Hello, I'm the idiot who started an Is it a good idea to move to Ireland? thread on AIBU this afternoon. It's been suggested I post here. I wouldn't otherwise have dared to because I'm not Irish.
Basically my partner and I (lesbian couple) are distressed by Brexit and the direction the UK is taking. My partner is British-born but from a family with strong roots in Ireland and she has an Irish passport and has spent a fair bit of time over the course of her life in Ireland. She wants to live in Co Wexford and is looking at houses in villages around Enniscorthy. I've been to that area for a long weekend for a family wedding but apart from that don't know it. I've had maybe a dozen holidays/ trips in the Republic: I'm a tourist basically.
We don't have children. We have work that we will bring with us. My partner works remotely for a German firm and can almost certainly continue that from Ireland. I have a small specialist construction business that I should be able to continue in Ireland and which I would hope to grow so that I can employ people. We have pensions etc. I'm only mentioning this to make it clear that we will not be a drain on the state.
Friends are really important to me. I'm nervous of ending up in what will be a foreign country and being forever the outsider because I'm English. As a older lesbian I'm kind of used to, but still vulnerable to, that sense of being 'othered'. I have friends in Spain and the Netherlands who talk of always being outsiders. My partner really doesn't understand this but my experience on AIBU (poor choice of words, saying things that weren't meant as critical but were read as critical) has confirmed that I may have to spend the rest of my life with my mouth shut.
What I didn't say on that thread, because it didn't seem relevant at the time, was that I spent four years living in Belfast and later in Derry. Going there from cosmopolitan London was an eye-opener — and because I'm English I was actually welcome there on the whole. My partner feels very much at home in Ireland. Because she has family there and because she grew up within the culture, she doesn't see the differences and difficulties I do. I don't know if any of this is making sense. I'm a bit shaken by the AIBU experience.
I'd be particularly interested in hearing the reactions of those who've moved to Ireland from the UK and elsewhere. I understand from what some people said on that thread that where we settle may make a big difference to my experience. My partner wants to get over there as soon as possible. If I'm not prepared to do so then it may mean the end of or a major change in our long relationship so this is a big deal for me.