. <\/strong>As an EU national, I could easily live and work there, and as a British Citizen, Graham could work and live there without restriction because of the Common Travel Area (CTA).<\/p>\nI\u2019d met so many Irish people who told me I\u2019d fit right in there. I\u2019d also read fascinating things about how mystical and magical it is, so I always thought it must be brilliant, even though I\u2019d never been.<\/p>\n
We started looking for Irish properties right away. After a brief stint in Wales, which helped to break us into what would become a new rural chapter, Graham took the ferry over and started house hunting. It didn\u2019t take long for us to fall in love with the country. We wound up buying the first house we viewed in a small village called Bunninadden in County of Sligo in 2022.<\/p>\n
For a three-bedroom house on half an acre of land between two farms, we paid just under \u00a370,000. There\u2019s a meadow towards the back of our house, which our dog and five cats love. The local property tax, equivalent to council tax, is \u20ac103 a year \u2013 compared with more than \u00a31,000, which is 10 times that amount in the UK. If we bought a house of this size with this amount of land in the UK, especially in Essex, it would have cost well more than \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A little while before we moved from the UK, we noticed that the shop shelves were becoming progressively empty. Fruit and veg would go bad a lot quicker than they used to. Food quality deteriorated noticeably. When we arrived in Ireland, we were amazed by the difference. It had fresh, high-quality food, full shelves, and a more abundant feel. <\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just that. Every good thing you\u2019ve heard about Ireland is true and more. Our neighbours are helpful and chatty \u2013 sometimes my husband goes to help them herd cattle.<\/p>\n
The shops don\u2019t try to make money out of you by selling you things you don\u2019t need \u2013 in fact, some shopkeepers might even give you something. I had my shoes repaired the other day and realised I needed some laces \u2013 they refused to charge me extra and threw some in. My husband goes hiking and needed an enamel mug. The owner of a local emporium, Bonanza \u2013 who we\u2019ve become quite friendly with \u2013 gave it to him for free.<\/p>\n
Making friends here is so much easier. In the UK, I had a really hard time making friends. Here, I don\u2019t. People are happy to pop in for tea or go to the pub together, regardless of how long they\u2019ve known you. They follow up on plans and strike up conversations wherever you go. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve encountered none of the anti-immigrant abuse I used to face from some customers as a cab driver in post-EU referendum England \u2013 I find Irish people are warmer and much more welcoming. All of our Irish friends think Brexit is utterly crazy, almost to the extent that it would be hilarious if it wasn\u2019t so sad.<\/p>\n
That said, there are small drawbacks to this lifestyle. Not a single bus runs down this road, whereas before we could jump on a train and be in London in half an hour, which was handy for me because I used to do a lot of comedy and improv.<\/p>\n
I feel like I\u2019m Irish \u2013 and so does my husband. He\u2019s even in the process of changing over to an Irish driving licence and we\u2019ll both be eligible to apply for Irish passports in just over two years. Though we haven\u2019t travelled abroad since we moved \u2013 except to travel to Northern Ireland for shopping, which is easy because of the CTA \u2013 I look forward to travel being easier for my husband, as my German passport already makes it easy to travel within the EU. For now though, we\u2019re happy exploring more of Ireland.<\/p>\n
If we can help it, we\u2019ll never go back to England. I wouldn\u2019t change a thing about our new lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have not encountered any of the anti-immigrant abuse I experienced in the past, and it\u2019s easier to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,12824,2000,299,5187,1699,126,4884,1269,678,388,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-77267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-brits-abroad","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-features","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-house-prices","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-lifestyle","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114456947789805648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}