Miss Eck

I have been reading all your threads on here and have founds lots of useful info etc.

I left Ireland when I was quite young and moved to London where I lived for 15 years. Now in Dubai which is a completely different kettle of fish!

I am contemplating my next move and would be interested to hear from any Irish who moved back after a number of years and how you adjusted or from any Brits/Scots who moved over to Ireland (does it compare favourably to living in the UK?).

Because I left when I was young I am really out of touch with a lot of things and hence I am worried about settling back in to a slower pace of life.

I had a look on daft.ie and some of the properties and fantastic and so cheap. Where would you recommend living. I want to be somewhere near a lake or river and rolling hills. My family live in Sligo so I want to be relatively close to them. Carrick on Shannon and other parts of Leitrim look beautiful. Hopefully when I move back I won't need to work so I don't necessarily need to be near a big city.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

crazydaisy

Hi there - my knowledge of Ireland is fairly limited to Clare, Galway and parts of Kerry and Connemara but they're all very beautiful so it would be hard to comment on the best place to end up! Someone on the board owns houses to rent in Mayo and that maybe a good place to consider with it being so close to Sligo. Ireland has changed hugely in the last few years - it was such a shock to see fir trees growing everywhere (landowners are being given grants to plant fir trees and woodland) and roads are improving and small towns expanding. I don't know if this is true also for Mayo and beyond but we were totally shocked by how quickly things are changing in the Galway/Clare area. We normally try to get there every 2 years but we had a 4 year gap one time and thought we ended somewhere completely different! This is a good thing in that it has improved the chances of jobs greatly but of course in some areas the peace and quiet maybe diminishing. Having said that, it doesn't take long at all to get back into the countryside and not see a soul for miles so it could be a best of both worlds!

marcecie

Mayo is beautiful lots of hills and great countryside views houses are cheap there also to rent and buy

Batty

Hi. I moved back after being away for 6 years and thought I'd got on the wrong plane LOL Totally changed and THAT was 7 years ago so you can imagine what it's like now. A good place to start is www.unison.ie - it's the Irish Independent website. You've got to register but it's free and you get to see all the gory details. One thing to be very aware of, if house prices in an area are cheap there is a reason for it - no work most probably. Within 50 miles of any of the major cities are now considered 'commuter' towns and prices are definitely not cheap. Do as much research as you can - I was bitterly disappointed when I got there because I'd only heard about the good stuff. Having said that - once I'd got over the culture shock it was fine. Just different to what I'd expected. When you've been away for a long time you've got to treat it as moving to a new country. I always liken it to not seeing a niece or a nephew for 5 years - you've got a picture in your head of how they were when you last saw them but when you see them again they've grown and changed almost beyond recognition. Photos don't prepare you for the actuality. Take what family and friends tell you with a pinch of salt - if they've never left they will have no idea of your expectations.

Good luck. I lived in Laois and don't have a lot of knowledge of the West of Ireland but give me a shout if you think I can help in any way.

Miss Eck

Thanks for the replies everyone .. lots of food for thought there.