Welcome to the December issue of The Irish Times Abroad newsletter. As it’s that time of year, we’re having a look back at the stories that caught your attention over the last 12 months.
The most read piece in Abroad this year was this piece by Jade Wilson about an Irish woman’s move home from Singapore. Louise O’Leary worked and lived there for five years before meeting her Singaporean husband. “My partner wasn’t ready to leave after a year or two together because he was still building up his work and experience. So I stayed about two or three years longer than planned.” However when they moved home, the bureaucratic challenges she encountered on her return to her home country were “really unexpected”.
In February, Cathal Mongey wrote about life in Perth, Australia, something he recommends that any young Irish person should try. He says while housing is an issue there as well it “definitely is a little easier finding somewhere to live... To put it into perspective, my partner and I are renting our own apartment for the same price we were paying to share a house with five others in Dublin – and we’re 10 minutes from the beach.”
Evan Cannon wrote about his time in college at Purdue University and Notre Dame in Indiana and the immense pride students in the US have in the universities, “a concept that’s almost non-existent in Ireland. The main reason for this pride? College sports.”
Flight attendant Paula Gahan wrote about the top five most annoying things passengers do. “I was just on a flight back from San Francisco and I bought a bag of Haribo for a sugar hit to get me through the 10-hour flight. I leave the bag on the counter and turn around to see some cheeky woman helping herself.
“Look, we do have to eat as well, you know? Cabin crew don’t subsist on aircraft dust and toilet water.”
In March, Anna Waters wrote about leaving Dublin to live in Palermo for a “kind of life available here that has been squeezed out of my hometown”. “Though Ireland and Sicily are distant from one another relative to our compact continent, I am more often than not struck by the similarities in the mindsets of the people – psyches shaped by conquest, isolation and the sea”.
Meanwhile, this month, we heard from Corkonian Chris Kidney, who moved to Melbourne, Australia in 2012 with his partner Niharika. A carpenter by trade, the couple applied under the skilled migrant visa scheme. “Carpentry is a good trade to facilitate international travel, and my partner is an occupational therapist, which is a recognised skill too, so we were well placed,” he said. People who work in the trade can expect to make between $120,000-$150,000 Australian dollars a year if employed full-time, he says. That is the equivalent of €74,000-€92,500 annually. Chris started working for himself as a bespoke carpenter but despite the high level of work, he says Australia is not a cheap place to live. He still says he is a “proud Cork man”, however, he doesn’t see himself returning to the city anytime soon. “Ireland is a very special place, but for now, Australia is home.”
Regular abroad writer Laura Kennedy talks about the impact felt by the Irish election in Canberra. She says like many other Irish emigrants she is more invested in Ireland’s future rather than the country that she now calls home. “I would love for Ireland to be somewhere that had space, employment, homes, educational opportunity and healthcare for the people who live there,” she writes. Calling out her wishlist for Ireland saying she would like a direct connection from Dublin Airport to the city as well as fairer public representation for all members of society.
Dubliner Declan Peppard spent years working for British Airways and in 1991 he was posted to Zimbabwe. However, in 1997, Peppard changed scenery. “I left Uganda for the role of commercial director for Brazil, with a remit to dramatically improve our sales performance: over the course of two years, we grew sales from $34 million to $64 million,” he said. It was not the last that Peppard would see of Uganda though, as by 2000 he was back in the country running a travel agency before setting up his own company, Travelcare Uganda, five years later. Despite challenges through Covid-19, Peppard said that working abroad has given him opportunities that he might not have had in Ireland.
This is the final abroad newsletter this year and as 2024 draws to a close, we would like to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
