Your reasons for emigrating

--LOS--

Thargor wrote: »

To the people heading to France etc, are ye fluent before you go there? I thought in France you were a second class citizen if you didnt speak fluently...

Would be interested in an answer to the same question from people in Germany/Holland/Sweden etc aswell.

EDIT: And Norway.

well most people in the Netherlands will have english, especially in Amsterdam, it being such a tourist haven, my course is completely taught through english. I still have pretty much zero dutch which is kinda embarrassing, but with all the work I have to do study wise it's hard to get the chance to pick up a language too, and because I really don't need it here, it's harder to learn. I will learn it though eventually. It is definitely one of the easiest places to live if you don't have the language, I imagine the rest of europe is completely different.

lufties

--LOS-- wrote: »

well most people in the Netherlands will have english, especially in Amsterdam, it being such a tourist haven, my course is completely taught through english. I still have pretty much zero dutch which is kinda embarrassing, but with all the work I have to do study wise it's hard to get the chance to pick up a language too, and because I really don't need it here, it's harder to learn. I will learn it though eventually. It is definitely one of the easiest places to live if you don't have the language, I imagine the rest of europe is completely different.

Is it expensive to live on a houseboat in Amsterdam?

Dutch is a simple enough language to learn, you should get crackin.

SamAK

The weather, the sense of despair and hopelessness( I did my L.C in 2009, just as it all crumbled into nattin')

The culchies, the narrow minded pricks, the religion, the scumbag politicians, the weather, the drinking culture, the weather, and the weather.

Shame that I actually fvcking came back. What was I thinking. Now I'm due another four years in college til I get a degree and I can fvck back to Australia and actually have a 'quality of life' again.

Aidric

Sleepy wrote: »

Of course... :rolleyes:

Honest answer: I've always found myself utterly bored by typical Irish small talk revolving around what the neighbours are up to, english and scottish football, GAA, soap operas and reality television etc.

I find the unthinking dedication to the catholic church, the Irish language and civil war politics to be annoying, The growing sense of entitlement from certain groups of society, the mistrust of success and the celebration of cute hoors are particularly galling too...

Is that why you moved to Clontarf? :pac:

mandrake04

Electric Sheep wrote: »

Generation Emigration in the Irish Times is the worst for this. Girl spends 4 months in France, write her piece for GE. Soon every person who has spent a long weekend out of Ireland will be writing their emigration piece.

If a person from Oregon moves to New York for work, do you think their family boohoos about losing their "best and brightest" and blames the government? It's a lot further than Ireland to London.

A lot of it is just the Irish love of whingebagging.

Yeah the word emigration in Ireland is severely misused/abused, my parents are emigrating to Hawaii for a couple of weeks next year.

Legs.Eleven

NoCrackHaving wrote: »

Am I the only one who simply doesn't recognise this Ireland at all? Never experienced this when I lived in Dublin.

hedgehog2 wrote: »

The majority of the Irish population live outside Dublin and this attitude is very common I am afraid

Majority live in urban areas. I can't imagine that mentality in Cork, Galway or Limerick City either. 60% of people in Ireland live in urban areas btw.

Lollipops23

I'll hopefully be heading off to Canada towards the end of the summer. I have a job, but it's a dead-end and it's slowly killing my soul.

I want an adventure, a change of scenery and to just experience...anything outside my norm tbh

Am both terrified and excited!

mandrake04

maninasia wrote: »

Australia is a severely over regulated place with high costs and fees for everything, the last thing I would say about it is 'it's liberal'. The people are not particularly 'liberal' either.

But it is a good spot that I know well and I would trade some freedom for a good dose of beach and barbie for a while .

Well fees for everything is just like user pays taxes, if I want to drive the dunes at Stockton I have to buy a permit $10 for 3 days... the beach is free but you need a permit to drive on it .... it another form of tax. If I don't drive on it then I don't pay.

In Ireland they tax the sh!t out of you and give it to the European Union and they decide what you can and can't do....you still have to pay the tax.

SamAK

maninasia wrote: »

Australia is a severely over regulated place with high costs and fees for everything, the last thing I would say about it is 'it's liberal'. The people are not particularly 'liberal' either.

But it is a good spot that I know well and I would trade some freedom for a good dose of beach and barbie for a while .

First thing i'd suggest - get the hell out of the cities!

Ever been to the Northern Rivers, north NSW(Byron bay and inward)?

beks101

I don't think I had any concrete reasons. I just fecked off for 'a year' with a few college mates and ended up accidentally emigrating.

I think I'm a happier person abroad. Career opportunity would be a big part of it, as I simply can't do what I do in Ireland, I'd have to change industries to make a living, such as things are at the moment.

