The Irish Times ABROAD

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Katie Teegan had just turned 27 when she decided to move from Dublin to London ‘for a couple of years, to see what it’s like’.

‘The more rooted I get in London, the more homesick I feel’

Katie Teehan never intended to stay away from Ireland for so long. It’s getting harder

Can we return to New Zealand if Ireland doesn’t work out?

Ask the Experts: What are our visa options if we want to move back?

Will I have to pay tax on my pension fund when I return to Ireland to retire?

Ask the Experts: Where can I find out about the possible tax implications in moving my investment fund

Returning to Ireland Guide

Planning to return to Ireland? Here's everything you need to know

Unemployment is falling but emigrants need to do thorough research into jobs, housing, childcare and more before moving 'home'

Ask the experts

Can we return to New Zealand if Ireland doesn’t work out?

Ask the Experts: What are our visa options if we want to move back?

Series: Moving home after 16 years in Australia

'We decided not to compromise on whatever it took to make the transition as smooth as possible.' James Parnell moved back to Dublin from Sydney with his wife and three children. The cost of their first year back home was a shock.

It cost €30,000 to move our family home from Australia

Then there’s the €50,000 we’ve burned through in our first year back in Ireland

More stories

‘I’m packing my bags today’: The Irish leaving Brexit Britain

London is ‘haemorrhaging talent’, say recruiters. Are the Irish part of the brain drain?

How can I maintain my health insurance cover on moving back to Ireland?

Private healthcare insurance for returning emigrants

Ask the Experts: Will my family be affected by the Lifetime Community Rating?

‘I left Ireland at 17. I’m returning 25 years later with two kids’

Jennie Ritchie: packing up in Antigua to move back to Ireland

After years of talk, the end of a contract gave Jennie Ritchie the push she needed to leave Antigua

‘My first months back in Dublin were the bleakest of my life’

‘It was November – the start of winter, and my least favourite month.’

It takes time to settle when you move home, just like it does when you leave first

The five best things about living back in Ireland

Elaine Doyle in Co Cork: ‘Living away from Ireland has given me a new appreciation for my country.’

What I once took for granted, I now see with new eyes since moving home from Sydney

Ireland’s Islands: A second-generation islander returns

Jenny, Claire, Maeve and David O’Halloran on Inis Mór

New series: How our offshore islands are fighting depopulation and neglect

America whispers, “Leave,” and I understand

Author Sarah Maria Griffin who returned to Dublin from San Francisco in 2015

We are ready to move on. Our roots wouldn’t latch on, wouldn’t take to the soil

After a year back in Ireland, did we make the right choice?

James Parnell with his three children in Howth: ‘I love Ireland and Australia for being places worth longing for.’

Emigrant’s ache is replaced by returnee’s doubt. I can’t help constantly comparing Dublin to Sydney

‘We left with a backpack and came home with two kids’

Orla Griffin with her son Daniel (3): ‘I had gotten sick of joining the family for Sunday dinner via Facetime.’

Emigrants share their stories of the joys and challenges of returning to live in Ireland

Cost of rent in Ireland a major factor for returning emigrants

Thinking of coming back to live in Ireland? The cost of renting a home might be a surprise. Photograph: Getty Images

How much can you expect to pay to rent around Ireland?

Working in mines in Oz, I saved enough for a home in Ireland

‘The majority of Irish I know here are going home and are looking at properties.’

Electrician Darren Kane saved a 40% deposit for an apartment in Dublin. He returns next year

Erica Kelly and her partner are expecting triplets.

The life-changing words that brought us home to Ireland from London

‘I have big news for you, there are three in there’

'We moved Home to Work but where are all the promised jobs?'

'We moved Home to Work but where are all the promised jobs?'

All you hear about Ireland now when you’re living away is how much work there is - but jobs are not 'flying off the shelves'

Returning emigrants may not qualify for first-time buyer’s relief

Returning emigrants may not qualify for first-time buyer’s relief

Irish abroad: Was there anything for you in Budget 2017?

Number of emigrants returning to live in Ireland jumps 74%

Number of emigrants returning to live in Ireland jumps 74%

Emigration still high with 31,800 Irish leaving in 12 months to April

‘Back in Ireland, I feel a sense of belonging I missed in the US’

‘Back in Ireland, I feel a sense of belonging I missed in the US’

Coming back has given one returned emigrant a new understanding of what ‘home’ means

Big ‘life decisions’ bringing emigrants home, not jobs

Big ‘life decisions’ bringing emigrants home, not jobs

Opinion: Economy is improving but Irish abroad are still concerned about prospects

‘I’ve never felt settled in Australia. It is time to move back’

‘I’ve never felt settled in Australia. It is time to move back’

Readers respond to CSO figures showing drop in emigration and rise in returns

What are returning Irish emigrants most worried about?

