Settling English husband & children

[Araisabhaile]

I'm looking for honest positives and negatives about a mid-life move to Ireland. Most likely to commuting distance of the bigger cities. Have you done it yourself?

My English husband is a bit anxious that it would be hard to get integrated. The children are 12 and 8. We're 49 and 50, so we're not young!

I've been looking at our costs and expected standard of living in England vs Ireland. I've been gone a long time, no close friends or family at home - my siblings all moved over too.

So we're very settled here - but financially it would make sense even with higher living costs. We need to think about the future.

I am English and my husband is Irish. My children were born here. I live in the west within commuting distance of a city. Your children are at an ideal age to move as the eldest would be due to start secondary school after summer. I have settled well here but it took time. I will always be a blow in but that's ok. We have made lots of friends over the years often through our children. The key is to move to a place where commuters live then there will be a good mix of locals and people who don't have links to the area. My kids are very involved with sports. Getting involved as parents coaching and involving yourselves in the local community groups would be a great way to get to know others. It wasn't always easy and I missed my life in England for a few years but i do consider myself lucky to live here.

Thanks @ThisSparklyDuck! The younger one goes to hurling training as well as other sports and will be fine I think. The older one is a sloth and more on my mind.

It's great you can say you feel lucky!

We did the move nearly twenty years ago. I am Irish husband English. It’s a bit of a different entity now as property prices are crazy, but then they are crazy in the UK too. My husband loves living here. I would def go for it.

Our life stages are very similar...dh and I are mid 40s and we made the move with dc aged 12 and 8! This was last year and to the rural west. We are both English (though I have Irish heritage)

Not a single regret so far and dc are thriving ,though it's early days.

My DH is English but he’s lived here a long time. I’d definitely move to somewhere where there are lots of blow ins. This will make it easier to make friends and settle in. Some towns can be very insular with people having the same friends they had in school.

Your children will likely be fine anywhere.

My dh is English I am Irish we lived 10 years in UK before moving to Dublin (where I am from) we moved just before having kids but my dh didn't move fully until our first was born he was commuting between UK and Dublin for a while.

He has settled really well loves where we live. Our kids though are Irish born so we didn't have to settle them. Our education system is quite different but I am sure they will love the shorter school day and longer summer holidays, I also don't think there is as much pressure and assessments on primary school kids here than UK I always feel my nieces and nephews have it harder in UK. If your kids are sporty I would recommend getting involved in local GAA club it is a great way to meet people and for kids to get to know their peers

My dh is English and I'm irish. We moved to my home town 4 years ago , we are 40 mins to the nearest city and my husband loves it here. He found once he had a job , he got to know people and felt far more at home here than he did where we lived in the UK

Kids tend to start secondary school aged around 13 so it might be good timing for your older DC?

I work in Ireland and live in England. I am English. I love Ireland and have lots of positive feeling for the country, but I must say there is a constant low level hostility towards me at work on grounds of me being English. Frequently I am told things like oh that's when "you" occupied X or robbed Y. I have had people say to my face things like "English people are all racists" (ironic!). It's at work so I can't really do much but eat it. My work is quite a "right on" and woke sort of industry. In social situations this doesn't much happen.

Obviously they don't mean me, and they can't even mean my ancestors, who were all Irish anyway and were either starving in a field or weaving in a mill at the time. It's not a big deal - it's obviously ridiculous - but it is wearing and it is, tbh, ultimately why I haven't moved there full time.

So I would say go for it, but if you're in an industry like tech or the arts, it's just something you will have to put up with.

I'm curious. Why do you think it will be a lower cost of living in Ireland? I'd have thought there is very little to choose between them personally.

I moved to Ireland 25 years ago. I am English, DH is Irish. I settled in very quickly, as did the children. I have never, ever, experienced any hostility on account of being English and I am very comfortable here.

I am sorry to hear that and embarrassed as an Irish person that you are experiencing this.

This is probably not the case and I’m sorry that it smacks of victim blaming, but I’ve sometimes noticed British visitors accidentally say something to get people’s backs up, eg referring to the country by the wrong name or saying they’re just popping out to ring the mainland…that sort of thing.

If you keep on experiencing hostility is it at all possible that something like this is happening? Probably not, and your work colleagues are just being horribly rude, but just thought I’d mention it in case it would help the situation.

Well, obviously I can't know what I don't know, but I can't imagine that I would say something like that. I know Ireland fairly well. I'm English, from a large "Irish" Catholic family in the NW of England, like so many others, and went for summers as a kid etc, as well as working there as an adult. I never had this as a kid.

Like I said, it's not a big deal. I know other people have had similar experiences in our workplace. It's not just me. But let's not get bogged down or derail the thread - the OP just asked for honest negatives and that is one, in some sectors.

That's my favourite poem!

I actually said higher living costs - a guesstimate based on likely rent, running two cars, groceries, healthcare though we often end up paying for bits of private healthcare at the moment.

I think we'd do better in our jobs though. Our sectors are not doing well right now.

DH is a bit worried I think about being seen as an outsider. I'm sorry to hear @Kelim's experience & I think that's possibly his fear, though I think it depends on where you are. On the flip side I've often come across a very subtle assumption among British people, of all backgrounds, that Britain's just 'better' - without ever thinking of themselves as having a national preference. Which is natural I guess but sometimes not the whole picture.

The children identify most strongly with their city and I don't think feel very strongly English or Irish at the moment. I think they'd be fine, it would be better for them.