So you’re thinking about decamping to Ireland as the heat inside American political circles starts increasing. You can’t expect to be like me in the mid-90s and drive off the ferry with your car as a non-EU citizen going to work in an American field office. And if you don’t have a Critical Skills Work Permit, you will need to carve out some short contracts to make ends meet.
Things are very expensive in Ireland–nearly everything except seasonal fruit and vegetables. And housing is in very short supply–which means access to other things like family doctors will be problematic.
I moved out of Dublin when the monthly rent got more expensive than a monthly mortgage payment. My Dublin rent cost more than a larger flat in D.C. and SF–but my experience in those places was during the late 80s.
When I got a work permit and got hired by an Irish third level institution, I should have applied for a Stamp 4, which would have permitted me to work for any employer. I didn’t do that, let my immigration status lapse, and ended up being refused leave to land in Ireland. That meant the Irish immigration service flew me back to NYC where I saw my father a few months before he died. Then I returned to Ireland and restarted my paperwork.
It will take me another four years to normalise my status with Irish immigration. After that, I should have an Irish passport to go with the cemetery plot I’m arranging in my adopted home in County Tipperary.