What are returning Irish emigrants most worried about?

Survey of GAA clubs abroad finds job prospects and living costs are biggest concerns

Can I answer honestly about whether I’m glad to be back in Ireland?

Can I answer honestly about whether I’m glad to be back in Ireland?

Coming home from Australia was hard. I wonder if I harbour a little resentment because we had to leave Dublin in the first place?

Finding my place after moving back to Ireland as a teenager

Finding my place after moving back to Ireland as a teenager

Irish dependence on alcohol becomes more apparent the longer I’m back in Ireland

Are Ireland’s high tax rates a deterrent to living here?

Are Ireland’s high tax rates a deterrent to living here?

We asked high-earning Irish emigrants what they thought. Here’s what they had to say

Emigrants won’t return to Ireland if they feel they don’t belong

Emigrants won’t return to Ireland if they feel they don’t belong

There are too many obstacles in the way of people who want to move home from abroad

The farther I get from Ireland the more I want to return

The farther I get from Ireland the more I want to return

We have a privileged life in Singapore, but I long for packing the car at home on a Friday evening and heading to the country for the weekend

My heart is torn between Ireland and Canada

My heart is torn between Ireland and Canada

I’ve made a new life with my husband and daughter abroad, but I still yearn for home

Moving back to Ireland has not felt like coming home

Moving back to Ireland has not felt like coming home

Relationships with friends and family change when we emigrate. So too should our understanding of ‘home’

Returning to Ireland Q&As: What's life like back 'home'?

‘You can’t expect to move back to Ireland and everything to be the same’

‘You can’t expect to move back to Ireland and everything to be the same’

Returning to Ireland Q&A: Arts administrator Ruth Mulholland is struggling to find work after moving back from the UK

‘We wanted to be back in Ireland for all the big events, good and bad’

‘We wanted to be back in Ireland for all the big events, good and bad’

Returning to Ireland Q&A: Karen O’Reilly and her family have no regrets about moving home to Clonakilty from France

Encouraging emigrants to return to live in Ireland was one of the core strands of the Government’s Diaspora Policy, published earlier this year. Do you feel enough is being done to facilitate their return? What do you think could be done to better prepare people?

Have your say: What are the barriers to returning to Ireland?

If you’ve returned to live here, what were the challenges? If you’d like to move back, what’s stopping you?

Alan Hilliard: ‘The one who returns has changed many levels. The experience of living in a new place radically alters their view on things. What they believe, how they perceive, think, feel, and act can be very different.’ Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons / The Irish Times

Returning to Ireland? Don’t expect things to be as they were

While emigrating is difficult, moving back home can be surprisingly harder. Feeling like a stranger in a place you once felt totally at home can be very unsettling and shocking

Returning to Ireland: More first-person stories

I think it’s time to follow my friends home to Ireland

I had planned to settle permanently in Sydney. But then my Irish friends started moving home

Expat life in Singapore was great but it’s even better being home

‘Moving home to Ireland felt like going back to basics. We had to set everything up from scratch again.’

After 12 years in Asia we wanted a slower pace of life, so we moved home with our young kids

‘You can’t expect to move back to Ireland and everything to be the same’

Returning to Ireland Q&A: Arts administrator Ruth Mulholland is struggling to find work after moving back from the UK

Dear New Dáil: What you can do to bring emigrants like me home

Vanessa Monaghan from Co Meath now works for a media company in Westminster in London.

We have become used to certain rights and a quality of life abroad that Ireland needs to strive for

I’m homesick for friends who have all moved back to Ireland

Mary Johnson: ‘If you’re lucky enough to find close friendship away from home, you genuinely don’t know how long it’s going to last.’

FRIENDSHIP WEEK: As my husband and I sign contracts for our new house abroad, our friends are signing contracts for new jobs at home

When I got sick abroad, the Aussie Irish became my family

Crona Brady: I experienced just how close knit the expat community really is. Everyone looks out for everyone

I had a great network of new friends in Sydney, but nothing can replace the support of home when you’re ill

The farther I get from Ireland the more I want to return

Jessica Duff: I want my children to have the same connection to a place that I have, to be permanent grandchildren and cousins, not just summer blow-ins

We have a privileged life in Singapore, but I long for packing the car at home on a Friday evening and heading to the country for the weekend

I’m not just back for Christmas, I’m home for good

Sarah Kenny with her boyfriend Ruairí: ‘The decision to move home was not taken lightly and came with a mixed bag of emotions: excitement and sadness, nervousness, uncertainty, even self-doubt.’

