Anyone who has left Ireland - could you tell me why?

[PhaseFour]

And also, if you have ever regretted it, and what you miss most about your homeland? I constantly fantasise about moving there when the DCs have all left home. I'd be interested to hear people's experiences of why they left - it might temporarily help me to stop fantasising about moving there!

@slamdunk66 When we go back to London/ south east to visit the in laws everything is just so busy- roads, restaurants, beaches, shops, parks etc.

I find this too, we get boat over to south west England every year and the roads are getting busier and busier, motorways are bumper to bumper all day long no rush hour anymore. Traffic here can be bad but once you are out of the cities and big towns you are flying

I would love to live in Ireland. I've only been three times but I found the people wonderfully friendly and frank and just brilliant.

In 2017 I was bedbound and did a lot of raking around in family trees online. I worked out who my brothers father was and also that DH's family are not an old family from York at all but from Ireland, Dungarvan to be precise with ancestors further back in Cork and Belfast.

He has never been but it would be hard as he needs dialysis but I have tried to get across what he has missed. One day I hope to really explore it.

I've always been drawn to city life and I love the international flavour of living somewhere like London. I've met people from all over the world and regularly have interesting experiences, cultural etc that aren't easily replicated back home.
I've also had more professional opportunities here.
There's so many amazing things back home but for now the balance for me is tipped in favour of London/UK life. When I'm older I will reassess.

As you’re English I’d be wary of moving somewhere where hating on the English is practically a national hobby. (Understandable given history.)

I know lots of English people living here in Ireland. None have ever had any issues.

And yet I teach in a university department where over half the staff are English, some here since the eighties, some Brexit refugees, and where my mother is from has a huge resident English population.

I mean I'm Irish and I think it's disingenuous to say this isn't an issue at times

It's also disingenuous to suggest that it is always the case.

DH is Irish and lived in Scotland for many years. He comes from a very emotionally repressed family, and his friends are lovely, but also seem quite limited in their ability to talk at emotional depth. I’ve met plenty Irish people who are not like this, or people from other countries who are repressed, but there are enough of them in his community that it’s quite noticeable when we visit and different to what I am used to. There’s a veneer of outgoing and friendly, certainly chatty, generous and funny; but I’ve found several of the people very difficult to move beyond this surface level. For example, his family and friends recoil a bit if I come in and moan a bit, or show self pity, they don’t really do that. They don’t seem to know what to do if I express some political opinion that they find controversial. Things are somehow expressed strongly but with no words. There’s a strong underlying message of ‘don’t be weird, be normal’ - until very recently us being vegetarian was viewed with deep suspicion.

Im aware I’m in craicnet and don’t want to offend anyone, I don’t think this applies to everyone by a long shot, but I’m answering your question honestly op in that this is what gives me reluctance to live there.

'also seem quite limited in their ability to talk at emotional depth. I’ve met plenty Irish people who are not like this, or people from other countries who are repressed, but there are enough of them in his community that it’s quite noticeable when we visit and different to what I am used to. There’s a veneer of outgoing and friendly, certainly chatty, generous and funny; but I’ve found several of the people very difficult to move beyond this surface level'

This is really well put, and I couldn't agree more. The 'friendly' shtick is indeed a veneer, and sometimes seems to work against making genuine connections with people. I'm Irish btw, lived there until I was 20, been in the UK for the past 25 years

'Things are somehow expressed strongly but with no words. There’s a strong underlying message of ‘don’t be weird, be normal’ - until very recently us being vegetarian was viewed with deep suspicion.'

Absolutely spot on. You're expected to magically know what is expected and 'how to behave', and you can be judged very harshly indeed if you don't measure up. You are expected to go along to get along. There is a stereotype that the English are cold and emotionally stunted, but my Irish family fit that bill perfectly!

'DD has been in Belfast almost two years and loves it. Her Irish ancestors left during the potato famine though bequeathing her pale skin and a preference for cool damp weather.'

I'm really glad that your DD is loving Belfast (it's a great place) and maybe the second line was tongue in cheek but honestly, these kinds of stereotypes make me cringe. Irish people come in a variety of shades, and many of them never stop moaning about the weather, and jet off to Lanzarote at every opportunity!

