‘The weather here is an advantage’

I’m a HR manager at Groupon. I’m from Chicago, Illinois, and came to Ireland in September 2014, with my wife, who works in special needs education. We had no preconceptions about the country at all, and had only expressed an interest in taking up a role within the company somewhere in Europe.

We’ve been really pleasantly surprised.

We’re living in a one-bedroom apartment in Harold’s Cross which is fine. The biggest difference we found when we got here was the lack of accommodation. The value you get for what you pay isn’t so bad but we were amazed that at every place we turned up to look at there were 30 or 40 other people looking too.

I’m probably one of the few people that finds the weather here an advantage. At home we have four seasons, here it’s much more even all year around, though sometimes it seems like we get four seasons in a day.

I’d happily trade the biting winters of Chicago for that.

The biggest cultural difference we’ve found has been that we have a much better work-life balance than at home. At home I think people live to work, here it’s more about working to live.

Since we moved here I’ve taken to cycling in the Wicklow and Dublin mountains. When you come from one of the flattest plains in America it’s just great to have hills.

And we love the access to the beach and the fact that we can hire a car and be somewhere like the ring of Kerry, or surfing at Lahinch, in a couple of hours.