IRELAND OR THE USA

[Puckoon]

I often wonder what will be the biggest pitfalls awaiting us on our return? Will it be the climate, the long winter evenings, the cost of living or will we just ease back into it as if we had never left. My sister moved back from the states about 8 years ago and did not last 6 months in Ireland, she could not settle.In my opinion she did not give it enough time, you would have to give it at least 2 years just to come near settling back into the Irish lifestyle. It will be an adventure and something to look forward to.

I think the weather and the long winter would be tough - but theres so much change at home. Theres yoga and pilates classes for the wife ( ) spinning, floodlight gaelic grounds, astroturf for regular games with friends. Evening soccer leagues. I think I needed to go away to realise how good home actually was. That said, Im more than content here but every time I visit home I realise I could be more than happy with a life at home, golfing with the old man on a saturday morning, couple of pints that evening and praying to god Id win the lotto! That said I cant decide if Ireland or here is the best place to raise a child, arguements for and against I suppose. The weather would seriously impact the decision. If god could provide some sunlight and they ressurected Glenroe and last of the summer wine - Id be home in a heartbeat.
Time for another drop of the dew... 

[tyssam5]

Puckoon - the PDF edition of the Irish News has been free since the start of the summer, so you can give Paddy Heaney all the abuse you like.

I'm in NW USA for 6 years, don't think I'd be ready to head home yet. Also cost of living/property would be a massive issue for me.

Big thing I think is whether you want to assimilate into American society or mainly hang out with Irish people. I don't have the last choice as they are few and far between were I am, but I know plenty of lads in NYC who'd mainly be with Irish lads all the time for work and socialising, if you don't integrate I think you'd have a harder time settling for good.

[john mcgill]

Mannix I lived in the US for seven years after I left college and to be honest my time there was an extension of student life and I felt that I never made anything of myself or challenged myself.  I now have a reasonably secure job and the mortgage is nearly paid off.  I visit the US two or three times a year mainly as I'm a lazy vacationer and like the value and climate.  Also I can't remember the last time I bought a shirt or tie in Ireland.  The US is such good value.

My brothers and sisters all lived for nearly 20 years in NYC and came back.  One would go back tomorrow because of our grey weather.  All were unsettled for a while, couple of years, but then the roots sank in again and they enjoy the qulaity of life in Ireland while sometimes missing the standard of living in the US.

Personally I'm going through a mid life crisis (in my 50s but was a late developer) and am thinking of a year in NYC and am trying to tie down a posting wiyh the UN.

My advice to you would be to weigh up the pros and cons, talk to those you love and trust, make the decision and stick to it for at least four years.

Good luck

[heganboy]

Big thing I think is whether you want to assimilate into American society or mainly hang out with Irish people

I think thats the big part of the ability to enjoy the place. I do think that many people who come over and just hang around with Irish lads will always feel a pull home, effectively they are living an Irish life somewhere else. Being in New York it is always easy to socialise in Irish only company, and it took a while to get out of that way of going and open up the horizons a bit. Its made this a lot more enjoyable experience.

[full back]

How easy is it to get a green card nowadays, if you are in Ireland?

[heganboy]

Not easy.
There's a green card lottery, about 40,000 applicants for 400 odd green cards.
There is work sponsored visas where a company in the US can sponsor you for a job that they can't get a qualified American to fill. Thats a very long process.
And there is the old favourite, marry one of them...

[Star Spangler]

about 40,000 applicants for 400 odd green cards

Does the US only make 400 green cards available at a time in total or is that only for Irish applicants?  If so, is there 40,000 Irish people applying for green cards??  If so that's a surprising figure.

[parttimeexile]

There is a fella where I work just got word that he had got a green card. He had forgotten all about it because it was over two years ago he applied for it.He is the first person in a long time that I know that has gotten a green card. He said that there was 160 green cards for the south in whichever lottery it was he applied through.40 for the north.

[Puckoon]

Not easy.
There's a green card lottery, about 40,000 applicants for 400 odd green cards.
There is work sponsored visas where a company in the US can sponsor you for a job that they can't get a qualified American to fill. Thats a very long process.
And there is the old favourite, marry one of them...

[magickingdom]

I have to decide very soon where I will end up living for life.Part of me says Ireland but the more I visit it the more I wonder.The USA is the same but I always found it easy to do things like skiing,motorbiking and other stuff I like doing.Now america has drawbacks too like loud mouth knowallls everywhere, poor education for kids,sports that really are not sports but tv commercial laced rubbish,nfl?I have been trying hard to not be annoyed by any of it but it really gets to me sometimes.Ireland is great in other ways, good education for the kids at little cost in comparison to a bad one in america,real sports to watch and play,fishing,my family are there, though some in america.I always like going to the pub on saturday night to meet the neighbours and wonder when i see them happy with a 5 year old car and the highlight of the week being a trip to see mayo playing in the league or something like it if they are wealthier than I am in senses other than monetary, I am comfortable but no billionaire.Then i think it would be good to be in ireland as my parents will not live forever but if they were gone next year would i hate ireland? Its a big problem best summed up by a man in his seventies that said to me that travel broadens the mind but takes the magic out of the best things.Any ideas?
If this note comes across as pompous it is not intentional.

if you really feel that way why is the decision so hard? having said that i know alot of irish people who have lived in the states for years come back here and not settle in. its different for everyone but it certainly helps if you like the place your going to live in because money will only go sa far in the happiness stakes. personally i love the american sports culture yet i live here! good luck with your decision but if your close to your family stay that way..

