Moving from London to howth with a young family!

[Shivs127]

Hi there

I’m a nurse in London and we’re considering moving to Ireland (Howth) for my husband’s work new job in Dublin. We have a 3year old and another baby due to arrive on the 4th Aug.

What are the nursing opportunities like in and around the Howth/Malahide area and is it hard to get part time work there, I have been looking up recruitment websites but there doesn’t seem to be much out there.

Is there a good community for mothers with new born baby’s?

Any advice would be much appreciated as the move is daunting.

thank you

Howth is a beautiful area, OP, with very expensive property. Would you be planning to buy a house there?

Work-wise, there are no hospitals in the immediate area, so you would be commuting in to Dublin (Beaumont or Mater Hospital) or possibly out towards Drogheda or thereabouts. There are nursing homes in Howth if you were open to that kind of work, and there is usually a demand for Practice Nurses in a GP setting - if you can say what sort of nursing you’re interested in I might be able to think of other options.

Hi there thank you for responding

I would be open to practise nursing aswell as working in nursing homes.

I don’t see much advertised, is it better to reach out to these places directly to enquire?

Thank you kindly

Aw well as finding work, finding accomodation (any chance his work helps with accommodation part) and childcare are very challenging in Ireland right now so bare those in mind too

I'm in the west but'Nurse on call' is used nationally across the HSE for agency staff so good idea to register with them. HSE.ie has a vacancies section. I've seen nursing jobs advertised on indeed.ie and jobs.ie too.

We’ve managed to secure approval for a place to rent in Howth but we just don’t know if it’s the right thing for us to do as a family and if we might regret it coming from London. We’re so torn about the quality of life we can have there.

I will hopefully eventually find work in some capacity as a nurse but are people quite welcoming and friendly?

Howth is stunning, safe, friendly, one of the nicer parts of county dublin. It is expensive but if you have been offered a rental and you can afford it then I would do it myself. Beautiful to just walk howth head and go to the beach, take the ferry out to Irelands eye etc and you are very very close to so many amenities.

Howth is beautiful

As others have mentioned, Howth is a stunning coastal village in a beautiful part of Dublin. There’s a lot to weigh up with making sure you make the right decision but personally I think bringing up your children in Howth would far outweigh bringing them up in London, and I say that as someone that has lived in London for many years, the village of Howth has still retained its lovely character. There’s also good transport links.

Howth is fabulous and I’d definitely chose to bring my kids up there over London (I’ve lived in both cities). Do a thorough analysis of finance and make sure it makes sense, somethings will be more expensive in both places. Childcare will be an issue - have you got that arranged if you’re looking for work? People are really friendly, much more so than London, you’ve got the sea right beside you, it’s a lovely (expensive) area and you’re very close to the airport for trips back and forth.

Irish people are by and large very welcoming and friendly to newcomers, OP, so I wouldn't worry about that aspect of it at all. In terms of childcare, creche (nursery) fees are high and it can be hard to get a place, but many people still use a local childminder, which is a sector that's largely unregulated but usually satisfactory. Difficult to suss out in advance of your move, but if you're having another baby you presumably won't be looking to go back to work as soon as you move over. State schools are excellent, especially at primary level.
Howth is a hugely desirable area to live in, so if you have secured affordable accommodation - usually the biggest stumbling block! - I would leap at the chance.

And I myself am about 20 minutes drive from there if you ever needed a welcome coffee out somewhere :)

Oh also the fish omg the fish is soooooooo fresh (if you eat fish that is) and so good here.

Thank you @Suednymph I will take you up on that offer ☺️
My husband will be starting his job September and I will move over with the kiddies October time. We are looking forward to the move it’s just daunting when we neither have family there. I will soley be with the kiddies which will be a change for me as I’m used to working full time.

Is there a local leisure centre in Howth or Sutton that does kiddies classes or swimming?

My husband visited Howth two weeks ago and loved it, it’s just committing to it and uprooting a family is so hard.

