From NI too. There has been a noticeable influx of people either moving back home after living in GB or people from GB coming here sonce Covid - mostly if they can WFH.
Yes house prices are cheaper, salaries are lower though. Bills remain the same.
Food prices are the same, possibly slightly more expensive.
A night out drinking is now a similar price to London.
When I was in professional training my salary was 7k. Colleagues in Newcastle were on 22k. It was usual for the NI crowd to be sent to work in GB as we were cheaper.
Its a beautiful country, very friendly people. A few rough areas that haven't moved on from the troubles. But the vast vast majority of people want only peace and shared communities.
In middle class areas these issues are not a problem at all.
Great schools - especially Grammar which 60% of our children go to.
Our health care system is shit. All the complaints about the NHS on MN now have been happening here for years and there seems to be no way of fixing it.
We have an incompetent government who play green and orange politics and fight like children rather than sorting out anything. The waste of public money is atrocious. They have fallen out so badly the whole government has shut down for years over completely stupid issues.
Barely anyone votes on policy just Catholic/Protestant- though slowly this is changing. But the government at Stormont are still known as "The Fools on the Hill"
A lot of things I read on MN dont ring true to living here.
We know all our neighbours, the kids play in the street, people call in all the time. NI doesn't really care about class as much.
Its got a very certain sense of humour.
All in I love living here - apart from the weather.
But it isn't some "cheap" utopia