Tell me why living in Ireland is shite

[NonanteNeuf]

Myself and DH live in Switzerland, we’ve been here 7 years. We’re at a point right now where we are thinking of moving home.

My contract with work is finishing end of December (fixed duration contract for a project) and I’m finding it hard to find another job. DH could get a job in Dublin no problem.

I fear though that we are romanticising Ireland. Please hit me with the reality!

Go raibh maith agaibh.

I am very happy to share some positive aspects if you are looking for that.

On health care many people will say that emergency and life & death situations are dealt with reasonably well. But if you need a colonoscopy or a cataract operation you can be waiting and waiting and waiting in the public system. There's truth in both POVs.

Definitely think that's true!

Please do.

We’re on the verge of turning to a Magic 8 ball at this point we’re so undecided.

The weather is so bad today! I waited for a bus and now I can't feel my hands.

Are you buying or renting. Rental crisis is very bad in Ireland. Hundreds of people queuing up to view properties etc

Good things, friendliness is an obvious one. From tradesmen to shopkeepers etc. A lot of honesty here and most people want a chat.
Although on the flipside, I have a friend from the States who is growing increasing frustrated with her lassaz faire painter not turning up when planned. He will do the job in his own time!
Children seem more innocent, act younger, I notice.
A lot of fresh food tastes better here. Tea, fish, shellfish, butter, ham, all dairy. Much nicer than UK or continental Europe. Gubeen cheese is a reason I would think twice before living abroad again.

The schools are excellent, most schools function very well, with well behaved children, obviously there are some exceptions, but overall the schools and universities rank very well globally.

There is never a shortage of any foods and shelves are always fully stocked.

There are many regional airports and cheap flight routes, it's easy to get away.

People are friendly, but also nosey and judgmental.

Negative : darkness, weather, parochial small mindedness.

Very good advice.
I'd get the Irish Times app, the Irish Independent app and The Journal app. Gives a bit of insight on what's going on.
Also the Pat Kenny show on Newstalk and Claire Byrne on RTE1 radio.
I miss Broadsheet.

I cycle through the Phoenix Park and the Ashtown Gate every day on my cross city commute. There are good public transport links to the city centre by bus and train. Using a car during rush hour can be crazy! Cycling is the quickest way around the city between the canals

Housing, renting or buying is expensive. Castleknock, Cabra and parts of Carpenterstown are probably closest to your sister. Look at what's available to buy on myhome.ie. Schools are good and hybrid working from home is very acceptable.

The weather is Irish, damp in the winter but much drier than in the rest of the country. Four seasons in a day is typical.

Ask me anything.

People are still initially friendly. I meet the same dog walkers and children going to school on my 20km cycling route. I get a wave and an occasional chat.

The best way to experience the current state of the country is to come over for a week in the middle of a cold damp February. There are no Christmas lights to cheer the place up and Spring still feels a long way off.

My sister lives near the Ashtown Gate of the Phoenix Park so we’d be looking near there, city side of the M50. I’m a HR Business Partner so location for work is flexible for me.

This is very close to where I live.

I feel that the external appeal of Dublin won't match somewhere like Geneva. (I can't really say as I've never lived for any significant length outside Ireland, and am happy living here).

However, if you move back for family reasons, this tends to matter less.

Those who move back, tend to find it hard initially - but having family around (like your sister) makes a massive difference.

To me, the cultural context is what makes Ireland appealing - despite recent occurrences, Ireland is a place where debate & intellectual curiosity still has a place.

Specifically the area you mention, and where I am, has both a lot to recommend it, and not! I like the public transport links & being able to get into them easily, Phoenix Park & reasonable proximity to beaches is a great plus, it's a nice community area.

Dublin is very expensive - living costs, rent and buying. (But I guess not massively an issue if you are coming from Geneva!)
We don't make the most of the spaces we have at times eg Castleknock has overpriced not very nice restaurants / coffee shops, it always amazes me there aren't nicer options. Southside is better for all of that.

Honestly, if the pill is around family, that's often enough to make it work.

What will your DC do? I know at uni stage - that would be important for me as I wouldn't want to be far away from them.

The thing is, when you live somewhere, you don't pay much heed to that. It's not like going away for a weekend or a holiday.

What makes your life work (or not!) will be the other elements - family, work, your home, friends and so on.

And you'll still find appealing places to be - a walk in the Phoenix Park is lovely anytime, for example.

The negatives I can think of are:

Dublin traffic is bad
Housing costs can be high
Like many places there is a fair bit of rain.

Other than than it's pretty great...

Work back from what kind of life you want to live, now and when you retire. When you retire, do you want to travel more? From Switzerland it's easy to get away for city breaks etc for example. Day to day life- do you mind a commute or can you WFH? Do you like eating out, galleries, city life at the weekends or taking road trips to the countryside? Or do you like the idea of calling mid week over to your sister? What day to day life do you want to lead? Walks on a beach at the weekend- easy in Dublin but equally Lake Geneva can give you some beautiful scenery. Would trialling it be an option for a year?

Great advice!

We certainly do a good funeral anyway. I'm in floods looking at Shane MacGowans. RIP.

Same here! Funerals we can do

I moved back about 5 years ago now, from a very middle class small town in England, to NI. So I appreciate my experience is not of Dublin, but I thought I’d give you my thoughts anyway.

I like being back, but, contrary to what a lot of posters have said, I don’t find it feels safer here, and I feel like there is a growing problem with drugs and gang violence country wide (what would have previously been big news, far away, now seems to be on the doorstep!).

I also, don’t think that the children are more innocent, I feel there is still a very prevalent ‘boys will be boys’ attitude, and gender roles seem very obviously outlined, much more so than where we used to live.

I also think that generally, there is less exposure to unusual foods etc. It’s constantly just standard children’s muck everywhere, and no desire to broaden tastes.

I also think children are far more likely to be shoved in front of a tablet over here than where I lived before.

I find it quite lonely too, as, lots of people have never left, so have stayed close to family, and their lives revolve around wider family commitments to the exclusion of doing things with friends. Again, when I was friends with lots of ex-pats while overseas, we weee each others families.

There’s still a LOT of underlying judgement. And I find views generally tend to still be quite conservative. The idea that boys don’t need to learn about periods, sex doesn’t need to be discussed etc.

There are great things too… but as you asked for the negatives, it was quite therapeutic to list some things!!

I'd agree with quite a lot of that, and it must be shyte to come back into it. But! There are so many positives. Our main positives are from people who weren't born here, so it's not the parochial crap. I love that it's opened up so much, when i was a kid there wasn't a foreigner to be seen. It's so different now, my daughter is 12 and has the whole world open to her. But this has happened super fast. I love it. The place was a right kip when it was controlled by elderly (allegedly) celibate men. It's slowly moving away from that.

It’s mainly the weather. It’s awful. It makes outdoorsy life hard. Dublin traffic is horrendous and the city center has gone downhill since covid. Parts of the country can be very conservative really - very traditional- hard to break into. So despite dublins faults it’s probably the easiest to move back to.

I would say that the culchies are not as conservative as the Dubs think they are!

It's actually hard to find a culchie now! We live in a common or garden estate, and there's a small shop over the road. Husband goes over one morning and obviously meets the son in law of his primary school teacher from Dublin. We also have a kid in our daughters class that lives within 10 steps of the front door (and the parents are sound) but the sister in law worked with me closely for years. Ireland is small!!!

The reason we finally left Ireland was the weather. I was driving home from work one day (we lived in Cork for ten years), the sleet was going sideways, and I just thought fuck this! I can't take it any more! So we moved to Australia. Anyway, Ireland is a great place to live in many ways but there are things that I am glad to have left behind. We found it quite hard to make friends, people tend to make friends at school and don't need any more. We've never had this problem anywhere else. Also we were often made to feel like blow-ins ( we are both Irish) because we had moved away and come back. I do miss my mum, and reading the weekend papers in a good pub, but that's about it really.