To think that life seems better in rep of ireland?

[PunnyOliveTurtle]

ok...hear me out...My DM is Irish and she has not been home in a good few years, I haven't been over since I was 15, I'm early 40's now. So i decided to bring her over to visit her sisters as they are all getting older...late 60s/early 70's.

I had a wonderful time. I caught up with all of my cousins...and here is where I noticed the divide...they all have gorgeous homes and I mean stunning! Some in the country, some in the town, all fab new builds or gutted and updated old houses. A couple in new housing estates which were FAB!!
One of my cousins has just bought a new home...her DH is driving a 2025 car, they are off on hols next week. I asked her if she won the lotto and she laughed saying she wished, savings are now depleted and she was "broke". I know she has no credit cards because she metioned that she didn't have one when we wer talking about booking dinner somewhere and they wanted to take a deposit.

They all have great jobs...a lot of them are teachers...like i was. But they are no where near as stressed as I was. They are on holidays already and have been with a few weeks.Some are nurses but work part time in private hospitals, others work in big pharma companies, banking etc.Their dh's also have great jobs, engineers, managers in tech/pharma, one owns a construction company, one is a farmer.
All and I mean ALL of their DC who are of uni age are in university...no student loans. They have a grant scheme apparently. None of my cousins themselves have student loans...they are in 30's to mid 50's. (Can you tell we had an in depth discussion on uni and fees etc!)
Their DC aged 15+ all have summer jobs...in a local chippy, local cafe, one on a farm etc. My 18 yr old cant get a job at all!!

Everything just seemed so positive there...and im sure its not but I cant put my finger on it...it really got me.
I'm struggling most months...this trip was part on credit card. DD looking to start uni and i dont know how I'm going to help her... I know they say dont compare and I know there must be those struggling in Ireland too but there seemed to be A LOT more money being thrown around.

Yes, that's awful. And still less than the 44% of respondents who had experienced racism and discrimination in Ireland. Shocking stuff.

https://www.euronews.com/2023/10/25/shocking-levels-of-racism-rising-in-europe-finds-report

I didn't design the study, but you can see that the UK is ranked as less racist than Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and Norway. I'm not sure what "unproblematic" countries you would like to see added to the list.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-racist-countries

comes out top 10 here…for least racist.

But but how do they do on forestation??

Probably awesomely 😂

Ah yes, just what I was told to justify the racist comments I got on a daily basis in Dublin.

"We're not racist, it's just that we've never seen someone like you before! Expecting us not to shout 'ching chong, Jackie Chan' at you is asking too much!"

FWIW when I've spent time in England no one treated me like that, although I've only been to London.

Agree

I came across an old photo in Facebook : Cabra West housing estate under construction , the biggest housing project in Europe in its time. Dated 1944.

As the actor Colm Meaney said ' I was brought up in a Corporation house in the 60s , why can't they build them now?' I paraphrase. But his point was that we were broke back then and now we are , allegedly, a very prosperous country. Something doesn't add up here.

On a lighter note , things are much better in Tipperary now than probably anywhere in the world. Whereas Cork has died , unexpectedly on Sunday. House private . No flowers. 😢

I bought my first house in Ireland in Annamoe Road - two up/two down ex Corpo for IR£50,000 in 1996. Sold it a couple of years later for a modest profit. Just had a quick look on Daft and a similar house is now €350-425k 😳

Those Corpo houses were built like tanks. We grew up in one on the South Side. My parents stayed there until their deaths a few years ago. We were looking at the paperwork in order to sell it for probate, and they bought it as a "tenant purchase" back in the 60s for a ridiculously small sum of money, under £500 if I remember correctly.

It sold for just short of 450k. But that's the way property increases in price, location is everything no matter whether its private or council.

The LUAS effect is evident in Cabra and surrounds. So close to the city aswell. Anything within the M50 ring is gold now.

Daft is not the selling price though. Look up the Property Price Register for the real sale prices not the asking prices!

Daft show the asking and price sold for now in a new feature, I think it's under a tab called sold

We had to sell my nans house in DLR in 92. Got around 55k. The house 2 doors down went for 450k ...just before the Crash. Noone in our family lives in Dublin now...or could afford to.

Well…
I’m Irish and have land in co, Clare. A historically poor area in west coast but very very beautiful and wild.

