Fitting in - one perspective

For what it is worth my husband & I are both English & left England to live in Connaught about 8 years ago. We had a great welcome & have experienced nothing but friendliness. One of the most frequent questions we were asked was if we had family or a family history in Ireland. If we had been able to have answered yes then I'm sure we would have been in danger of being buried in kindness!

I certainly agree it would be best to rent for a while just to make absolutely sure you are happy with moving...especially in these troubled times.

Fitting in - another perspective

I am very sorry to say it, but Ireland is not the best place in the world to live if you are from any sort of ethnic background. In the north they can`t even get on with each other so much so in Belfast they have a dividing wall, and as far as I know and have been told the south is not a lot better. The Irish are an extremely suspicious and clannish lot. I know Dublin people who married into rural communities and even after having reared their families there and after living among them for 30 years plus, they were still considered to be outsiders and continued to be treated as such.

So what chance have people from other countries and different cultures got of finding acceptance and tolerance there? For generations, absolutely no one from outside of Ireland wanted to go there because Ireland was a very poor and insular country until extremely recently. Also because of zero prospects for the native Irish at home Ireland had the highest levels of sustained emigration in Europe.

In the entire history of Ireland the country has only ever known ONE brief period of prosperity to date that was dubbed the celtic tiger. This period of unrivalled economic prosperity lasted for ten years ie from 1997-2007. During this period and for the first time ever, larger numbers of immigrants from foreign countries began to arrive in Ireland en masse. The Irish were TOTALLY unprepared for this new phenomenon and they are STILL in a state of shock and non-acceptance regardless of what they tell you to the contrary.

Getting on in Ireland is ALL about WHO you know and not what you know and believe me when I say that you don't have to belong to an ethnic minority to experience discrimination there.

Because the economy now is in serious decline and people are now losing their jobs (Ireland is entering a recession) immigrants will now be scapegoated by the Irish because jobs are now becoming scarce and they all fell insecure and threatened.

I'm Irish and I know what I am talking about. I do wish you luck there though. But don't take anything that they say or do personally because the majority of them know no better.

Social occasions

It's a whole lot different. Weddings for instance are celebrated in a very public way by the guests leaving the church in their cars. Horns are blown repeatedly by anything up to 40 cars as they make their way down the High Street. The noise is unbelievable!

Funerals too are different. In our small town the Church is one end of the town & the cemetery the other. Sometimes the coffin is carried down the street on the shoulders of the mourners. As the coffin passes all the shops turn off the lights & lock the doors. This can be somewhat perplexing for tourists shopping who suddenly find themselves locked in & plunged into darkness.

It is impossible to calculate how long it will take to go shopping as some days talking rather than actually selling or buying anything seems to be more important.

The clock starts running for overnight courier services when the parcel reaches Dublin. This can take two days? The reverse is true.

Living in the country, you will find that your postman often knows what is going on before anyone else.

The weather is always a good topic of conversation as is the quality of the drinking water.

When asked "Any news?" do not take it personally. It's just a way of updating the questioner about what is going on in the local area.

Finally, remember everyone is related to everyone else!