Moving to NI questions

[hedgehoggle]

This is something we've started mooting for various reasons such as housing, quality of life... but had a few practical questions. Hopefully someone will be able to help!

We're considering areas around Belfast and I wondered:

1. How difficult is it to find a primary place? DS would be 5/6 probably, we are Catholic if that makes a difference.
2. How difficult is it to find a nursery place? DD will be around 1/2
3. What's the NHS like? And maternity care? Although maternity care couldn't be much worse than some places by us!

Thanks so much for any answers

Yeahhhhh I think you had a bad experience in NI because you come across as a bit of an arsehole. We don’t like people who are no craic and that’s what’s jumping out at me from your posts.

Everyone welcome as long as you are dead on 👍

@Treesinmygarden Calm down, I'm only sleggin' as the popular saying goes. No, I don't live in England.

🤣👏

I read your post and can quite believe it to be true. I went to one of the top grammars in the 90s that had a boarding department. There was a lot of abuse went on and limited integration. It is parochial.

Yup... I agree.

Was VERY strange seeing both Tricolours and Union Jacks marching down Botanic TOGETHER last year. (Protesting against immigration)

Nothing like a bit of good old fashioned racism to bring everyone together!

Key information: mid 90s. 30 years ago. The world (and NI) has changed.

You are delusional. You need to get out of BT9. I work in West Belfast. Believe me Republicanism is alive and well, as is Loyalism. Belfast as a whole is poor. There are pockets of affluence but on the whole it is steeped in poverty and disadvantage, still lorded over by crime and rife with drugs.

And that is before even thinking about the intergenerational trauma.

@Waffleswithhothoney Yeahh, funny I've not had any issues anywhere else I've lived ever, but sure it's my fault for being "no craic" while getting racist slurs or having scallies threaten me, unprovoked.

Yes, hence I avoid those areas and chose to raise my DD here.

@Janedoe82 Thank you, glad one person believes me and actually acknowledges the reality, it was starting to feel like hardcore gaslighting 😂

That's what I was trying to say that the vast majority of NI is fine, and people get on but there are those pockets of people who are mired in the past!!

Having said that the place is grand on the whole! I have lived here for 35 years after a spell away, and all of my young life before moving to London. I have brought my children up in that time and none of us have ever had any issues!

Don't you think there's crime and drugs everywhere?

This is really fascinating to hear other peoples experience of moving to NI. Those who have found it a bit madder than expected - what was it that you found shocking? For me it has to be the NHS - I genuinely am appalled - and the fact my neighbours asked me what school I went to - which for those of you not from NI is a very unsubtled coded way of asking your religion! I was like, seriously? Is it 1999??

But when she enters the world of work or goes to Uni in NI these are the people she will be meeting!! And she will not be included as she isn’t one of them and will always be an outsider. BT9 is one postcode out of dozens. The second she steps into the city centre she is surrounded by the other side of Belfast- the addicts lying up alley ways and the shop lifters and the clawing smell of grass. The far right religious preachers.
You can not honestly believe that Belfast is a modern, vibrant welcoming and inclusive city as it simply is not the case. It is grand if you know the social codes but if you don’t it is a hard place to get your head around.

Yup... Ormeau is VERY popular. Traffic is a nightmare up and down the Ormeau/Ravenhill and Saintfield roads.

It's disappointing that people still view NI in sectarian terms when a vast number of young people, including my own children, have grown up out of the shadow of the Troubles and hold no truck with the sectarian shit??

My eldest was born in 1997. Not one of the three of them has been prejudiced along the lines of sectarianism or been accused of it!!

Oh wise up, that attitude went out with the ark!!!

That is no different to any other city in the UK!

Well.. I hate to break it to you but she’s a QUB medical student. Anything but naive and small minded! Do you seriously not believe that you can raise well balanced, aware individuals in a nice part of town? You’re acting as if she’s never stepped out of the front door before 🤣

Why would she want to be included in a strong republican/unionist community? They’re the exact kind of people I’d want to avoid!

Considering the vast majority of consultants I work with in my day job are from the nicer areas of Belfast I think she’ll manage to fit in just fine.. What a bizarre comment.

I have worked in poor communities in Scotland and the drugs issues aren’t even close to what they are in parts of Belfast.

But they are the sort of people she will be dealing with day in day out if she ends up working in the Royal.

It isn’t. Other city’s aren’t controlled by paramilitaries.

That's what I am saying! I don't know why you are arguing with me! Drugs issues are everywhere!! I live in Lisburn where it's horrendous! Ballymena is similarly plagued!

My DD1 asked for the toilet code in Starbucks one day a few months back and coming out of it, someone pushed her way in. She spoke to the staff, and it was someone (known to them) shooting up!

Fully aware of that. I worked there for 20 years. You treat all patients equally no matter their background. Surely that’s common sense?

They are controlled by other low lives!