Introduction from this American in Dublin!
Hi All - I hope I am doing this right. I wanted to introduce myself. Dominick here. I'm an American expat living in Dublin with my husband Jason, our two kids, and a dog who has fully committed to Irish life. I am happy to answer any questions about our relocation experience. What started as a dinner-table conversation with my lawyer husband about what the fall of democracy actually looks like about eight years ago, finally became a one-way flight. We were running to something and not from. This helped our outlook immensely. I'm happy to chat with anyone about this huge decision.
Us being two gay dads with mixed-race kids, definitely was part of the calculus when we decided to go. Not the only part, but a real one. I am a writer (among other things), and what I've come to believe after sitting with this move and writing about it is that most people who leave aren't just changing their address. They're answering a quieter question about what kind of life they are living and hope to live, and what kind of place, or freedom, will allow them to flourish. Most people don't think about what kind of freedom their country offers. Americans broadly want the freedom to build, earn, and become. What a lot of Americans discover (I think) when we land somewhere else is that what we were always reaching for was freedom from: from the particular dread of being one bad month away from something catastrophic, the terror of healthcare, of getting older without sufficient resources, from a political climate that started feeling less like a backdrop and more like a threat. That distinction took me a while to put into words but once I did, the move made complete sense.
Life here is full in a way I didn't expect. Weekend trips around Ireland, two kids who are equally at home at a GAA match and a theatre production, a city that actually functions for people. I write on the side, mostly about identity and belonging and what it means to build a life that fits. I also run a relocation company, so full disclosure, when practical questions come up in this community I'll usually have something useful to say. Oh, and I love to talk and can droll on and on and on.... Happy to answer questions about Ireland or the process of relocating here.
Glad to be here. Thanks, moderators.
EDIT AND RESPONSE:
I want to address something directly, then get back to actually helping people in this thread.
I'm a real person. I live in Dublin with my husband Jason, our two kids, and our dog. We came on a Critical Skills Work Permit, set up a business here, navigated the Irish school system, found a GP, and found a rental that allowed our dog. None of those things were impossible. All required preparation, which included good advice. That's the point.
One person in this thread has had a hard experience in Ireland and is projecting that onto everyone else's possibilities. That's understandable. It's also not a useful data point for Americans seeking an exit. Perspective with regard to how one encounters the world has perhaps a greater impact on experience and outcomes as anything else. Life is hard sometimes; nothing worth having is easy. We all know that.
I run GlobalWealth360. My co-founder and husband Jason is a trusts and estates attorney. Our work exists specifically for the parts of relocation that nobody talks about until it's too late: cross-border tax exposure, estate planning across jurisdictions, what your financial picture actually looks like after you leave. That's the practice we built because we needed it ourselves and couldn't find it anywhere else.
People who approach this move with proper preparation tend to land well. People who don't, sometimes don't. That's true of any major life change, not just this one.
If you have real questions about moving to Ireland, visa options, financial planning, or what the process actually looks like from start to finish, please ask. I will check in and chime in on discussions with helpful, "free" advice, url's and info when I can. Hopefully I can avoid trolls.