I left for postgrad and never went back. I only realised I'd emigrated 10 years later. I've now been out for 22 years and was 22 leaving so about to pass the point of half of my life being outside Ireland which is NUTS. Anyway, what puts me off living there again is the weather. I love going home, love the people, love the chat, love the humour, the country side, the veg that tastes of something, the quality of meat and dairy, but the winter is so fecking depressing. Light at 9, dark at 4, grey and raining for weeks on end... I just can't do it anymore. Maybe when I'm old (and have won the lottery...) I'll be able to split my time between Ireland, London and somewhere with good winters... I'd love to spend more time at home than I do but I'll never do Nov-Feb in Ireland again I don't think.

Edited to add that when I married a mixed-race Brit, that also put me off living at home but I think things on the racism front have improved a lot in the last 15 years. DH was always very conscious of booing the only brown person in the village when we go back but now a) everyone knows he's married to me so he's stopped getting questions because they were all asked years ago, and b) there's often as many as one or two other brown people spotted each year.

I left in 2003 for university. Met my husband and we moved around a bit for his job. We are based near London now and it would be hard to give up our jobs and find similar ones in Ireland. Cost of living in Ireland is not cheap anymore. You used to be able to buy houses for barely anything there, but like everywhere else, the cost of housing has gone up a lot. So we can't realistically move back to Ireland although we'd both love to.

Yes that's fair enough. But your comment made it sound like because you've never noticed a problem, there is no problem. Which is slightly gaslighty

I responded to a post that implied every English person ever in Ireland is the victim of anti-English sentiment. I pointed out that none of the people I know have been.

I assumed a reader would be able to read my post and the one I quoted and come to the conclusion that while there may be some anti-english attitudes, it is not the case for a large number of people.

Another poster posted a similar post about the English people she works with and I assume her point was similar.

So no, my post was not gaslighty but did assume reasonable abilities to understand nuance.

@Letstheriveranswer hope life is better for you now wherever you are.

Agree Ochon
Whilst my parents are Irish I was born in England. I never had an issue with my English accent and where I was born.
The Irish I know and have met every year I’m there in Ireland are always lovely.
Neither I nor my English born cousins have ever experienced anything bad

The Irish are amazing and if you remember the news articles from Frances Euros, they agree too

I left to move to the UK for a man I fell in love with. I do sort of regret moving. Now that I have a baby I want to go back to Ireland and raise my kids there and give them the countryside childhood I had. Living in the countryside in the UK is far beyond our financial means. In Ireland it's much easier to afford that lifestyle. Ireland does have its issues, some places aren't very nice to live in, but some places are really lovely and peaceful. And I feel like in my opinion houses there are bigger, gardens are bigger, you get paid better - overall it feels like you get more for your money even though it is still very expensive to live there the quality of life you get seems better. We are talking about moving back soon

Speaking of nuance, that seems a hyperbolic interpretation of my tongue in cheek statement. It wasn’t my intended implication by any means - only telling OP what would be in my thoughts based on experiences of friends.

Countries aren’t the same all over. I’m sure there are more and less welcoming areas same as anywhere.

I took your post the way it was written, responded in a similar manner but then when the poster who doesn't seem to get nuance accused me of gaslighting, felt the only way to explain the conversation to them was to point out the equally hyperbolic interpretation that could be applied to your post.

I left to move to the UK for a man I fell in love with
Same as me. We did move to Ireland after we married and never regretted it. My dh has settled very well here. He is from a rural background in England but living in Dublin now which he loves because you can "escape to the country" very easily. One thing I am relived about which I never considered when we moved back was the education system. We just seem to have better state schools and I prefer that our kids are 12/13 before starting secondary and do not have to change from a school to 6th form college at 16. I have seen my English nieces and nephews go way off track academically when they moved from their small rural secondary to a large 6th form college miles away in the bigger towns.

My English dh has never experienced any issue with being English. My half English dc never had any issue with their English accent in school (though it’s disappeared now). In fact quite a few of my dc have at least one English parent (usually the dad) who moved back here after covid and remote working opened up.

I'm assuming you're a teacher or something...

Left in the late 1980s after university, as did around 90% of my classmates. There were no jobs to be had (even minimum wage type jobs were impossible to get)

I didn't think of it as emigrating permanently, planned to work in London for a couple of years and then travel. I did do that but went back to London after travelling rather than Ireland.

After nearly 4 decades I doubt I'll move back to Ireland though I visit very frequently. Mainly because my kids live here. But if they all fecked off to Oz I
might reconsider.

The rain is a consideration though!

That’s not actually what gaslighting is but okay. Gas lighting is an ongoing thing not a one off miscommunication/ misreading of tone.