Moving to Meath/Kildare from London

[Em123456]

Hello! We are going to be relocating from Twickenham (London) to Ireland this summer with a (then) 6 year old girl and 2 year old boy. My husband is Irish and will be working in Dublin; I am English and will be working from home PT.

His sister lives in Maynooth so we'd ideally like to be within half an hour or so of there but happy to consider other areas if they make sense. I'm a country girl at heart and would love the kids to go to a smaller/village primary school if possible but still have access to extra-curricular clubs etc. within a drive.

Does anyone have any recommendations for nice areas/good primary schools/general advice relocating Eng - Ire?

Thanks in advance for any tips/recommendations!!

Hi, we moved to Maynooth this year. It’s a lovely town. There has been a big influx of families this year. My DDs 7 & 9 go to the Maynooth Educate together school. It’s a lot bigger than our small village school in the UK but my DDs love it. It’s very different to English schools. My understanding is that Irish schools are far more relaxed than British ones, but the educate together schools even more so. My youngest 4yo is at a local preschool she loves. In the UK she would already be in reception which I was dreading as she’s an august baby but here in Ireland they encourage closer to 5 years before starting school.

I’m not sure if it’s just our school but there arnt that many after school clubs run through the school like the UK but we’ve signed our DDs up to external clubs locally.

Moving from London house prices should be in your reach. We moved from a much cheaper part of the uk and found house prices in and around Maynooth extremely high, also the cost of living has been a bit of a shock to the system, again coming from London it shouldn’t be to much of a shock.

We are currently renting but looking to buy in Maynooth or surrounding towns if we can as we have settled in nicely here.

The only other thing I’d say is finding a GP has been really hard here. We’ve still not been able to register with one. We’ve been using online video consults via our health insurance and walk in centres when we’ve needed to see a Dr.

I’ve read on a few other posts about a bit of an anti English sentiment in some areas, I was just about to make a post about it when I saw your op. I wanted to say I’ve not encountered any anti English sentiment in Maynooth at all, it’s a very diverse community and has been very welcoming and friendly.

That's all really useful to know thank you! Can I ask when your DD transferred schools how did you decide which class they'd go into? Mine currently in year 1 (senior infants) so would in theory move to 1st class in September but she's very young in her year (July birthday) so if she had started her education in Ireland she'd only be starting senior infants in September.