I’ll share something as well - my ancestors worked the land as farmers and when the English colonized Ireland they made us Irish work the land for the overseers, then came the Famine and took the food and created this great genocide. Come the revolution, Irish people fought and got rid of the English. In my area the Irish army forced English landlords out - I think they may have killed them- and houses and land that Irish lived and worked on, were handed back to Irish to own. That changed the fortune of mg family and maybe quite a few other families across Ireland. Fast fwd to now…

Ireland has just as much economic diversity as UK- it has massive housing shortage in cities, rural poverty as well as urban poverty… but…

UK went through Brexit. This has massively effed up UK economy. And everyone bar the super rich are feeling it. We’ve let our public services become privatized here, in UK. The cost and also the reliability of train travel is awful in UK. SNCF the French train operator owned by French state owns as an example, some of UK train lines and benefits from the profits going back to make SNCF better. Yes the world is going to hell in a handcart all over but Brexit really has accelerated cost of living crisis - wage suppression, housing costs rises, services costs, food costs. Life feels harder in UK cities than it has done for years is sense I get - UK is in a massive recession - hence rise of far right.

Wow ! Chat GPT ✔️

Chat GPT is getting notions. Don't encourage it.

The landlords - well many of them - were bought out in a government scheme. The tenants became owners. Of course that money had to be repaid to the UK government after the Treaty. So called Land Annuities. After a change of government in Dublin the Irish decided not to pay any more. Why pay the Brits for our own land which they stole in various plantations?

There followed a Tariff War - nothing new under the sun is there? It was finally settled for a one off payment of £10m. A lot of money in 1938. In return the British withdrew from three naval bases in the Republic.

Update on my weekend adventures. Today I did the Poolbeg Lighthouse walk. I went with my three old crone friends (I made it four), and those with knee problems were barred today because of the cobbly wobbly nature of the surface. Always windy there, but not so bad today.

It's always a bit scary (but invigorating) to feel you're walking into the Irish Sea it's so bloody long. And then you have to turn around and come back again. But watching the ships coming into Dublin Port is a great pastime from down by the Shelley Banks where the car park is.

The stacks (red and white "chimbleys") are another icon around there, but you don't have to go to the lighthouse to see them, Sandymount Strand will do that. Fun fact - the chimbleys were painted recently but only the South facing side has been done so far. OK if you live in Sandymount, but not so nice if you're in Clontarf lol 😊

Another hidden gem that's rarely on the list of most visitors, but the natives know all about it!

wildirishwalks.ie/the-great-south-wall-walk/

@bellzel

I've just looked up that Lighthouse walk on Google Street View and it looks amazing. Although the cobbles actually look pretty easy on dodgy knees compared to the cobbled streets of Durham and Whitby. 😁

Well being in the EU will help! Brexit has made us all much poorer.

If you want to stay in England, the north east is much friendlier than London, and generally much cheaper too. However, in many places the public transport leaves a lot to be desired as this part of the country gets nowhere near the funding that the south east does.

Typical! Poor North siders get the crap view of the chimbleys 😂

if you like views of Dublin just climbed the Skyview tower (used to be chimney for Jameson distillery.) Just go to the front desk of the Generator hostel in Smithfield and they will sell you tickets for €5 each, less for kids. They also sell tickets online but it was very quiet and we were the only visitors on a sunday at about 6pm. Its open till late so great summer evening activity.

Lots of stairs to the top (no lift) but great views once up there, unless you want to look directly south, which is blocked.

Well worth a visit.

So (continuing my side hustle for the Irish Tourist Board 😉), yesterday's outing was an easy one, but absolutely gorgeous and I'd forgotten how lovely it is.

We took the bus out to Chapelizod, a lovely little village by the Liffey with Joycean connections, the bridge has a plaque on it and all! Had a coffee in the Baa Baa cafe before setting out to do the linear walk all along the Liffey. It was like being at Henley Regatta (in my head cos I've never been!) since the rowers were out on the river, their clubhouses are on the opposite bank. Dreamy it was!

At the end of the walk is the Memorial Gardens, another gem of a place then home on the bus.

OK you could drive to the car park at Memorial, and do the linear walk in the opposite direction but you'd have to double back on yourself to get back to the car park. Having done the up and down and back again yesterday on the Great South Wall, I wasn't doing similar again!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLKmDpxyEqV/