Where would you live if you were working in Dublin 1-3 days per week?

[maybemovingtoireland]

We might relocate to Ireland after Brexit. My husband has been offered a job in Dublin, the nearest station would be Monkstown. We haven't lived in Ireland before.

He is actually able to work remotely from home as much as he likes- he doesn't have to go into the office regularly- but ideally he would want to be in the office 2-3 days per week as he doesn't like being at home every day. He would want to either cycle or use public transport to get to work. If we lived far away he would be willing to stay overnight in Dublin one night a week to have two days in the office without going backwards and forwards each day, and the other 3 days at home.

Luckily my job is flexible and I would be able to work pretty much anywhere in Ireland.

The things we are looking for in an area are:

• good schools (our eldest will be 5 in sept 2019 so I think we would be applying late to schools and dependent on where there are spaces, so it would seem sensible to choose an area with several good schools rather than just one)
• not car dominated- we dislike driving and would like to not need a car day to day. We also dislike areas with lots of congestion where it's hard to cycle or walk due to the car traffic, we would like somewhere where it is pleasant to walk and cycle day to day. We would also like good public transport links. We would be ok to use a car for weekend trips
• good open spaces nearby (whether parks, beach or countryside)

We currently live in London and are used to city living, but happy to have a change.

In our current area of London a small 3 bed house with small garden is around 2500 euros per month to rent, a nice area with a park and good schools nearby. Although we could pay more if needed, we would probably want to not live somewhere more expensive.

Can anyone recommend any areas? I have been looking at various areas of Dublin which looks like a good fit, but frustrating to be paying similar rental prices to London as we don't need to be in the city.

I'm also not sure how difficult it is to find a school place arriving out of sync. Our current primary school is fantastic so it's daunting to move away being unsure what we will get.

Thanks for any advice.

Monkstown itself is lovely and would probably give you everything you’re looking for, but as I’m sure you’ve gathered it’s one of the most expensive areas of Dublin.

Most of South Dublin is nice and your husband could easily cycle to work, or on the Northside look at the areas on the DART line so he could get to work via public transport. Skerries is a nice town, not on the DART line but there is a train into the centre of Dublin.

Co. Wicklow might be another place to look? It’s beautiful and within easy reach of Dublin and some of the towns in the north of county (Bray, Greystones) are on the DART line.

I have only really lived in Dublin so can’t really suggest anywhere else in the country that might be suitable, but if you were to live outside of Dublin or another city / big town then you would most likely need a car day to day. Public transport isn’t great in Ireland so unless you were within walking distance of schools / shops you would struggle.

Best of luck on your search. And by the way - you might want to move this to craicnet, there would be more Irish posters there.

Schools are going to be very difficult in Dublin, most are first come, first served and parents often put names down when babies are tiny. If you are Church of England you might be at an advantage getting into a Church if Ireland school.

I think Dalkey would suit you perfectly, a few stops from Monkstown, pretty village by the sea with great amenities. Lovely CofI school there too.

Dalkey is lovely.
Greystones is great too.
Howth ?
Malahide?

Thank you for the recommendations. They look great. We had thought about Greystones and Skerries, but Dalkey, Howth, Malahide are new.

I'm confused about what happens if the nearby schools are full. In UK in early years there is a cap which the school can't go above, and then you'd be sent to a further away school by the local authority. Is it similar in Ireland? Do the schools tend to have much movement, e.g. people moving away, so spaces might open up later?

Also do people living in Dublin find housing expensive? The rental costs are similar to London which surprised me. Are salaries high in Dublin, or are people having to pay a large proportion of their income on housing?

Rent is very high in Dublin and in the other big towns/ cities.
Childcare is expensive too.
If you don't qualify under means testing for benefits, Ireland is very expensive for the low/ middle earner.

Housing, particularly renting is ridiculously expensive here unfortunately.

Regarding schools there is no local authority involvement. So rather than finding a house and looking to the local authority to find a school place in the area, it's up to you to call schools and see if there is a vacancy. We moved house a few years ago and couldn't get dd into a school in our new area, so I spent a year doing an hour round trip twice a day until I finally wore down a local principal to take her (they had a place all the time but were under no obligation to give it to her)

It's a crazy system and makes relocating here very difficult, you would almost want to find a school with a vacancy first and then try to find a house in the area.

Gosh that sounds extremely stressful Pink. It really puts me off moving as we have a great school now. I'm in a profession that has a shortage in Ireland, it's a shame if this policy makes people reluctant to move there.

If you identify a school place before finding a home, can you reserve it whilst you find a house nearby? Otherwise it may get taken by somebody else whilst you are finding a property and signing contracts.

And I'm amazed that a school with a space can say no!

Are you happy with the education now that you have a place?

You really need to consider schools before anything - are your children baptized, and are they catholic or CoE in that case? That will determine which schools they will get priority admission to - if they're Protestant you might be OK with the right school as they often have spaces after allocating places to all Protestant

You need to give your address to put your child's name down for a place. Good schools are nearly always over subscribed in South Dublin. Would you be willing to pay for a private school? And do you have boys or girls? Monkstown and Dalkey are lovely areas but expensive. There are lots of slightly cheaper areas close to them, but I am racking my brain trying to think of a school that is near a train station. There is a station in glasthule which is very close to dalkey and has a good mixed primary school, the harold. There is at least one church of ireland school in the locality, St Paul's I think. There are a couple of rough estates in glasthule but some nice ones too and it's a good central spot, it's between Dalkey and dun laoghaire. There are a couple of good schools in Monkstown, but one is a gaelscoil and the other is a private boys school. There are lots of nice areas near monkstown with good schools, killiney, glenageary, Blackrock, but it's an expensive part of Dublin generally and not driving is a drawback. I suppose the best thing to do is look at the dart line, pick out the nearest stations to monkstown and Google nearby schools. Sorry I can't be more help, if I think of anywhere else I will post again.

Are you willing to add bus to the train? On either 46A or 75 routes from DART (Dun Laoghaire station) you have both Monkstown Educate Together NS (multi-denominational) and Kill of the Grange NS (Church of Ireland) schools within 10 minutes on the bus. BOth are busy, as I understand it, but I know Kill of the Grange takes catholics as well, at least, and METNS takes DCs of any and no faiths.

Within Dun Laoghaire itself, there is another school that I don't know much about.

Blackrock has Carysfort NS within about 10 minutes walk from the Dart.

Dalkey village has a good girls school - Loreto - both primary and secondary. It may have more.

There are lots of schools within a few minutes walk from a lot of the southside dart stations. But house prices (and rents) are huge.

We picked where we live for proximity to both buses and dart, walking distance to both. You can now get LEAP tickets, which are like the Oyster card, and buses, trains and Luas trams all operate the same system.

SuperValu and Tesco both do online shopping in the area for delivery. And a wide range of takeaways deliver as well (from burger and chips, pizza, Chinese, Indian, Thai etc).

There is a system called "GoCar" where you can use a car for an hour or 2 at a time, like renting bikes, there are a few cars in the Dun Laoghaire area for that and a good few in Dublin City. And Enterprise and Sixt both have car rental places on Pottery Road (from Dun Laoghaire train station, follow 46A/75 route about 10 minutes up to Bakers Corner pub - Irish landmarks system is often pubs! - and walk about 5 minutes or 3 minutes respectively around the corner to get to the depots). And taxis are relatively plentiful as well if needed.

Open spaces - there is the sea, beaches at Monkstown and the 40 Foot (Glasthule station) for swimming, Killiney beach or Dun Laoghaire Piers for walking, etc. Dun Laoghaire People's Park is small but nice (with playground), while there is a large park at Cabinteely with a good playground and long walk, Killiney Hill also has good playground and range of good walks (and a coffee shop on 1 path), and there are actually lots of playgrounds in the area (Honeypark, Mount Merrion; Dun Laoghaire sea front and Sandymount sea front both have exercise equipment that DCs often use to play with as well).

Cinemas in Stillorgan and Dun Laoghaire. Small theatre in Dun Laoghaire and Dundrum, but also easy access to city centre for major theatres and music venues. Range of extra-curricular activities available locally of all sorts - music, arts, horse riding, dance, drama, scouts and guides, girls brigade (probably boys brigade too), Coder DoJo......all sorts! Plenty of sports clubs, including gaelic football and hurling, soccer, rugby, hockey, tennis, sailing, swimming etc.

We had 1 car when we originally moved, got a 2nd when DD was first born, but dropped it again for a good few years and managed perfectly well without. Only got it back when DH had to spend every weekend travelling away to help DMIL after DFIL died but trains didn't work out and I needed a car here as Scout leader. We still use public transport more than the cars.

Thanks for all the info.

Apart from the limited school places south Dublin sounds great! It's quite a big drawback though. We aren't religious. We would get our kids baptised if that would help them get into a good school, although would the schools want more evidence of commitment/ belief?

Are there any recommended areas elsewhere in Ireland? Given that dh can work from home. I've been looking at Cork but from what I've read there is still quite a lot of pressure on the school places. Is it our car-reluctance that is making other places in Ireland tricky?

Public transport systems are far better in Dublin than elsewhere.

In Cork, our last bus "home" was at 6pm. If we had a lift from the town 10 miles away, we could catch a bus at 6.15pm, 9.30pm or 11pm after that. (That was a village 25 miles from the city). But even within the city, there are corridors that are decent (the numbers may have changed, but the old 5 and 8 routes out past UCC and on to CIT were pretty good, so Wilton was a good spot from that perspective - but I have no idea about schools etc sorry). The Leap cards also operate in Cork (and possibly Limerick) now as well, and I think Cork also has the GoCar.

Educate together schools are getting more prevalent, but they tend to be very popular because they are not run under the catholic ethos. I know that many catholic schools have non-catholics in them, because that is the only school locally, but there isn't much opportunity to avoid the religion classes.

If you are getting a train into Dublin, and then going to Monkstown, many of the cities outside Dublin go into Heuston station, so you would then have to get the Luas tram across to Connolly Station to meet the Dart line. Places along the Connolly line would be up north along the coast towards Drogheda/Dundalk, down south along the east coast to Greystones, Wicklow Town, Arklow, Rosslare. Or the line to Maynooth heading north west. Some commuter trains now run into Connolly/Pearse stations at peak time so you can connect with darts.

But generally trains from Waterford/Kilkenny, Cork/Mallow, Tralee/Killarney, Ennis/Limerick, Thurles, Galway, etc all run into Heuston.

You could live in Northern Ireland and commute to Dublin.

Newry has a direct train to central Dublin. Under 1.5hr journey.

You would stay in uk. Have the NHS, same school system and exams,massively lower cost to rent/buy.

Areas like Warrenpoint and Rostrevor and close to Newry and beautiful.

I actually really like the idea of moving to Northern Ireland, it has a lot of pluses and I have heard great things from people who have moved there.

BUT I'm worried about the effects of Brexit on Northern Ireland, so I personally wouldn't choose to move there at the moment until the outcome for Northern Ireland is clearer. I will def keep it in mind though.

Maynooth
Train line and v frequent buses in to dublin.. then bus it to monkstown. Lovely college town. Lovely restaurants and bars. Shopping centre. Huge tesco etc etc i love it to go out for food.

Dalvey. We lived there for a few years, amazing community, the children attended Castle Park school - private, but significantly cheaper than UK private schools.

Pricey to buy though, very much London prices.

School places will be hard to come by in any of the areas mentioned. Educate togethers- name would have to be down since birth.

National catholic schools- usually open their books in September, some open in January until the end of the month.

Those schools generally work off the following criteria- sibling in school, location(parish), age. My DD doesn’t turn 5 until next March so her name was pretty far down the line for enrollment in schools (the ones I chose worked off that policy!) but she got into a gaelscoil anyway.

Check the areas you’re looking at, look st schools and check all enrollment policies.

You need to weigh up what you’re really looking for in an area - what are your biggest wants and needs (especially if you don’t want a car).

We lived in N20 in london, and even though I’m irish, I found it a big change moving back. But we’re within walking distance of the seaside and beside the DART so the plusses outweigh the cons!

Good luck with the search! It is dog eat dog out there for rentals at the minute.

We lived in Dublin for a couple of years. Was very happy to leave. It is a very expensive city and felt that life there didn't live up to what it should for all the outlay. My overiding feeling was that Dublin was a capital city in name only - for me it was missing lots. I know that is only my opinion and others will think differently.

Obviously I meant to type Dalkey!

Look outside of Dublin. I have friends with similar working conditions who commute from Waterford.
No need to baptise anymore. That barrier has been removed.
Have a look at Kilkenny or Galway. But more of a commute for your husband but fab cities.

Cork much smaller then Dublin and public transport pretty useless outside the 5/6 main routes. Rent not much better then Dublin and actually very difficult to even find somewhere to rent.

Excellent schools though. When we were moving home I had places for my dd in 3 schools. We had no address as we hadn't found somewhere to live until a week before we left London. I had just called the various schools asking if there were places and filled in the application for each one and then picked the one that suited closest to our address.

Many of the parents at dd's school regularly travel to Dublin for work. It's 2.5/3 hours by train.

While having a car in London we walked everywhere or used public transport. I drive now, all the time.

We do have great parks, countryside, greenways, cycle paths. Fantastic beaches.

Would you consider Wexford (town or county)? Train directly up to Dun Laoghaire and house prices may be a little cheaper. Schools may be easier to join. There is beautiful countryside and lovely beaches in Wexford also. There is also a private bus link that runs to Dublin frequently. I’m not overly familiar with Wexford lately but I used to work in Dun Laoghaire with some travel to Wexford at times.

I'd really recommend spending a few days in each town you think you'd like to live in. I've been to Wexford and didn't want to stay the night but would have spent a week in kilkenny! I'm sure others are the opposite. I'd recommend kilkenny, galway, Sligo. Dublin is extremely expensive, rents are out of control. I'm relation to schools, your children's ages will have an effect on if there are places available. For example, the infant classes will probably be full, but I'm the older classes other children might have moved away, leaving spaces that need to be filled. Sometimes it's just a matter or how many children were born in a year. I've experienced classes in the same school of 35 in one age group and 22 in another.
Best wishes for your adventure!