When Julie Sebode first moved to Ireland she had no problems making friends. But this came as no surprise after spending a decade living in many parts of the world, including Australia and Germany.
Half-French, half-German, Sebode grew up mostly in Germany, but spent some time in France as a teenager too, before moving to Greece after she finished her studies.
“I stayed in Greece for the tourist season. Then I thought, in winter, I can travel a little bit, so I went to the US and I went to Australia. I loved Australia so much, so I wanted to go back to the west coast for the first year and the east coast for the second year,” she says.
Sebode worked in Australia as a diving instructor for a short period, before getting a sponsorship to remain in the country, which she was “very excited” about.
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“But then one day my boss came up to me and said some of the paperwork was missing and I had just 48 hours to leave the country. The only flight I could get was to Japan. It was very expensive at the short notice, and because this was 20 years ago,” she says.
After a stressful couple of days, Sebode landed in Bangkok, Thailand, and from there she headed for Phuket, a mountainous Thai island in the Andaman Sea, where she had been advised she could get “plenty of work” as a diving instructor.
“I was supposed to stay for a few months but I ended up there for about seven years,” she says.
Sebode lived in Thailand when it was hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which killed nearly 5,400 people.
At the time, she was giving diving lessons to two children in a pool.
“When it happened, there were boats all over the harbour and everything was ruined. I asked the kids what their parents were doing that day when they dropped them off for lessons and they told me they had wanted to go to the beach,” she recalls.
“I kept them there, not telling them anything. We sent some staff to find the parents and, thankfully, six hours later they were found and we sent the children back.”
I wanted to distribute the money myself because of the corruption in Thailand and the fear that the donations wouldn’t reach the small people
The next day, Sebode offered herself as a volunteer to the German embassy, “working at the harbour, pulling bodies out of the water for identification” and helping with paperwork and reuniting families.
“A lot of friends got in touch at that time, offering help and began sending me money. Over the next two weeks I received about €20,000, which in Thailand goes a long, long way,” she says.
“But I wanted to distribute it myself because of the corruption there and the fear that the donations wouldn’t reach the small people. Pretty much every day for about nine months I went around speaking to locals and distributing the money to help repair houses, boats and help school kids who lost their uniforms and books in the floods.”
The work was “awful” but “very rewarding”.
However, it was the “level of corruption” in Thailand that ultimately led to Sebode’s decision to leave the country.
“You have to pay everybody, all the time. It’s just how it is. I just felt miserable with all the hassle of renewing papers and all that after a while, and I thought, it’s time to move on,” she says.
I like it here, we’re close to the city centre but also to the coast and the countryside. So we have the best of everything really
During her time in Thailand, Sebode met her now husband, an Irish man from Dublin, and that led to the life she’s had in Ireland for more than a decade now.
“My husband used to live in Australia, Indonesia and then Thailand. We had both lived all over the world and we had decided we’d go back to Europe,” Sebode says.
The couple first visited Ireland for six days in 2008 – three in Dublin, three in Galway – to “check it out”, before moving to Dublin in 2009.
Arriving in Ireland during a recession, many friends questioned Sebode’s decision, informing her of the lack of work opportunities and that “everyone was leaving the country, not moving there”.
“But in a way we were actually lucky because it meant the housing market looked very different then. There were lots of apartments and houses available and it wasn’t expensive,” she says.
The couple rented an apartment for three years in Dublin city centre before buying a home in Leopardstown in south Dublin in 2012.
“I like it here, we’re close to the city centre but also to the coast and the countryside. So we have the best of everything really. I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else now and my children were born here. My daughter is 10 and my son is seven.″
I’ve heard people say Irish people can be closed off and they remain in their old friend groups from primary school and secondary school, but I haven’t found that
When she first moved to Ireland she found it “very nice and very easy because people are so willing to help you”.
“It was very refreshing coming from Thailand. Irish people are really helpful and they actually go out of their way to help you. I’ve worked all over the world and I haven’t come across people who are as nice,” she says.
“Everybody always tries to work together. Sometimes I think the Irish are not really aware of how lucky they are, because I’ve found that that’s something very unique to Ireland.”
Sebode also found it easy to make friends, something that came naturally to her after years of moving locations and creating new networks.
“I’m very open to meeting new people. In the first couple of years here I went to a lot of networking events and I went back to college. I’m still in touch with people from that time. I also do a lot of volunteering to make friends,” she says.
“I’ve heard people say Irish people can be closed off and they remain in their old friend groups from primary school and secondary school, but I haven’t found that.”
Sebode believes she will “probably remain here for a long time now” because of her children.
“It’s different to when you’re on your own and you don’t have that responsibility. It’s not fair on children when they’re settled in a school and an area to keep moving them. But we do travel with them quite a bit and we go sailing with them.”
She also works in a job she loves, as a manager at Davis Events Agency. Sebode’s work involves organising large outdoor events, such as Dublin’s New Year’s Eve concerts.
Her upcoming project is one of her favourites, though – Cork City Marathon.
“We’ve got over 12,000 people running and the city centre is booked out for the weekend. It’s my favourite event to work on because it’s just phenomenal, the scale, the atmosphere, and it includes everybody; people run at different distances and levels, and it’s so family friendly,” she says.
“It’s a lot of set-up, obviously, but it’s really fun and I also love it because I used to run myself back in Thailand. At sunrise, I’d run up Buddha hill in the rainforest, along a dirt track when the whole rainforest was waking up – snakes, birds, monkeys, everything. It was a lovely time and the Cork City Marathon reminds me of that.”
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish
