Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Has anyone ever worked/lived in the UK and preferred it to Ireland

Options
245

Comments

  • Options
    #32
    turbbo
    Registered Users Posts: 1,136 ✭✭✭turbbo


    ReginaldSmythV wrote: »
    Yes and no. They’re a world apart from most of us, and not for the better.

    The English especially are extremely thick in a common sense type of way. In my younger years I often heard it said that someone working in a bank over there wouldn’t be fit to work in a shop here and there was never a truer word spoken.

    Yet all the research show Irish people to have lower average IQs.


  • Options
    #33
    turbbo
    Registered Users Posts: 1,136 ✭✭✭turbbo


    razorblunt wrote: »
    Yes, still here.
    Yes and no.

    I live in Edinburgh so it's pricey enough but still cheaper than Ireland.
    Live in a beautiful house that would be massively over priced in Ireland, I pay less tax and my cars are cheaper too.

    Now we've started a family though I think we will move back at some stage but we've both said.
    Home is home and our Scottish hame is still our hame. I know for a fact we'll miss Edinburgh but right now we miss home too.


    I think this sums up living abroad in general had a very similar experience when I lived in New York many moons ago. I loved it at the time and really felt a loss when I moved home. But now when I visit it - it's not the same to me - home is always home but I think the longer you stay in one place the more it becomes home - it makes sense really.


  • Options
    #34
    CrankyHaus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    razorblunt wrote: »
    Yes, still here.
    Yes and no.

    I live in Edinburgh so it's pricey enough but still cheaper than Ireland.
    Live in a beautiful house that would be massively over priced in Ireland, I pay less tax and my cars are cheaper too.

    Now we've started a family though I think we will move back at some stage but we've both said.
    Home is home and our Scottish hame is still our hame. I know for a fact we'll miss Edinburgh but right now we miss home too.

    It's interesting that the person living in Scotland seemed to have the most positive opinion of living in the UK so far in this thread.

    By most formal measures it should be a worse place to live than England, particularly the South. Yet I also quite like it. For instance Glasgow West End is quite pleasant, with lovely scenery in the hinterland, and far more affordable than the Irish or London equivalent.


  • Options
    #35
    El_Duderino 09
    Registered Users Posts: 20,004 ✭✭✭✭El_Duderino 09


    turbbo wrote: »
    Yet all the research show Irish people to have lower average IQs.

    I wouldn't worry too much about that. The difference between the working class people I worked with in the pizza shops and the Middle class people in the public service, was stark. They take class much more seriously than Irish people. The working class shun learning in a way that Irish people would never do. They see learning, education and curiosity about the world as being for 'posh' people.

    Even watching a documentary on BBC4 is completely alien to them because thats a channel for 'posh' people. I couldn't believe how rigidly they enforce their perceptions of their own class. And needless to say those people were really uninformed.

    But the middle class ones were curious about the world and we're great company.

    It was genuinely fascinating to see people completely close themselves off to things because of their own perception of their class.


  • Options
    #36
    razorblunt
    Registered Users Posts: 17,300 ✭✭✭✭razorblunt


    CrankyHaus wrote: »
    It's interesting that the person living in Scotland seemed to have the most positive opinion of living in the UK so far in this thread.

    By most formal measures it should be a worse place to live than England, particularly the South. Yet I also quite like it. For instance Glasgow West End is quite pleasant, with lovely scenery in the hinterland, and far more affordable than the Irish or London equivalent.

    Scotland really is fantastic, how could you not like living in Edinburgh!
    The Scots are great too, for all their faults, just like the Irish.

    If anything I've been more impressed with them post Brexit, they've really gone on the offensive for "you're always welcome here" even though I've told them I'm unaffected by Visas.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #37
    irishguitarlad
    Registered Users Posts: 2,751 ✭✭✭irishguitarlad


    I have lived in three countries and in this order I would put them. 1. Spain, 2. Ireland, 3. England. I lived in England for 3 years, it was a shíthole. Funnily enough I have nightmares about the place and how I can never escape.


  • Options
    #38
    Hoop66
    Registered Users Posts: 2,299 ✭✭✭Hoop66


    I'm from there, and fuck no I wouldn't rather go back*

    I've felt more at home in Ireland since almost the first day I came here nearly 20 years ago.



