Thinking of moving back to Ireland after living in London for 7 years

stu_69

I am not too sure if this is the correct forum but here goes anyway.

I left Ireland in 2001 to go travelling, I spent 12 months in Australia then 4 months travelling across the states.

While in Australia I met a girl from Belfast and we now live in London togther and we are married and have a 1yr old.

Life in London has been interesting and good. I have a decent job (IT manager) but it's getting harder. Money is getting tight as my wife now works part time and nursery fees are £650 a month plus all the others expenses (rent= £1k a month) which are adding up. We are on our own and have only a few friends which has made bringing up a child hard work (we never get anytime off as we have no babysitters or family close by), it's enjoyable but it would nice to have some adult company which we don't have. When my family comes over to visit it's great, our son loves his grand parents and has a great time with them. We also get a bit of time to ourselves as they are happy to take him for a few hours. My wifes parents are pretty useless with him.

So we have been thinking that it would nice to move near my family. Our son would get to spend time with his grand parents, uncles and cousins which he never does now. Plus we would get some help/friendship which we don't have in London.

The problem is finding a job. I would want a salary of about 60k euro which there are not a lot of about at the moment. Applying for Jobs from London is not going anywhere at the moment neither. Also we both left Ireland as we didn't get on with the place and thought of moving back is daunting. We enjoy London and I reckon moving back to Ireland after so long would be a culture shock. We would look to move to south of Dublin (not sure where but somewhere within an hours commute of Dublin probably).

Has anyone else done it? What was it like?

PS. I have not posted on here in a while but I was a very active member (I was a mod for a while) about 5 years ago.

funk-you

I lived in London for a few years and just came back recently. It was great at first but i'm really missing what London has to offer. The people in Ireland can be great and it's cool being back around family and friends but i get bored very quickly with things here now.

On the money side of things, i am still with the same company i was with in London so i just got a conversion and a huge thing i've noticed is i have less in my pocket at the end of every month now. Prices of everything jumped majorly in the space of a few years. Rent can be cheaper in Dublin but almost everything else costs just that little bit extra.

Saying all that though i do still love Ireland but the rose tinted glassed i always had while over there have worn off

-Funk

darkman2

Your picking the wrong time to come back - the economy is not in good shape atm! Then again things are just as bad in the UK aswell.

CHD

tl;dr

mumhaabu

Economically and socialy Ireland is worse off plus the pound sterling is at its weakest point against the euro ever and transferring your savings will cost too. I'd stay put If I was in your situation.

boogle

CHD wrote: »

tl;dr

Why bother posting then? Just to let everybody know that you are incapable of struggling your way through a couple of paragraphs?

Jigsaw

CHD wrote: »

tl;dr

What does that mean?

OT, I lived in Manchester for four years and moved back. It depends where you are moving from and to. If you're moving from Central London to Borris-in-Ossory then you're in for a shock, but if you're gonna be living and working around Dublin or Belfast, or Cork and Galway, then I wouldn't think it would be so bad at all.

As stated above though, definitely wait for the euro to come up better against sterling before you make the move.

thelordofcheese

Jigsaw wrote: »

What does that mean?

Too Long; didn't read.

Oiche_mhaith

you'll find it easier to come back now b4 your kid gets stuck in school and establishes friends etc... IT jobs aren't too bad in Ireland at the mo - it's construction jobs that are going down. if your skilled in IT then you should be able to pick up a descent job and house prices are low at the moment so you might pick up a bargain over the next 6 months...

MIN2511

1. Life is a risk, it's a risk to take but you have to calculate the benefits
2. You may find a job and then again you may not... You would have to take the risk to find out. And if you don't at least you are close to family
3. Ireland now is not neccessarily in a recession(we talked ourselves into one)
4. Ireland has changed so much over the years, you might struggle because London is a bit like NYC where everything is accessible: transportation, shops etc


But then again, you would have to move to find out...
It's a hard decision... Goodluck!

stu_69

CHD wrote: »

tl;dr

thanks for that. I appreciate know that you are unable to read a couple of paragraphs.

To everyone else thanks for the input I appreciate it.

At the moment I am just keeping an eye on the jobsites and seeing what is out there. If I see something I like I will apply and see how it goes from there.

SheroN

There's still plenty of IT jobs about. There might be less than a few months ago, but there's less people looking to move job as they have recession in their heads.

Canis Lupus

Don't do it! You'll be bored out of your head.

Well... You should be if the fact that I'm crawling up walls within 24 hours of my occassional visits home are anything to go by.

There isn't a place in Ireland that compares to London imo but then I'm young and don't have a family