fleeing UK with their children go to Ireland. They receive a more just and fair treatment from the Irish social services

I think that's a myth spun by the kind of people who think that UK social workers have targets for removing healthy white babies from their birth parents and having them adopted.

It's true that the rules surrounding domestic adoption are different in Ireland and the UK -- or so I believe. All my Irish friends who have adopted did so from overseas. As far as I am aware, and I'm sure someone on here will know more, it is harder to free a child for adoption without birth parent consent in Ireland, so there are far fewer domestic adoptions, and more children in longterm care situations.

It's almost impossible to adopt an Irish child, it just doesn't happen.

I live in South Dublin and in my area there is one Catholic secondary school that accept children of all faiths and none, two with a Protestant ethos that accept all, and two comps. For primary the closest are a multi denominational, 3 Catholic and 3 Protestant, all of which take children of any faith. Even in the faith schools most of the families are atheist. We live in a bog standard though slightly middle class area. As for teens doing homework/studying for 5-6 hours a night that's madness, I have 3 that have been through the system (and did well) and did nothing like that amount of work. I would agree with pp who suggested that you should check out what supports will be in place for your DC with a disability, perhaps by contacting volunteer groups and societies.

AnEPleaseBob

You didn't read my posts very carefully - I agree that Irish students enter university ahead of British students.

However you are very much in the minority on this thread regarding hours worked. Maybe your son didn't apply himself.

However you are very much in the minority on this thread regarding hours worked. Maybe your son didn't apply himself

Now whos not reading? He got 460 points and top offers for college! I'm not in the minority either.
Like I said, if your kids need to do six hours of work a night and are still struggling, you need to get some help with that. Maybe drop down to ordinary level subjects and not put them under such pressure to perform?