    *Except on a visit to sample their many fine beers.


  • Options
    #39
    El_Duderino 09
    Registered Users Posts: 20,004 ✭✭✭✭El_Duderino 09


    irishguitarlad wrote: »
    I have lived in three countries and in this order I would put them. 1. Spain, 2. Ireland, 3. England. I lived in England for 3 years, it was a shíthole. Funnily enough I have nightmares about the place and how I can never escape.

    Where in England? Was it a leafy, middle class suburb of a city?

    I liven in the town centre of one of the poor towns for uni. It was genuinely terrible. But there's no need to live in a place like that unless you've no choice as I had when I needed to be close to uni.


  • Options
    #40
    LollipopJimmy
    Registered Users Posts: 5,439 ✭✭✭LollipopJimmy


    I've never lived there but have spent quite a bit of time going back and forth. I was only ever in one place where I thought I could live and that was a small seaside village in the North East.

    Places I've spent a good bit of time in for work are

    Newcastle - grand for a night out, depressing kip outside the centre
    Manchester - Same
    Liverpool - Same
    Birmingham - Depressing kip all the time
    London - I hate the place an unfriendly kip with a massive socio economic divide, much much more than Dublin where at least you can find a middle ground.
    Bradford - Actually a third world place that is falling down
    Leeds - Probably the soundest people I met over there (Geordies a close second but a lad tried to punch me in Newcastle when he heard my Irish accent)
    Northampton - Depressing kip
    Derby - Depressing kip


  • Options
    #41
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 7,712 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    turbbo wrote: »
    Yet all the research show Irish people to have lower average IQs.

    I said common sense. They just always come across as massively thick who can’t function without something telling them what to do. Airheads, if you will.
    IQ wise NI seem the worst of the uk. Most of them can’t even spell.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #42
    Stevieluvsye
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,907 ✭✭✭Stevieluvsye


    LollipopJimmy wrote: »
    I've never lived there but have spent quite a bit of time going back and forth. I was only ever in one place where I thought I could live and that was a small seaside village in the North East.

    Places I've spent a good bit of time in for work are

    Newcastle - grand for a night out, depressing kip outside the centre
    Manchester - Same
    Liverpool - Same
    Birmingham - Depressing kip all the time
    London - I hate the place an unfriendly kip with a massive socio economic divide, much much more than Dublin where at least you can find a middle ground.
    Bradford - Actually a third world place that is falling down
    Leeds - Probably the soundest people I met over there (Geordies a close second but a lad tried to punch me in Newcastle when he heard my Irish accent)
    Northampton - Depressing kip
    Derby - Depressing kip

    I have been to all of them above and agree with everything you said, especially about Leeds. Great spot. Another dump is Nottingham. Fcuk me

    I have friends from Bradford who are sound but it is a terrible rough kip


  • Options
    #43
    irishguitarlad
    Registered Users Posts: 2,751 ✭✭✭irishguitarlad


    El_Duderino 09 wrote: »
    Where in England? Was it a leafy, middle class suburb of a city?

    I liven in the town centre of one of the poor towns for uni. It was genuinely terrible. But there's no need to live in a place like that unless you've no choice as I had when I needed to be close to uni.

    Birmingham and yes it was quite middle class.


  • Options
    #44
    Stevieluvsye
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,907 ✭✭✭Stevieluvsye


    irishguitarlad wrote: »
    Birmingham and yes it was quite middle class.

    Birmingham is just a big fcuking ball of greyness. Depressing


  • Options
    #45
    irishguitarlad
    Registered Users Posts: 2,751 ✭✭✭irishguitarlad


    Stevieluvsye wrote: »
    Birmingham is just a big fcuking ball of greyness. Depressing

    Yeah it was grim, I had a shíte job as well, working in the video games section of a department store where chavs hurled abuse at me for having sold out of super mario on the nintendo ds.


  • Options
    #46
    weemcd
    Registered Users Posts: 6,419 ✭✭✭weemcd


    Wouldn't live in England if you paid me tbh.

