An Expat's Guide to Ireland: Life in a Second World Country

Introduction

As I stepped off the plane after a nine-hour flight, drowsy eyed and forcing myself to stay awake, I looked for the person that was sent to pick me up. A grey-haired fellow in his late 50’s/early 60’s was standing after the baggage claim exit, holding a sign with my last name and another guy's name on it. He introduced himself, and I received my first taste of a local Irish accent as he loaded us into the car to take us to our respective destinations. The other guy who I had never met before was dropped off at a hotel in the city, while I was driven south of the city where my temporary housing, that I would spend the next two months in, was located. I had two months to find a more permanent home in my new city, a city I had never visited before in my life, a city in a foreign country away from my family and friends. I had come in hopes of making new friends and seeing a bit more of the world beyond the lovely state of Washington where I was born and raised. I had arrived in Dublin, Ireland.

This book is written under the assumption that you are moving to Ireland for work, you are studying in Ireland, or you are possibly moving due to marriage with an Irish citizen. I won't be providing much advice on how to find employment in the country, nor will this book be a standard travel guidebook. There are plenty of those guidebooks available and no need for me to add one more to the list. Suffice it to say, if you’re looking to move to Ireland, my recommendation is first try finding a job in the US that will move you over. That is what brought me to the country. At the time I was working for Microsoft and they were expanding the engineering team I worked with which gave me the opportunity to move. Plus, as an added bonus, they employ people whose sole responsibility is relocation. Those people were able to take care of the paperwork and expenses associated with obtaining a work visa. Most large companies that have offices in Ireland are experienced at obtaining work permits and other legally required documents to live and work within the country. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. all have offices due to the tax incentives the Irish government provides them. This is great for employment, but with the influx of labor there is a shortage of housing that the country is experiencing, especially in the capital of Dublin. We will get into housing later in this book but be aware it might not be as easy as you might think.

As a US citizen, it is difficult to find employment in Ireland without a company's sponsorship. For European Union country citizens as a member of the EU, it is much easier to find work. EU members are not required to obtain work visas, as US citizens or people from other non-EU countries are. Also, Brazil has worked out a deal with Ireland that allows a large number of students from Brazil to study in Ireland, many of whom stay in the country upon completion of school.

This book is written and researched by an American who moved to Dublin in the summer of 2013 and has lived on the Emerald Isle ever since. It is a little guidebook, a little relocation advice, and an occasional personal story to provide real world experience. This book will offer advice and tips for anyone looking to relocate to the country, but I would like to offer a little more than that. The websites and resources provided within can be found with a little research, so along with those I hope to offer some of the experience and emotional flavor that goes along with relocating to another country.

Note: Any people mentioned by name have had their names changed. Anyone referenced I'm sure will recognize who they are and will hopefully enjoy my re-rendering of the situation.

My First Day

The flight to Ireland was a long and exhausting one when flying out of Seattle. But, it was still early in the day when I arrived, and one bit of advice for travelers to deal with jet lag is to stay awake when arriving and go to bed at the local time to help force your body to adjust.

The first order of business was to call a coworker and friend who had been in town for a couple of weeks, and still had one week to go before being sent back to the US. After a few missed calls and texts, we managed to arrange for him to swing by my temporary housing, which was right off a Luas stop, the local light rail system.

Let's just head up to Grafton Street, he told me as we walked to the stop, and he explained how to purchase tickets.

Okay, cool. I'll need to hit a cash machine as well since I don't have any euros.

Jeremy probably had a few years on me and a lot less hair. He was one of those easygoing types that people just instantly like when they meet him. He had been on our team in the US for quite a few years, so it made sense that he would have been sent over for a few weeks to help with an abundance of workload that had been added to the team in Dublin, workload that created an open position for me. He was a bit taller than me with glasses on his narrow face. It was nice to see someone I already knew on my first day in the city.

As we sat on the Luas train, he explained how to get to the office, which wasn’t in the city like most of our competitors but near where I was staying instead. This was probably why they put me in a temporary apartment there. I had been hoping to be closer to the city center, closer to the location we were heading. If I was going to live in a new country for a year or so, I wanted to live where the people were. From what I had seen so far near my apartment there was a small grocery store, a Chinese restaurant, and not much else within walking distance.

At the end of the line, we got off the Luas next to a large park called St. Stephens Green. Near that we began to walk north on a very crowded section of road designated as foot traffic only. The brick road under our feet was lined with old buildings full of businesses selling clothing, souvenirs, food, and of course, a few bank cash machines that I could use to get some local currency.

If I remember right, Jeremy told me, there is a pub up here on the right where we can eat and get a beer.

We walked through the crowded road called Grafton Street and found a place called The Porterhouse. Upon walking in, I visited my first Irish pub, the first of many Irish pubs I would visit during my time in Dublin.

Coming from the Pacific Northwest where micro-brews are found in every bar and restaurant, I was pleasantly surprised that they had a few brews of their own to offer. We each ordered a pint of beer and food, which included an Irish stew for me.

Cheers, we toasted as the beers arrived, and I tasted the nice cold froth of a much-needed beer after a long flight. My eyes were feeling pretty heavy already, but the excitement of a new place, new sites, and new people, was doing a good job of keeping me awake.

So, man, what do you think? Think you are going to like it here? Jeremy asked me.

I think so, or I hope so anyway. I'm committed to a year for sure, or else I'll have to pay back the relocation money they spent on me.

I'm envious; I should do something like this. I could really use a change as well.

"Well, I'm sure we will be hiring more. Something to think about.

The food arrived. My stew was good but nothing spectacular, this was a pub after all. And it appeared pub grub wasn’t much different in Ireland than it was in Seattle.

What do you want to do now? Jeremy asked.

It was still early in the afternoon, and I had quite a few hours to force myself to keep staying awake.

I don't know; anything you still want to see that you haven't since you've been here?

After some discussion, we decided on Kilmainham Gaol, an old prison that had been turned into a museum.

We walked over to the red line, which was the Luas that runs east and west through the city. The green line that we were on before runs north and south. After many years of unconnected Luas lines, they opened a blue line that extended the red line north and connected the two Luas lines in 2017(something people were often surprised to find out they didn’t simply build when first installing the system)

After a short ride, we arrived at the stop that we thought we needed, and after a bit of walking, a bit of getting lost, and a bit of getting directions from a local, we eventually found the prison—a large dark brick building, a building that very clearly had been used to house criminals and those accused of being criminals.

My fogged brain was losing its battle to process information as we purchased our tickets and waited for the tour to begin. Calculating from the time I woke up before leaving Seattle, plus the flight and layover, I had been up for about two days by that point with no sleep on the plane. My company wasn’t considerate enough to purchase a business class ticket for me. Plus, I had just drank two beers and ate a nice thick stew. It was as if the world was