[geeks] Working in Ireland and the U.K. (us immigrant with Irish citizenship)

[Christopher Byrne]

Brian,

Thanks for the response.

>Hmm, "may you live in intresting times" indeed.

As far as the interesting time thing goes I'm sure you read my other post on
how I was denied my security clearance. Well I've done some research on the
subject, and it appears that for the past several years there has been a
pattern of discrimination in security clearances against people with strong
ties to irish nationalist groups.

I'm guessing it was an outgrowth of the Clinton administrations unoficial
"pretend the provos dont exist, and deny them any political power" policy.

I mean hey I'm a 26+6=1 man myself, but those fuckers are are just crazy
bastards as far as I'm concerned. Ourselves alone has nothing to do with
killing kids whether they be british bullets (or worse, Irish bullets) or
provo bombs ---- sorry rant over, it just pisses me off.

BTW, I was born and raised in Boston, where I was inundated with Irish and
phony-irish nationalism for most of my life.

>Can't say I'm familiar with typical relocation clauses, but that looks like
a
>competitive salary.

One thing that surprised me is in general how poor senior technical people
were payed over there. In the job postings I have seen, 45k IEP was
considered a great salary, but that's only like 60k USD, which is less than
half of what I make here in the U.S.

>Housing is a problem in Ireland at the moment: We're going through a
economic
>and demographic bump at the moment. Everybody's got money, and Irish people
>like owning houses. Inflation in the property sector has been rife over the
>last few years, though is definitely slowing down (We've had a high
inflation
>rate over the last two years, thanks to the weak Euro, taxation on
cigarettes
>and drink going up lots, rise in housing costs and in general a booming
>economy, I think it was 6% or so last year, but salaries have generally
gone
>up by a lot more in computing). Sometimes renting conditions aren't the
best -
>Some property owners just aren't fair, though this is generally in less
>expensive housing. Renting is becoming more popular over here.

As to that I knew about the housing shortages, and the reasons behind them,
but it is definitely surprising just how much housing prices have gone up
since '98. Acording to the emigrant site Dublin has gone up almost 50%,
which is just as bad as where I live. Of course you can say that it's all to
the good of the economy, which it is, and it's an indication of the strong
growth.

My uncle Thomas moved back a two years ago, and now lives in Castle Connel,
and he loves it. He was able to buy a very nice four bedroom house with a
river running near it on a mid level engineers salary. I couldn't buy that
here for $750k USD

>Right, well I just went to myhome.ie and searched for a nice 2 bedroom apt.
in
>the nicest area of the city. 1200 ($1600?) for a 2 bedroomed apt. with
parking,
>walkable to the city centre (well, say 30 minutes from Trinity College).
>Don't so southside and you can do betterm though the website whose URL is
at
>the bottom of this mail reckons prices are from 900-2000.

Right now the exchange rate is something like 20% in your favor, so a 1200
place there would be roughly equivalent to a $1600 place here yes. For the
apartment you listed with the sae convenient city center access, I would be
paying something like $4000 so the prices are still a lot better than here
for renters, thank god.

>Hah. I don't think you'd be expected to work those hours here. Standard of
>living in those respects are pretty good. Irish people like to goto the pub
>every so often. You can't goto the pub while in work.

That's for sure my friend. I'm a big fan of the pub myself, but around here
there are no wirthwhile local pubs. There's really very little sense of
community among the white residents of the area. The asians and indians have
built very strong communities, however they mostly dont associate with
people outside their own ethnic group.

Oh, and Im a HUGE fan of good beers. I'm an ale man mostly, though a good la
ger, porter, or stout is always a treat. And the guinness here sucks hairy
goat balls (colorful aphorism what) because they load it up with
preservatives and pressurise it with nitrogen. By the time we get it its
half rancid, and the bubbles are all microscopic so you can't taste any of
it.

>Weather is shitty here. :)

I grew up in New England, quite possibly the worst weather in the english
speaking world. Wet 95% of the time, freezing 40% of the time steaming 40%
of the time, and tolerable the rest.

I did check out that emigrant site before I sent off the post, and it's
good, but I really need the personal feel so to speak. I have to get a sense
if this is something real, or if it jsut wouldnt work, and numbers jsut dont
help with that.

I do have one major concern, as you may have seen, I have a cat. What would
be the process to bring her in to the country?

Chris Byrne
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The eyes may be the windows on the soul
But the word is the doorway to the mind
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