    Never lived there but been back and forth over the years with work and to see people.

    Newcastle - love it, one of the few places I'd probably consider living in if I had to.
    Liverpool - same.
    Bristol - same.
    Manchester - never liked it, which is disappointing as I'm a United fan.
    London - not been there much but wouldn't fancy it.
    Glasgow - liked it there, very different to England.
    Dundee - alright but wouldn't fancy it, very dull and grey but I hear it's on the up as an area.
    Swindon - absolute kip.
    Birmingham - nice people but wouldn't fancy it at all.

    But for all those English places above, Brexit has ruined them entirely. It's becoming a nasty, horrible place and it's getting worse.

    For reference I live in Belfast and I fùcking love it here and hope to buy my own place here this year.


  • Options
    #47
    El_Duderino 09
    Registered Users Posts: 20,004 ✭✭✭✭El_Duderino 09


    irishguitarlad wrote: »
    Birmingham and yes it was quite middle class.

    Fair enough. The leafy middle class areas are lively in the places I lived. I lived in both nice areas and town centre where there were regular fights outside the door, police zooming around, people having domestic rows and shouting down the street at each other. I'd never dream of raising children on an area like that.


  • Options
    #48
    theteal
    Registered Users Posts: 7,593 ✭✭✭theteal


    I'll be here 9 years this May. Do I prefer it? As others have said, yes and no.

    I like living in a fairly rural town and yet only 29mins (I happened to check yesterday) from Stratford with off peak trains every 20 mins, <10 at peak times. It's a grand town, not rough, not anything salubrious, covers the bases but could do with a decent pub - although unless you venture out proper rural, I find English pubs sh!t tbh (why 1 order at a time????? I'd have 5-10 on the go when I worked in a pub at 15 yrs of age!). There are lots farms, woods and beaches (albeit rubbish pebble-y types) within a 20 minute drive.

    The sense of community here is fantastic. On the local FB group, you'll regularly see people helping each other out or staging a litter pick, fence painting etc. I'm sure you'd get it in some parts of Ireland but I've never seen it. All that aside, Mark Francois is the local MP so I'd consider moving just based on that fact - it's Brexit central!

    While I'm not a fan of council tax, I am embracing the free child care. Not having family nearby is a bit crap and will be a bigger consideration as the grandparents get older.

    I do like my trips home but I try to keep them reasonably short as I don't want to get under people's feet - maybe it'd be different if I had my own place. Also Ireland is so bloody expensive. Comp insurance for my 13 yr old car is just over £200 here, also in the last 6 months I've bought 2 * Michelin and 2 * Goodyear tyres for a sum total of £128 - I dare say that all of that combined would be significantly more expensive back home. I miss my Friday evening visits to Richmond Park, some of the lads here go to Dagenham games but I just don't feel the connection and it takes a lot more time. I miss going into Dublin city for a few beers and losing track of time, a taxi back out was only €15 when last done - a drink in London involves a lot of watch checking so the last train isn't missed, that took a bit of getting used to. I miss the lads at home but whatsapp, skype and even xbox live mean that you're always in nearly constant contact - we're all at an age now that the drinking sessions are few and far between so these things can be planned around trips away or my infrequent jaunts home.

    Work-wise, I could get a job anywhere. I expect I'd get paid quite a bit more money in Dublin than London but. . . .mrsTeal refuses to work in the Irish health service. She has quite a senior nursing position with a fair bit of authority, I'm led to believe her role doesn't even exist in Ireland so that's a nonstarter. She has friends who have moved back telling her of policies and procedures that she thinks are just downright backwards and dangerous. On top of that, the friend network here now we've put some roots down is really good.

    So, like I said OP, yes and no. Were we a smidge younger with no child or mortgage we'd probably still regularly toy with the idea of moving back but as said mortgage is at a rate of 1.26% and the childcare is free it just seems like it would be financially imprudent just now.


  • Options
    #49
    monkeysnapper
    Registered Users Posts: 2,575 ✭✭✭monkeysnapper


    Holy feck no

    I'm from uk ...well Wales....I looked into moving to a few citys in england before I moved to ireland .

    Best decision I ever made .....

