On October 1, 2020 I stepped off a plane at the Dublin airport and started a new chapter in life. It was also the day I created this blog and wrote my first post. I kept up with daily posts for six months, then they became less and less frequent until I stopped posting all together for the last 2.5 years. I’m just realizing now that this amounts to half the time I’ve lived in Ireland. So much has happened since then that it would be impossible to catch up with one post, but I wanted to at least commemorate my five-year anniversary by sharing some reflections.
Career & Community
My career has undergone a full reboot since leaving the U.S. I moved to Ireland without a job, and it took me almost a year to find employment. I’ve held three positions over the last five years, the longest of which was over three years, and the last time I had stayed in a job that long was 10 years previous. Earlier this year, I started a new role at one of the big four global professional services firms, by far the largest organization I have ever worked for in my career. I’ve also had the shortest commute in my life here in Dublin, with my current office only a 20 minute walk away from where I live.
Community has been another pillar I’ve rebuilt from the ground up. I feel very fortunate to have made some genuine connections in Ireland over a relatively short amount of time after arriving here. My closest friends are more like chosen family, and it feels like I have known them a lot longer than a few years. That said, along the way there have been plenty of disappointments and dead-end relationships, both platonic and romantic ones. In the broader sense of community, I’ve had a closer connection with my neighbours more than at any other point in my adult life. Since 2023, I’ve also been volunteering at a community centre as an English tutor for Ukrainian teenagers who moved to Ireland with their families due to the war with Russia.
Up until a few months ago, the relationship with my landlord had been very positive but unfortunately things have turned quite sour due to some disputes I won’t go into now. Consequently, my landlord served me with a notice of termination (eviction) on the basis that he plans to sell the apartment I’ve called home since day one of arriving to Ireland. I’m grateful to have a generous 6 month notice period under Irish tenancy laws given my 4+ year tenancy. Nevertheless, the prospect of finding a new place to live during Ireland’s enduring housing crisis is a daunting challenge.
Travels
I’ve enjoyed traveling more since the dark fog of COVID lifted, mostly bouncing around Europe but also visiting the continent of Africa for the first time… a list of places I’ve been:
- France (July 2021)
- The UK (12 times in total: Glasgow once, London 5 times, Manchester 4 times, Leeds once, and Northern Ireland once)
- South Africa (November 2023 for my 50th birthday)
- Spain three times (mainland Costa del Sol in 2021, Lanzarote in 2022, and Gran Canaria in 2024 and 2025)
- Greece (island of Rhodes in 2023)
- Germany (Berlin and Potsdam in 2023)
- Malta (2024)
- Iceland twice (2024 and 2025)
- Italy once (specifically Rome over Easter weekend 2025, flying back on the Monday when Pope Francis died and on the way to the airport JD Vance’s motorcade zipped past)
- … and only back to the U.S. once in 2022 (San Francisco and Las Vegas)
Exploring more of Ireland
- County Kerry and Skellig Michael (2021)
- Derry and Belfast in in Northern Ireland (2022)
- Cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare twice (2022 and 2023 with visitors from the U.S.)
- Cork city, Kinsale and Waterford (2023 with my sisters)
- Camping at Strandhill in Co. Sligo and hiking in Co. Donegal, July 2025 (during which I tore my hamstring)
- Not to mention various day trips to Co. Wicklow, Co. Meath, Co. Monaghan; trips to Co. Leitrim (including 4 Christmases there with a close friend and his family) and Co. Longford (where I passed my driver’s licence test in 2023)
Performances
I’ve attended countless performances including concerts, plays, cabarets, comedy shows, poetry readings, folklore storytellings…
- Musicals: Wicked, Book of Mormon, Dr. Strangelove, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hamilton (twice – once in Dublin and another time in London), the Tina Turner Musical (London), and Here & Now (a musical featuring the music of the UK band Steps)… and Moulin Rouge is coming up soon in November!
- Concerts: Too many to list all of them.. big stadium/outdoor gigs including Harry Styles at the legendary Slane Castle in 2023, P!nk and Taylor Swift in 2024, and Dua Lipa in 2025; nostalgic favourites including the Pet Shop Boys, Sister Sisters, Tori Amos, Alanis Morrisette, Justin Timberlake and ABBA Voyage; new acts like Mel C, Girls Aloud, Take That, Robbie Williams, and Hozier; and last but not least some U.S. folk artists dear to my heart – the Indigo Girls (whom I’ve seen in concert more than other other musicians) and Ani Difranco.
- Comedy: Jimmy Carr, James Acaster, Tommy Tiernen, Bianca Del Rio, and most recently Rosie O’Donnell twice in 2025, both times at a tiny venue above the International Pub where I was literally sitting an arm’s reach away from her in the front row.
- … and I’ve been the audience for two tapings of the Late Late Show.
Notable events
It goes without saying that the state of global affairs has become increasingly tenuous over the last five years. Although political and societal tensions are less extreme here than in other parts of the world, Ireland is not immune to these forces. Dublin witnessed its most violent riot in modern history in 2023 on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) with shocking scenes of looting and destruction of public property, including police cars and even a light rail train were set on fire. Immigration, economic uncertainty, the war in Ukraine, and the genocide in Gaza weight heavily on the Irish collective consciousness and dominate public discourse.
I voted in my first Irish general election last year (2024) and will be casting my first ever ballot in a presidential election on the 24th of October later this month. The presidency is largely a ceremonial and symbolic position, and the pool of candidates is smaller than it has been in years with only three names on the ballot (two female, one male). In addition to the nominees of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the two largest political parties who have formed a coalition government since 2020, there is opposition candidate Catherine Connolly, an independent who has received the backing of the opposition parties on the left.
Closing thoughts
Over the last five years, I feel I’ve taken more steps forward than backward in life, although life is a never ending work in progress. I have absolutely no regrets moving to Ireland. There’s no other place where I feel I would belong more, at least for the foreseeable future.
All for now…