I lived in Canada up until recently and definitely was a far more positive, upbeat and generally optimistic person. I found there was this real earnest, kind of relentless, celebratory positivity to the people that took a few years for me to get my head around. Most people were devoid of cynicism or that tendency that we seem to have to mock, or jibe, or slag, or try to tear down, or moan, or complain. Success was encouraged and celebrated. It sort of rubbed off on me.

Towards my latter years I generally walked around with a happy head on me, small things didn't seem to affect me so much. I think the weather system helped with that. Always having a hot, sunny summer to look forward to made the long winters bearable and something of a novelty.

I hate rain so much it's hard to even articulate. I can't express how much blistery, dark and relentlessly bad weather affects my mood. I need sun, I need heat. That alone is enough to keep me out of Ireland.

I become a lot more ambitious and proactive when I'm living abroad. I think it's that "do or die" aspect to living so far from home. You don't have mammy to rely on. If you don't strive for a better life for yourself, you simply won't get one. And that will to make the most of this foreign place gets combined with a sort of "sure feck it, no-one knows me anyway" mentality. It's entirely a state of mind but one that I never managed to slip into when I lived at home.

I'm currently in the UK, which is a lot more culturally similar to home. It's great to have that dirty sense of humour and self-deprecation back. But I'm not enjoying the rain. Or the cynicism. I'm not sure how long I'll last before heading further afield tbh.

Sometimes I forget that moving to Canada was the best decision I ever made in my life and I wish I had just stayed in that full-time staff job I had in Dublin five years ago. I think emigrating messes with your head a little and makes it difficult to virtually impossible to imagine living in Ireland again.

I have this weird inner conflict where I have this massive appreciation and pride in where I come from and an acknowledgement for its beauty and wonderfulness that I never would have developed had I not left. But on the other hand, I get incredibly restless, impatient and sad when I'm there for too long.

I don't know if I could be happy in Ireland again. I think maybe I've outgrown my life there, despite having left so much of my heart there.

crockholm

Thargor wrote: »

To the people heading to France etc, are ye fluent before you go there? I thought in France you were a second class citizen if you didnt speak fluently...

Would be interested in an answer to the same question from people in Germany/Holland/Sweden etc aswell.

EDIT: And Norway.

Not in Scandanavia,there are quite a number of non-Nordics living in Sweden and they seem to be able to live easily enough through the medium of English.

The Norwegians even advertise many of the jobs on their equivalent of FAS in English

Mint Aero

Money! And the loife loike!

mandrake04

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

A few of my friends back home have been to India and loved it. Personally I'd hate to go, sounds like it's just an open air sewer!

I went there for 3 weeks for work, hated it ....it's the toilet of the world. The only positive is I can say is that at least I been there to see it myself for free.

MRnotlob606

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xToPCaNxaow

Aidric

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

A few of my friends back home have been to India and loved it. Personally I'd hate to go, sounds like it's just an open air sewer!

A mate of mine is currently on a 3 month placement in Delhi. Your description is spot on. My jaw was on the floor with some of the photos he showed me. Looks an absolute dump.

SamAK

beks101 wrote: »

I have this weird inner conflict where I have this massive appreciation and pride in where I come from and an acknowledgement for its beauty and wonderfulness that I never would have developed had I not left. But on the other hand, I get incredibly restless, impatient and sad when I'm there for too long. .

Wow...that struck a chord with me....I feel exactly the same way.:)

To really see Ireland for what it is, good and bad, I had to get out and look back from afar for a while. Now I appreciate it so much more, but at the same time I don't want to stay here. I want to leave, and come back occasionally. I want somewhere else in the world to call 'home' as well as Eire.

lufties

mandrake04 wrote: »

I went there for 3 weeks for work, hated it ....it's the toilet of the world. The only positive is I can say is that at least I been there to see it myself for free.

Goa, hampi, kerala, to name a few..some of the most beautiful and interesting places i've ever been.

Femme_Fatale

NoCrackHaving wrote: »

Am I the only one who simply doesn't recognise this Ireland at all? Never experienced this when I lived in Dublin.

Aye. It's not that it doesn't exist (like it exists in lots of places) but I reckon it being so widespread in Irish society is all in the head.

Love these threads though - vast majority of Irish people who prefer to live abroad are normal and rational. But you always get the odd Irish person who's a "cut above" the rest us ignorant hicks, who likes to put us in our place.

Legs.Eleven

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Aye. It's not that it doesn't exist (like it exists in lots of places) but I reckon it being so widespread in Irish society is all in the head.

Love these threads though - vast majority of Irish people who prefer to live abroad are normal and rational. But you always get the odd Irish person who's a "cut above" the rest us ignorant hicks, who likes to put us in our place.