    Fantastic country to live ....well on west coast anyway!!!!


  • Options
    #50
    Stevieluvsye
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,907 ✭✭✭Stevieluvsye


    @theteal

    Some parts of Essex around that way are really nice! I travel to stratford quite a bit and venture out on the train to different towns. Got to go and see some cricket in Chemlsford last time around. Lovely town


  • Options
    #51
    theteal
    Registered Users Posts: 7,593 ✭✭✭theteal


    Stevieluvsye wrote: »
    @theteal

    Some parts of Essex around that way are really nice! I travel to stratford quite a bit and venture out on the train to different towns. Got to go and see some cricket in Chemlsford last time around. Lovely town

    I've not quite brought myself to go to the cricket, a few of the local lads are into it and have invited me but there's just some inbred working class Dublin thing that makes me decline, can't explain it as it looks a decent day in the sun with scoops. . .never mind the boringness on the pitch (is it called a pitch??)

    Chelmsford is a decent spot albeit one I'm not overly familiar with, there's an Irish owned pub near the bus station, had a few good nights in there.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #52
    Stevieluvsye
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,907 ✭✭✭Stevieluvsye


    theteal wrote: »
    I've not quite brought myself to go to the cricket, a few of the local lads are into it and have invited me but there's just some inbred working class Dublin thing that makes me decline, can't explain it as it looks a decent day in the sun with scoops. . .never mind the boringness on the pitch (is it called a pitch??)

    Chelmsford is a decent spot albeit one I'm not overly familiar with, there's an Irish owned pub near the bus station, had a few good nights in there.

    The "Pitch" is also known as the wicket, as in where the batsman would play from ;) Outside of that you have the "outfield"

    There you go, you're all set. Get yourself to a T20 Blast game. Games in Chelmsford are usually on a Friday night.


  • Options
    #53
    chrissb8
    Registered Users Posts: 1,169 ✭✭✭chrissb8


    I can only speak for London, but it is no place to make a life. The pace is too fast and although there are nice areas you could never afford to live there. Or if you can is it worth it considering how much farther your money would go elsewhere? Plus the idea of raising a family in such mania stresses me out.

    However I like it here as I'm relatively young and the opportunities and things to see or explore are great. But I know that in time I'll want that slow pace of life again for good. The idea is to build a career here, get some great experience, have some craic and head back to Ireland where I can pick something similar up career wise.

    I don't miss the lack of things to do in Ireland but I miss the stuff I could do. Simple things like walking down the road to the beach on a summers night, going for a hike somewhere out in Wicklow. I left Ireland because I was cracking up at the repitition of life there for me, I didn't feel there was much growth for me and although I've struggled at times here it's been rewarding and is helped by having friends from home around me too.

    That's actually one thing I would recommend for any Irish person to do. Is to make connections with other Irish people as although British people by and large are friendly, you miss the certain humour we Irish have and the flow of conversation you can't find anywhere else.

    So to answer the OP it's Ireland for me.

    P.S. The pubs are f*****g s**e though. So are their cask ales, flat warm muck. It's no wonder you never see them in other countries.


  • Options
    #54
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,381 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    I have a lot of family in the UK including children and inlaws, it all depends where you live, lots of depressing towns full of bingo places, run-down shops and cheap pubs, on the other hand, their are beautiful cities and towns although they tend to be expensive to live in. Public services are very good despite the moaning. its a very divided society in a way you do not see in Ireland.


  • Options
    #55
    wakka12
    Registered Users Posts: 9,786 ✭✭✭wakka12


    Well I much prefer London to Dublin, cant speak for the whole country though, plenty of ****holes, agree above that most places in the UK that are nice to live in are obscenely expensive. plenty of nice areas in Ireland that are affordable


  • Options
    #56
    ancapailldorcha
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 37,452 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    Yeah, I definitely feel more at ease here than I ever did in Ireland. Not quite at home but definitely more at ease.

    I hail from the countryside and lovely as it was, I just don't think I could hack living somewhere so isolated ever again and the local town was just boring beyond words. If you weren't into GAA, soccer or drinking that life there was just pointless and miserable in my opinion.