It is a haven for leisure centres trust me there is a lot to do and you are in the middle of so many amenities. If I could afford to live there myself I would I can tell you.

Just FYI your 3 Yr old will be entitled to 3 hours free preschool though you may struggle find somewhere with a place free, and put your babies name down for creches at least a year before you want to go back to work (18-24 months in advance is better).
If you are starting him in school Sept 26 the enrollments open this Sept/Oct, each school has their own opening/closing dates for applications, you apply directly to the school between those dates

To add also that most kids don’t start primary school until they are 5 or almost 5 - generally in the calendar year of their 5th birthday. So they may well be entitled to two funded preschool years here.

"Irish people are by and large very friendly to newcomers".

Not to English people they are not.

My English friend moved to the republic of Ireland. She received so much abuse and cruelty in Ireland, that she had to move back to England.

Just to be aware of that OP, if you are English

Irish people on here will say oh ireland is welcoming and friendly to everyone, because that is how they want Irish people to be portrqyed.

The reality is that a lot of foreigners recieve abuse when they move to Ireland.

There’s over 100, 000 English people managing to live in Ireland right now according to a quick google - presumably tolerating whatever abuse is being thrown at them stoically! I’m sorry your friend didn’t like Ireland…. But I feel your message is a little… generalising. There are decent and not so decent people in Ireland, just the same as the UK (I’ve lived in both).

I just got annoyed when I saw the sentence:

"Irish people are by and large very welcoming to newcomers"

That sentence brushes over a lot of racism and abuse that goes on in Ireland.

I know a lot of people who received abuse in Ireland. Not just my English friend.

I have friends from other nationalities who told me that they received a lot of abuse in Ireland. One friend told me that she moved to a small town. Lets say for example the town was Thurles (It wasnt, I am using any town name as an example).

My friend found a facebook page, the title of the page was, "get all foreigners out of Thurles". A lot of people that she had met in Thurles, had joined the page.

No one is saying that ALL irish people do it.

But just be aware OP, that people can have very bad experiences when they move to Ireland

If I look out the window from where I’m typing this, the three nearest houses are inhabited by English people, one family here since the eighties, one family who moved from Suffolk not long before Covid, and a pair of retirees who’ve been here about ten years. Slightly down the road, we have a pair of nice Germans, a Welsh potter married to a Sligo man, and a French-Brazilian family.

So what, though. I spent years dealing with anti-Irish prejudice when living in England. You deal with it, or you don’t.

So? No one said that there aren't any non - Irish people in Ireland, did they. There are.

I have said that I have heard about a lot of non- Irish people, receiving terrible abuse in Ireland.

That definitely happens.

Or you get out.

There is a rise in racism in Ireland generally sadly, particularly in deprived areas - but there is a lot of racism in England, and indeed the far right parties here haven’t made much headway unlike the UK. Howth is not going to the epicentre for this kind of behaviour anyway - it is a very wealthy part of Dublin - more like Edinburgh or Bristol in terms of outlook. My English friends always comment on how friendly Ireland is when they visit - but I appreciate it sounds like you have a very different viewpoint! No place is perfect but there won’t be a Facebook page dedicated to getting the OP deported - she might be slagged off during a rugby match though!

You will need to register with the NMBI to be able to practice as a nurse. It can be quite a slow process as you have to provide notarised transcripts of all your training. They also operate a bit differently than the NMC in that even if you pay your first registration fee in November you will still have to pay in January for the next year. Everyone's registration runs from Jan - Jan. The website is pretty good, so I'd check on there.

Best of luck - the HSE is quite a different working culture from the NHS, but there are lots of Nurses and Midwives that have trained or worked in the UK (and Australia, India, Phillipines, Ghana) so if you will meet lots of people who have adapted to it.

I think Ireland can be superficially friendly but I’ve heard from people coming in that it can be hard to make real friends, as many people have their family or school/uni friends and have no need for more. I actually think London would be easier to make friends in - certainly I know someone who found it much easier than Dublin. However, having small children and going to groups etc might be a good way in.