The fact is, when people leave Ireland, they generally move to urban areas so they compare their own rural background to urban life. People having more conservative attitudes in rural areas applies to virtually every country in the world.

My boyfriend's extended family would be from rural Spain and he was telling them about how I like to cook. They asked him what kind of food and he told them veggie curries and Thai food and that comment was met with fits of laughter. The idea that anyone would eat something vegetarian and Indian (FOREIGN!) was bizarre to them. Although they're lovely, they'd also be extremely religious, very conservative and they spend much of their time talking about other people.

Sound familiar?

Even supposed liberal countries like The Netherlands would be very conservative outside Amsterdam.

hedgehog2

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Majority live in urban areas. I can't imagine that mentality in Cork, Galway or Limerick City either. 60% of people in Ireland live in urban areas btw.

Last time I checked Limerick,Cork and Galway were outside Dublin.
You will find this attitude very prevalent in all 3 of these places.

Legs.Eleven

hedgehog2 wrote: »

Last time I checked Limerick,Cork and Galway were outside Dublin.
You will find this attitude very prevalent in all 3 of these places.

You're saying everywhere outside Dublin has that attitude and I'm saying those cities don't. I'm disagreeing with you.


I'd be more interested in someone from one of those cities giving their opinion instead of someone having a stab in the dark like you and I.

hedgehog2

Ehh sorry I live in one of those cities and yes it does,Im just stating the facts from the ground.

Femme_Fatale

hedgehog2 wrote: »

Last time I checked Limerick,Cork and Galway were outside Dublin.
You will find this attitude very prevalent in all 3 of these places.

I'm in Cork city. Can't say it is.
Confirmation bias/prejudice is prevalent among some folk though. Someone said earlier it's ingrained in many of us to put down Ireland, and I agree.

Being honest, I don't especially love Ireland overall - there are aspects to it I dislike. But hating it and pretending there are zero redeeming features is something I really don't understand. There are lots of aspects to this country which I love, and life is pretty cushy. You've, generally speaking, done well in the lottery of life if you're born in Ireland - despite the hardships people go on about on their smartphones/laptops.

I don't rule out emigrating - sometimes I put thought into doing it, whether it's the reality of it or just the idea of it that's appealing to me... but I know if I did emigrate, I'd miss home badly.

hedgehog2 wrote: »

Ehh sorry I live in one of those cities and yes it does,Im just stating the facts from the ground.

Facts? Or just your own bias? Cuz see... they're not facts to me at all.

COYVB

Fancied giving it a go

Legs.Eleven

hedgehog2 wrote: »

Ehh sorry I live in one of those cities and yes it does,Im just stating the facts from the ground.

That's fair enough.

Legs.Eleven

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

I'm in Cork city. Can't say it is.
Confirmation bias/prejudice is prevalent among some folk though. Someone said earlier it's ingrained in many of us to put down Ireland, and I agree.

Being honest, I don't especially love Ireland overall - there are aspects to it I dislike. But hating it and pretending there are zero redeeming features is something I really don't understand. There are lots of aspects to this country which I love, and life is pretty cushy. You've, generally speaking, done well in the lottery of life if you're born in Ireland - despite the hardships people go on about on their smartphones/laptops.

I don't rule out emigrating - sometimes I put thought into doing it, whether it's the reality of it or just the idea of it that's appealing to me... but I know if I did emigrate, I'd miss home badly.

There's plenty that I don't miss about Ireland as well but as you said, people writing it off as hell on Earth gets on my wick because it's so obviously not.

Micky Dolenz

Ireland, best country in the world.

can't wait to be home.

In the mean time, i will suffer on with high medical/fuel/living/food costs.

the weather is grand though :rolleyes:

crockholm

I love how this thread is turning into the enlightedness of city living vs the yokeldom of rural Life with such fantastic examples of urbanity as chicken tikka massala.

You listen to some of the misery porn being listed here as reasons for people leaving,you would Think it was the fcuking 1950s they left behind. Angelas Ashes have blown away a long time ago.

Legs.Eleven

crockholm wrote: »

I love how this thread is turning into the enlightedness of city living vs the yokeldom of rural Life with such fantastic examples of urbanity as chicken tikka massala..

No chicken. Vegetarian. I may as well be chomping the heads off babies in their eyes.

crockholm

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

No chicken. Vegetarian. I may as well be chomping the heads off babies in their eyes.

Well,You do get a pass for being authentic-pretty much Everything that we eat in Ireland as "Indian" is more Pakistani in origin.
Friends lived in Wembly and is a largely Indian neighbourhood and at least 75% of the local restaurants were veggie.

I still Think I would share your hombre's families incredulity at being offered a dish without some meat.I nearly cried when one of my Brothers gf's made a Quorn Sunday dinner once.