    While I wished the political situation here was different, I figure that I've paid for the ticket so I might as well see the show at this stage. I could be tempted into moving to Dublin but the housing situation seems to be appalling and I say that as a Londoner. I doubt I'd get a job there anyway so here I'll stay it seems.

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



  • Options
    #57
    quokula
    Registered Users Posts: 3,574 ✭✭✭quokula


    Lived in the UK for about 12 years, lived in a bunch of cities around England but eventually settled in London for the last 8 of those years. London is a great city, but the rest of the UK is utterly miserable, with a few exceptions. May have been a coincidence, but on a couple of occasions in the six months or so after the Brexit vote I had run ins with racist types who weren't happy about hearing an Irish accent in their pub - both times when out of the city and in smaller towns. That was what really put me off the place, aside from all the other uncertainty Brexit brought.

    Moving to Ireland a couple of years ago was a great decision thanks to much more affordable housing in Ireland which has allowed for a standard of living far beyond what would have been possible over there. I do miss the endless attractions, nightlife and things to do in London, especially when you're not much into drinking like me, but as I'm a bit older now I do appreciate the more relaxed lifestyle. I think there's a point when most people start to feel they're getting too old for the rush of London living.


  • Options
    #58
    susieball
    Registered Users Posts: 38 ✭susieball


    Thanks for all the replies. I wouldn't want to live in London or anywhere around it, including Essex. I spent several years working and in College in Manchester. Really like Manchester and Liverpool. Lived in a lovely village outside Bolton called, of all the strange names, 'Ramsbottom.' I never had much in common with people in the South East/London, but I always felt home in North West UK. Don't know what Leeds is like, but I here it's nice. Have spent time going back and over to Newcastle for work, but still prefer Liverpool/Greater Manchester. Things that I think about - I pay almost 2k a year just for me in health insurance - that will be 3k when I retire in 10 years. My friends who both have excellent jobs in UK - Tech and NHS - about 130k between them - wouldn't even think of having private health insurance. Having said that they pay Council Tax here. Cars are cheaper, insurance is cheaper and some foods. Career opportunities are better in healthcare and allied professions. I don't know if I would want to work in NHS again. I hear there is terrible pressure on staff from all the time I come back and over to UK, but there are lots of opportunities here in allied professions in private organisations, which is really my area of work now. The NHS is bad, but it is nowhere near the basket case of the Irish health service. About two weeks ago, I was chatting to a Doctor/Medical Consultant, who said he would not live outside of Dublin, as however bad Dublin was, he felt the hospitals outside Dublin were atrocious! I don't work in hospitals now in Ireland, but did for about 17 years - what I saw was scary to say the least! I find people in and around Manchester and Liverpool, friendly, polite - probably friendlier than at home in Ireland, of course there are lots of really tough areas in Manchester. I remember working in a nursing home as agency 22 years ago in Gorton in Manchester - we had to have window shutters at night as well as shutters for the doors, and there was spikes along the top of the walls, and a very large security gate, with a security guard - for a nursing home! Whoever said their wife, who works in healthcare, wouldn't return as she finds some of the stuff she heard about the Irish health service really backward, that's true! Almost 20 years ago, when I returned. I was doing a night shift, and the senior nurse, who was about to return, wouldn't let me have the medicine key or give out the medicines, as he felt only senior nurses could/should do that. At that time, to be a senior nurse, you had to be 20 years post qualification. At the time, I had been qualified several years.


  • Options
    #59
    PommieBast
    Registered Users Posts: 2,591 ✭✭✭PommieBast


    weemcd wrote: »
    But for all those English places above, Brexit has ruined them entirely. It's becoming a nasty, horrible place and it's getting worse.
    Brexit is just a symptom of a much longer-term decline. I saw the writing on the wall and got out in 2012.


  • Options
    #60
    eviltwin
    Registered Users Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    Lived there for a time in my teens and loved it. Hated coming back. I wouldn't live there now though.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #61
    CrankyHaus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    PommieBast wrote: »
    Brexit is just a symptom of a much longer-term decline. I saw the writing on the wall and got out in 2012.

    What in your opinion is this decline, what manifestations of it did you recognize it by and what are its causes?


Advertisement