Why don't more Brits move to Ireland?

Same here Mart, Mrs Fox says she would move to Spain at the drop of a hat, but to me there’s no place like home and I doubt Mrs Fox would actually do it…

I can quire understand that, Mr Foxy and we I have brilliant neighbours here. We moved here about four years ago mainly to be closer to family and it has been a joy. Ireland? I have been there on business quite a few times - get in there, job done, and back home. My wife and I spent a few nights in Dublin. Lovely but the most memorable thing for me was the prices when we had dinner. But then I’m a stingily old Scotsman…

I think you can cite this as a personal Brexit benefit. Even if your wife might have considered a retirement in Ireland before, now it is considerably harder. The conditions for a non-EU person retiring to Ireland are fairly onerous. You need to be able to buy your own property - and after that show you have 50k+ euros a year income (for retirees that would be a mix of pensions and investment earnings). And this needs to be certified by an Irish accountant. Plus a wedge of other documentation. I’m not suggesting you & your wife lack the financial resources - just that it is no longer a matter of booking a removals lorry.

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We love London.

We emigrated to Portugal in 2001, wow adventure, lasted 4 years.

London, I know most folk wouldn’t be interested, but we love it. Neither of us were born here but we’ve spent our best days here. And will spend the rest of our days here.

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I do like Yorkshire and have spent quite a lot of time there. Still got our friends who live near Doncaster that we used to stay with. Not in recent years because the driving got a bit too much. Mrs mart still talks every Sunday to her opposite number over Skype though. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I don’t think I would be financially eligible to move to Ireland strath, but it wouldn’t be our choice of residency anyway. Not that I wouldn’t like to visit the Emerald Isle.
Despite banging on about Yorkshire on an earlier post, it is being diluted into Bangladesh, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and a few other obscure countries of the middle east, but it hasn’t reached my little backwater yet, and probably won’t during the blunt end of my existence… However, there would be one place that Mrs Fox and me would probably move to in an instant if we had the financial clout required, and that would be Guernsey…
Until covid drifted into our lives we had holidayed there every year since 2012, sometimes twice a year. We seemed to be far away from the hustle and bustle of the world and caught up in our own little Brigadoon…
:sunglasses:

You need at least 4 million to retire in Guernsey .
They have a two tier housing system .
Houses for people who are not from Guernsey are exorbitant .

Yes, so I believe Muddy, perhaps it wouldn’t be the place that it is, if all and sundry and plebs like me could go and live there. A very nice place to live all the same though…
:sunglasses:

Scotland for me:

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Were you on your knees there Besoeker? and did you roll up your trousers so you didn’t get your trousers dirty?
Great photo though…
:+1:

My uncle was to look at me as if I was a dwarf…

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It is nice but the roads are only about 5 ft wide so it takes ages to get anywhere ,
Priority is given to pedestrians , horses , cyclists and cars in that order .

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The roads are very narrow and busy, a bit of a nightmare to be honest, but I never drive while I’m there and it makes a nice break from normal. We can just about walk everywhere on the island, but the buses are very good and the hotel where we stay provide us with free bus tickets. The relaxed pace of life there is it’s attraction and being retired and on holiday means no pressure, but It probably wouldn’t be as good it I had to work or live there.
Covid prevented us from going back, and now, as well as our passports expiring and travel insurance so expensive, the hotel we stayed at has closed, so it looks like we won’t be returning any time soon.

i do agree with the roads here being narrow this is me driving my truck on one of the narrow roads


thats the same road i was eventually driving down

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You don’t need a passport to go to Guernsey Foxy its in the U.K.

Technically the channel isles are crown dependencies and not actually part of the UK. Guernsey and Jersey are two separate bailiwicks, governed by bailiffs - who both head of state and head of judiciary. This alone is a cause for concern - it is better that government and the legal system are separate. Further, they are not in the NHS and their health system is essentially private so you need expensive health insurance. Their telecomms is run by local companies which charge significantly more for their services. They attract wealthy retired people, like the Isle of Man does. And wealthy yachting people (significant overlap me guesses).
I’d sooner poke my eye out with a blunt stick than live there.

We had many holidays in Jersey. An hotel in St.Ouen’s Bay. Something that happened over the years was the tourist entertainment venues closing down one by one. In the end, there wasn’t much to do in the evenings and there wasn’t a sight we hadn’t seen over and over, so we stopped going. We sometimes wondered if they were putting off holiday-makers on purpose.

I also went to Jersey as a teenager with 3 other friends. We pitched a tent the other side of the road to the beach at St. Ouen’s Bay and spent a week there. No question that it wasn’t allowed. Bet you couldn’t do that these days.
:slightly_smiling_face:

I stay at St Brelades Bay Jersey no passport and no travel restrictions for my dog.

St Ouens has always been very quiet.

The hotel at St. Ouen’s offers holidays for disabled people. A great place in itself. Their own adapted mini-buses get everyone to all parts of the island. Even so, Jersey just seemed to lose its attraction in the end.

I think you might find that Ireland has its fair share of Romas ect, in Dublin there was almost a war between the taxi drivers, as the immigrants targeted that as the easiest earner, just as they have almost taken over most taxis in England…
i ‘retire’ to Goa every year as soon as the nights draw in, then come back pre-monsoon
the Indian visa only allows you 180 days per calendar year, but if you were that way inclined you could visit SriLanka for the other six months… its nice to have sun on your/my old bones…