[Gabriel_Hurl]

I think thats the big part of the ability to enjoy the place. I do think that many people who come over and just hang around with Irish lads will always feel a pull home, effectively they are living an Irish life somewhere else. Being in New York it is always easy to socialise in Irish only company, and it took a while to get out of that way of going and open up the horizons a bit. Its made this a lot more enjoyable experience.

that's a very good point brought up by hegan.

I've tried to expand my friend base by heading out with Canadians and not always heading to the same old Irish pubs with the same friends - if I wanted to have done that I'd have stayed at home

[The Iceman]

heganboy is on the button - think about all the stories you've heard from friends who went to america and australia - i can name countless lads who went to either countries and only hung around with people from either their home town/county or irish in general.  My opinion when you're traveling is to mix with the locals - see the country, experience the country - see the real thing rather than a green tinted version.

My experience here in the states is there are a bunch of irish lads who all hang out together, work construction, drink every night and get in an awful state at the weekends and do nothing but fuel the american notion that every irish man is a drunk a fighter and works in construction.

I try to keep away from those lads - its great to meet someone from home, i enjoy my beers with the best of them but i grew up a long time ago and life isnt about spending your wages in the pub anymore or seeing who the hardest man in your group of mates is.

I think you should come to america - ireland is home and always will be - but it isn't going anywhere - your chance of a better life in america is slipping away from your grasp - take it now - if it doesnt work out - go home.
If it does - you can holiday in ireland and maybe it will still stay as grand as you remembered it to be.

[Puckoon]

I think thats the big part of the ability to enjoy the place. I do think that many people who come over and just hang around with Irish lads will always feel a pull home, effectively they are living an Irish life somewhere else. Being in New York it is always easy to socialise in Irish only company, and it took a while to get out of that way of going and open up the horizons a bit. Its made this a lot more enjoyable experience.

that's a very good point brought up by hegan.

I've tried to expand my friend base by heading out with Canadians and not always heading to the same old Irish pubs with the same friends - if I wanted to have done that I'd have stayed at home

Each year a fresh influx of irish students come over here (around 8-14 per year). We have a number of long term irish here and due to marrying outside of that - Im one of the few who has expanded my friendship base. The irish kids dont understand why Id ever consider going out to a different place with different people. I think if you remain in an irish clique that you will never fully experience the life that is on offer, and therefore never really settle and make a life for yourself.

[IolarCoisCuain]

Do you fellas ever wonder if Ireland is best lived in the imagination rather than in actuality?

I knew a guy once who went to the States in the fifties, a great time to be there. He married over there, raised a family, got a job, did night courses, became a very successful man, much more successful than he ever would have been here. But all the time he wanted to come home, because there's no place like Ireland. Finally, after forty years in the States, he retired, and he and the wife bought a cottage in a village back home.

He was back in the States the following year to see his kids and they asked him how he liked it back home. He said he hated it - you couldn't see the ball game, you couldn't get a proper hamburger, you couldn't get those Italian beef sandwiches...

You need to be careful of what you wish for.

For my own case, I had to make the decision over the summer whether to buy a house in Dublin or head to the States and, I suppose, follow my dream. I took the sensible option of buying the house. But you know, I'm sitting here now, and Dublin isn't home. There's a world of difference between Dublin and Mayo, where I'm from, but I can't go home to Mayo because there's no work there. Never was, of course.

The reasons for settling in Dublin are that it's still Ireland and I'm still in Ireland and my friends are here, but nearly all of those are from the country originally and ninety per cent of them would bolt from the city in the morning once the kids are born, job or no job. As for still being at home, and what you understand about home, take a stroll out to the Square in Tallaght sometime and, after a while, ask yourself, how exactly you know that you're in Ireland and not some shopping centre in Bradford or Leeds or Birmingham. It's not at all obvious.

I read two autobiographies recently, by Liam Ó Briain and Séamus Ó Maoileoin, about being out in 1916 and the kind of Ireland they were fighting for and all this. The idealism of it was painful to read at this remove.

Ó Briain was with a garrison that held the old UCD building on Earlsfort Terrace. The troops were looking for stuff to make barricades, and they found some big, thick books. They asked Ó Briain if they could use them for the barricade, and Ó Briain said they shouldn't, really, because if the Rising was about anything it was about those books.

The books were the Annals of the Four Masters. And if Liam Ó Briain were to come back now, he must ask himself why he bothered.

Maybe I'm just in bad form tonight, I don't know. But the more I see of Ireland now, with the Star setting the news agenda, and the sleeveenism and shoneenism of Irish life, the more I think maybe I'll take a hit on selling the house again and hitting for the States. I don't recognise this country anymore.

God look down on you in your decision Mannix. I hope it works out for you.

[mannix]

IOR,
You certainly are in funny form.
Dublin certainly is not like Mayo, its as much an english city as anywhere in england.Even the locals say "yeah" after they say something.I was in dublin myself for 2 spells,early nineties and late nineties.No love of the place but if you can bed in with a few people in a community it could be fine.
Thats where the problem starts, we want it to be like it was in the place we grew up and it never can, reminiscing too much is a bad thing.Once when I was skiing in north east usa at christmas I was crippled with homesickness and on the christmas eve despite skiing in the great snow I would much prefer to be having a pint or 2 with old friends at home,it was raw and I had  a poor christmas,delighted to see the back of it and went back to work on the 27th to avoid any more of the "holidays" as they call it.Maybe some life changing thing will occur and shake me to my senses, a fella of my age (late 30s) should not be in such a state, although i  know one thing for certain, usa will never be considered home by me.
Does anyone else on this board live in a place today that they will be in for the next 25 years and they can not say they are home?
I will burn the bit of brain out with all the thinking and wondering about how it will all end up.