Moving from UK HE to Ireland?

[BacktoIrelandMaybe]

Does anyone here have any experience of Irish higher education compared to the British system? I got really lucky 5 years ago and landed a permanent lectureship in an arts and humanities subject at a UK department that's really good for my subject, with really lovely colleagues in a town near my in-laws. It looked like it would all work really well but my dept is at a non Russell Group university and student numbers have fallen off a cliff. The university keeps telling us we need to reduce our staff base and is constantly talking about redundancies. I started applying for jobs and have been offered one in the west of Ireland. The HE sector seems a lot saner in Ireland with no REF or TEF and much lower student fees. I grew up in Northern Ireland so it would be a move back home in a sense but I don't know the west of Ireland well at all and we'd be 2.5 to 3.5 hours from family so it would be a bit less support than we have now. The salary is much higher than what I'm on now but it looks like the cost of living in RoI is also a bit higher. My former head of school told me they wouldn't be keen to make me redundant because I'm 'cheap and high performing' but there is a chance the whole department will close and it's horrible living with all the uncertainty and low morale. With two young children and coming out of two difficult pregnancies and post partum periods I could really do without all the pressure of REF and desperation to recruit students. Ireland seems really appealing but I wonder if there are any downsides I'm missing? Would love to hear other's thoughts and experiences!

You’ll probably do more teaching, although students are much less demanding in my experience. Marking will be hellish, because numbers are generally higher esp if you’re in a popular subject.

Less bureaucracy, no REF fewer top down “strategic visions” to respond to every bloody year.

No REF. Did I say that already? 😉

Less chance at career progression. Promotions are few and far between in U.K. HE and the university in the west of Ireland was particularly bad for not promoting women. May have improved now.

Housing may be an issue - Galway is nuts right now.

But if it were me, and your family are mobile, I’d jump at it.

promotions less frequent in Ireland, I meant to say.

Thank you very much for the reply UCUNoMore! Really helpful! :)

If it's NUIG (Galway) research the dept as much as you can. I've read some bizarre news reports about some subject areas (journalism was one) and there was a big issue with the failure to promote women in one department (might have been history or politics). I don't want to be unfair to NUIG but when I hear a mad story about an Irish university I assume it's NUIG. A bunch of new universities were created this year- could be in the West as the names are fairly vague. They might be a bit chaotic for a while and still operating on the old institute of technology system with very heavy teaching loads.

In general though, Irish HE is a nice place to work. Once you have a permanent position it's up to you whether you want to put in the extra hours to do good work and get promoted or do what's needed to maintain a good work life balance. That's what I see anyway. Cost of living is bad though.

My experience, albeit a good 10 years old so perhaps not the most accurate, was that it was much more laid back, with more laid back students.
I found life in Ireland much more expensive though, and less going on than in the UK generally.
Agree about lack of promotion opportunities

Same as everyone above but I’ll add no pension raids or pension problems.fewer mandatory open days. No pressure to convert offers at A level. Don’t know if this was jut where I worked but payment per script for marking .

I moved from UK HE to Ireland for my postdoc.

You are probably much smarter than me (because I didn't know this until it happened), but for the love of God have a plan to get your PPS number asap, because without you'll be paying emergency tax and it's a lot.

I found Ireland terrifyingly expensive (and I didn't need to pay for healthcare, but was a bit nervous about that) - but I was in Dublin, and Dublin property/rental prices are absolutely ridiculous.

I don't know how much of my experience of HE itself is about moving to Ireland and how much might be because I also moved subjects slightly, but I found it quite a culture shock. It was very, very hierarchical and I felt sexism was more tolerated. But, I must admit in an adjacent department I met some lovely women who weren't snobby at all - a prof friend of a friend was welcoming; that sort of thing. I was also a bit surprised by the drinking culture - after seminars, we (plus postgraduate students) were all encouraged to go socialise in the pub. No one seemed to think we should change this practice if we invited a Muslim speaker, either. Personally I found it really weird and inappropriate.

I didn't do an enormous amount of teaching (it was mostly a research post), but I wasn't super impressed TBH. I had a student who plagiarised quite jaw-droppingly badly, and pressure was put on me by the university to minimise it, and to give the student the chance to correct their 'mistake'. The student was unable or unwilling to do this properly, and again, I was pressurised to pass them even so.

Sorry to give a negative picture! I am sure there are lovely things about Irish HE and I know friends who have enjoyed their work very much, but ...

Before you do anything see about what housing is available and how much it would be monthly. I am assuming you are looking at UCG. Housing in Galway is eyewatering expensive and very limited supply. Cost of living here is significant and realistically you will probably have to get private medical insurance.