Moving from UK to Northern Ireland

[SarahJane1980]

Hi lovely ladies. I’m new on here and looking for a little bit of advice please.

I currently live in England (Sussex) and am thinking of relocating to NI. My OH and I work fully remote and so won’t need to find a job there. I heard that NI is lovely and rural with less built up spaces than a lot of the UK. Also that the pace of life is a slower and people are generally happier.

Has anyone made the move and can perhaps give me some insights? For example, pros and cons and whether people are generally friendly?

Maybe ask for the thread title to be changed, as NI is in the U.K, to something like moving from England/Scotland/Wales to NI.

Northern Ireland is in the UK!!

NI is lovely, but understanding its constitutional position is quite important if you're going to live here

🙈

I was going to say as the above. NI is in the UK.

This seems like it will help.

Have you visited NI? It doesn't sound like you have. I live in SE England but have relatives there in Fermanagh so visit once or twice a year.
From an outsiders point of view

Pros Cheap houses, mountains, near to great beaches, so much less crowded, less traffic, good schools,

Cons - The weather colder and much wetter.
Doesn't seem to have the public footpaths network( though I may be wrong about this) so even though there is a lot of countryside it doesn't seem as accessible

I suppose the first introduction is if you annoy anyone here by referring to where the land of Northern Ireland actually belongs to you will get told off 🙄🙄🙄 thankfully some of us here do not care and realise not everyone needs to be so cautious! So take all that with a pinch of salt.

In all seriousness, I lived in England for many years and came back to NI where I'm from.

Pros:

• houses are cheaper (but getting considerably more expensive as time goes on)
• you don't have to pay for private education (in fact outside of Belfast quite difficult to find such a thing) and the quality of education is good if that applies to your family
• some nice areas of interest to visit on your downtime

Cons:

• the weather is inexplicably shit (make no mistake, there is a significant difference between here and Sussex in terms of rainfall and temps in summer)
• politics. God. Who the hell cares. Well the answer is many people here. Many people do actually still care what your "persuasion" is and after being away from it for 20 odd years it's rather tiresome to witness it to say the least. Worth noting places like counties such as Fermanagh/Derry are generally welcoming and tolerant in my experience.
• one thing I miss hugely is the exposure to other cultures here. Belfast is where you need to go for diversity in food etc but even at that it's behind where you're coming from. It depends what youre into.
• connectivity - public transport outside of Belfast is bad. Connections between Belfast and Dublin good. Outside of that, not good. Depends where youre going but you absolutely need to drive here as you cannot rely on the transport network. Equally Dublin is your only truly international airport with very limited options out of Belfast city and international airports. Dublin is limited too.

Totally depends on your motives for doing this but based on what you've said already? No way. I have family here and my husband is here so that's why I am but aside from that, no.

Thank you for taking the time to actually give me some information! I do actually know that NI is in the UK, I just had a momentary brain lapse and wrote UK instead of England 🤦🏽‍♀️ all the best

Apologies - I realise my reply was rather negative! Obviously it completely depends on what you prefer in terms of quality of life - if you would like a quiet life with access to nature then absolutely, it's a great place to be. People are friendly but the religion thing in places is still there. But honestly, I know of many English people who have moved here (countryside specifically) and are very happy indeed.
The go-to website for property is PropertyPal.com and pretty much everything for sale is listed there so it might be nice to have a look! If I was recommending a couple who work remote looking to relocate to NI a place to live it would be Enniskillen - picturesque, lovely countryside, 1.5 hrs from Belfast/airports yet a nice enough town with good eateries and shops. Close to the border of ROI. Donegal across the border is beautiful as is Sligo which are both within 1hr drive distance. The coast is about 45min drive. I would live there myself but remote is not an option for me