After building up a great life in the Netherlands, the decision to leave and return to Ireland was tough

Why nowhere compares to west Cork

For Christmas, Kilbronogue will be grand. Perfect to welcome friends and family with goose and spiced beef and the wine and various duck-based products I’m bringing back from France. I can’t wait. Photograph: Michael Mac Sweeney

Returning to Ireland after 25 years in France inspired a life-changing cookbook

Moving back to Ireland hasn’t been as easy as I thought

Those #HomeToWork ads should include a warning about what it’s really like to move home

I’ve left my husband behind in Boston to ‘emigrate home’ from the US

Gráinne McEvoy: we’ll muddle through the next year like the best transnational couples

It was a wrench to leave my American life. At least my smallest nieces and nephews, unlike their older siblings, won’t think that I ‘live in the computer’

Ireland’s religious schools are putting us off coming home

Quality-of-life issue: Kevin O’Donnell, who lives in Seattle, with his wife and their daughters

We want to give our kids an Irish childhood surrounded by the people and places that matter most to us. But at what cost?

We’re home from the US ten years but still don’t feel settled

‘We can’t go on like this. It is difficult to explain the isolation we feel.’ Photograph: Bryan O’Brien /The Irish Times

All the Lonely People: It is difficult to explain the isolation we feel living in rural Ireland. Should we move back to the US?

I’m home a year but the New Yorker in me keeps kicking me on

‘I became a New Yorker in some ways and thrived on the energy, the buzz, the pace and the constant drive to do more, achieve more and better myself.’

Working as an attorney in Manhattan was a buzz but Ireland would always draw me back

I’m leaving Ireland again in search of a new sense of home

‘I will feel the same excitement as always upon landing in Dublin Airport on future visits, but if it weren’t for the people I care about that still live here, I probably wouldn’t visit Ireland at all. It was my old home.’

The initial euphoria of returning evaporated rapidly. It was demoralising to count the number of friends who had emigrated

Leaving California to work the land in Kildare

Maura McElhone working on the farm: “It’s a world away from my life in California, where flip- flops and T-shirts were the order of the day”

I moved home to rediscover Ireland. But I discovered a whole new world: farming

Single, jobless and 30, I returned to Ireland after a decade in the US

‘I’m enjoying feeling part of this place and it of me. And I am grateful for the opportunity Ireland has given me to start over.’

‘I feel a sense of peace that I struggled to find during my time in California’

'It's difficult to emigrate, but moving home is harder'

'The decision to move back was not an impulsive one. It took years to germinate, and by now, although I’m scared, I have faith I am doing the right thing.'

I never intended to stay away from Ireland for so long. I don’t think most emigrants do when they first take flight.

Coming home to a different country after 30 years abroad

Clare Waldron: 'There is no other place in the world where I laugh like I laugh here.'

Returning to Ireland after 30 years abroad has been a complicated experience for Clare Waldron

Returning from California after 26 years: My Irish friends say ‘Don’t do it’

Mark Czerwin: ‘I’ve had a good run of it here in the OC, but as I’ve grown older my priorities have changed; I’m less materialistic and more enthusiastic about living in a culture where people know and care about each other.’

Life in Orange County is filled with sun and sea, but my priorities have changed as I’ve got older

‘I moved back to Ireland to see if I could live there as an adult. I lasted 18 months.’

Noelle McCarthy: ‘I didn’t want to be an immigrant with an accent, I just wanted to sound like every other Kiwi... I thought I had to stop being Irish if I wanted to make it in Auckland.’

‘Ireland and Me’: Noelle McCarthy, Auckland

Returning to Ireland has been a whirlwind of emotion

Ceire Sadlier: ‘For a place where departing and returning emigrants flux daily in their thousands, Ireland makes it surprisingly difficult to slot out of the bureaucracy of life.’

After three Ikea trips and a multitude of forms, I’m settling back into life in Dublin

Ask the Experts Have a question about emigrating, life abroad or moving home?

Keep in touch Got a story or experience to share about living or moving abroad? Let us know

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