Coming Home? - Are you
sure?
Read this carefully - It isn't
designed to change your mind about returning home but it is
intended to make you think very carefully about whether it
is the right move for you.
The most important message is that the Ireland of today
is a very different country to the one you left. If you have
not been home for ten or twenty years you will notice a very
big difference. If you have been coming home for holidays
regularly you will be much more aware of the extent of the
changes that have taken place, particularly in the towns and
cities. Of-course some rural places will, on the surface,
appear not to have changed at all but do not be fooled. Gone
are the days where there was a woman in every house and an
old person propped up in a chair beside the range. It is
more likely nowadays that houses are locked up all day while
the husband and wife go out to work and the old person is in
a nursing home. A major drive by government and backed up by
changes to the tax laws saw thousands of women leaving the
home to join the workforce. Family members in Ireland
probably take holidays while you visit but when you move to
Ireland permanently it will be very different. You may be
one of the fortunate people whose family in Ireland are not
all working outside the home but for many the situation
described above will be the situation so you need to be
aware of it. Whatever your family circumstances it is
important to say that holidaying in a country and living in
a country are two different things.
Looking around you
If you have children and grandchildren close to where you
live at present and if you enjoy frequent contact with them
this will change when you move permanently to Ireland. Your
children and grandchildren may be excited about visiting you
in Ireland but you have to be realistic. Once they reach
'that age' the Costa del Sol with their friends will be far
more attractive than rainy old Ireland to visit granny and
granddad. What about neighbours? If you have good neighbours
and have lived beside them for a long time you will miss
them, possibly more than you realise. If you are currently
living in the USA, Canada, Australia or some other far off
place the cost of visiting you in Ireland may be more than
friends and close family living near to you now can afford.
Look around you at the area you live in, the shops you
frequent, the café where you go for your lunch and
the waitress who always gives you a generous helping, the
pub where the bar staff have your drink on the bar almost
before you have sat down because they know you so well. How
do you socialise at the moment and who with? How will you
manage without these places and these people? Do you love
visiting the Irish centre to watch the Irish dancing and
listen to the Irish music? If you want to see the best Irish
dancing maybe you should go to Manchester or Chicago and if
you want to listen to the best Irish music make your way to
Luton or New York. These are just examples. No doubt the
Irish dancing and music is wonderful in all centres of Irish
emigration in the world. The point being made is that both
of these are more enthusiastically indulged in and followed
outside of Ireland than they are in Ireland.
Rural Ireland
With all the changes that have taken place in Ireland
over the last number of years one thing which has not
changed and which can cause great frustration is the level
of public transport in rural areas. Increased wealth means
that more cars are on the road and this means that few
people rely on public transport. Maybe this is why a good
service is a bus to the local town, going one way in the
morning and the other way in the evening. Some areas have a
weekly service and others no service at all. A common
argument heard in rural areas is that giving a travel pass
to older people is all well and good but if there is no bus
or train serving where they live it is of little use to
them. Arguments about why the travel pass should be extended
to cover taxi fares in areas ill served by public transport
are well made but there is little evidence of them being
listened to.
The Cost of Moving
Moving home is always expensive even if you are only
going 'down the road'. Where you are travelling to a
different country the problems and the costs quickly mount
up. If you do not have family or friends who will help you
will be relying on removal firms. Shipping furniture is very
expensive and it might be worth your while at the 'thinking
stage' to make some enquiries from specialist firms who do
this kind of work. If you are moving through the Safe-Home
programme the property you will be coming to will probably
be a great deal smaller than your current home (see the
leaflet 'Housing in Ireland') so you will have to dispose of
much of your furniture.
Can you bear to do this? If your furniture is not
relatively new, worth a lot of money or has sentimental
value you may decide to dispose of it all and buy new
furniture when you arrive in Ireland. Have you considered
the cost? The cost may, in the end, be less than shipping
furniture to Ireland but it is still money you need to
budget for.
For Safe Home
Applicants
Once we have accepted an older emigrant onto our waiting
list we will seek sheltered housing/housing for older people
as close to their home place as possible. Applicants have to
be realistic because as close to their home place as
possible may mean anything up to ten or twenty miles away.
We cannot find housing for them in areas where there is no
housing but we do try to bring people home to as close as
possible to where they come from. At the same time we will
be going through details such as what part/s of their
current income will transfer and what won't, whether they
will receive a medical card or not and what this will mean
to them etc. We will also be asking that they seriously
question their decision to return home. When accommodation
is coming up in an area close to their home place we ask
them if they wish to be considered. Frequently, and
particularly in cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick,
Galway etc, there will be a number of applicants being put
forward for the property that is being offered. If the
property is offered to an applicant who then, at the last
minute, turns it down because they can't bear to leave
family and friends or their lovely home behind it will not
go to another Safe-Home applicant. It will go to someone
locally and, thus, another emigrant who would have jumped at
the opportunity has to remain on the waiting list when they
could have been on their way home if the person turning down
the property had done as asked and thought through their
reasons for wanting to return home.
For Everyone
For those making their own way home and, perhaps building
in Ireland, the decision may not be so stark and they might
choose to hold onto their home abroad for a period to ensure
that coming home was the right decision. But if you are
leaving a rented home particularly if it is Council or
Housing Association property, returning home is a one-way
trip. If you change your mind and return to the country you
left you may well find yourself on the bottom rung of the
housing ladder. If you left Council or Housing Association
property they will not re-house you because you will have
made yourself intentionally homeless by leaving the
accommodation you had when you moved to Ireland. If you sold
your house to move home, particularly in cities like London,
you may not be able to afford to move back there.
All of this is meant to make you think very seriously
about whether you really want to move home or not. In terms
of Safe-Home we find that anyone with children and
grandchildren are a 'high-risk' group unless they have
discussed their plans with close relatives in the country
where they currently live. We find many women who have
lavished care and attention on their home over many years
often find that, in the end, they won't be able to leave it
all behind. Having said that there are a great many
grandparents happily settled back in Ireland while their
sons and daughters and their families remain abroad. There
are also many older women settled happily back in Ireland
who lavished love and attention on their homes for years
abroad. There is no easily distinguishable group of those
who won't come - if there were we wouldn't accept them in
the first place.
All we can advise anybody wanting to return home to do is
to give very careful consideration to this desire. For most
people who think of returning home it is a dream - a lovely
dream but a dream all the same. You need to make sure,
before you go any further, that returning home is not just a
dream for you too.
Make a list of what you will miss; make a list of the
benefits and drawbacks of moving back home and a list of the
benefits and drawbacks of staying where you are; make a list
of all the reasons you have for wanting to return home then
try to demolish each of them. If you come through this
exercise still determined to come back then you are probably
doing the right thing for you and we wish you all the luck
in the world
Additional Information
Click here for Additional
Information on Returning to Ireland
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