Our infrastructure is poor here. We know this and rightly complain about it. So when a very recent immigrant praises it, you wonder what they’re comparing it with. The UK and Brunei, in this case.
Barnaby – or Barny – Sandow moved to Ireland this year with his wife, Gwendoline, originally from Normandy, and their 10-year-old daughter, before starting his new job as principal of Nord Anglia International School, in Leopardstown, Dublin. The school, part of an international chain, opened in 2018 and is famously the State’s most expensive day school, with fees from €23,000. The roughly 600 students – 54 nationalities, from age three to 18 – are taught the International Baccalaureate (IB) rather than the Irish school curriculum.
The family lives in a nearby suburb, and Sandow is impressed that “I can come to work on a bicycle every day, and there’s bike lanes all the way to school. I can get on a Luas and I’m in the city centre in 20 minutes.” He loves the easy access to the sea, stopping at Killiney beach for a swim on his way home. He talks about taking a school group of 11-12-year-olds to Ticknock easily on city bus, to walk in the hills, learn and get to know each other. “It’s on our doorsteps, to go and do that. I’m used to having to spend hours in a coach to get children anywhere. Here there are fewer hurdles to going out and doing things that enable you to feel good, and feel well about yourself. My teachers [international, and some returning Irish teachers who’ve taught the IB abroad] come in after the weekends talking about the cultural things they’ve seen, the concerts they’ve been to.”
No matter how great all this is, some aspects of living here are challenging. “I’m acutely aware there’s a housing crisis.” He knows they were lucky compared with others. Gwendoline, with the help of an agent, eventually found a house to rent. But it was down to the wire. “We signed the night the removal trucks were turning up in London.”
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Barny, who is originally from Bristol, met Gwendoline when they both worked at Abingdon, a very traditional British school. Later, when their two boys were small, the family moved to Brunei, their interest piqued by memories of a former student from the tropical southeast Asian oil-rich sultanate, which is a former British colony. They lived there for 14 years, working in an international school. “It was a fabulous place to bring the boys up. I learned to surf in the South China Sea, and we ran through the rainforest. Gwendoline turned into a real eco-warrior and led an agro-forestry project. We had phenomenal opportunities to grow and learn and bring up our children in a wonderful, safe, secure environment.”
But it was “a long time to be away from friends and family” and they returned to the UK, and another international school, in Surrey, in August 2019, right before Covid-19 hit. Post-Brexit, the UK’s demographics had changed, which did not sit well with his sense of purpose, “about promoting intercultural understanding and communicating across boundaries”.
But he was happy there when he was approached by Nord Anglia in Dublin. Part of the appeal was proximity to the Holyhead ferry: he grew up spending summers on Anglesey in north Wales, and it later became their family base as they travelled.
After that emotional draw, he “learned more about the opportunities, and the Irish economy” realising there were “really exciting opportunities” professionally. A visit to the school sealed the deal. They were “acting as parents”, wondering “is this the place we’d like to put our little girl?” The answer was yes. She’s happy at school, and “we are super happy with the way that she is being challenged to think. We’re critical customers.” Their two older boys have just started university in the UK.
Our perception of an expensive international school may be that it exists in an elite bubble, educating families who are passing through. His line to counter this, “in a collaborative way”, is “we’re an international school with an Irish heart”. He feels Irishness and Irish values “permeate the community and the way people do things around here”.
I understand that ‘grand’ is a word with a great deal of nuance, that it doesn’t necessarily mean everything is rosy. But you start off saying things are pretty positive
Americans are the biggest student demographic, but number two is Irish families, “becoming aware of an alternative”. Many of the parents are here with large international firms, looking for “international transferability”. But more than a third of its students go on to Irish universities.
Of life in Ireland, Sandow says “the welcome is exceptional”. Having travelled extensively, “the way people are interested in you, are open to having a conversation, open to passing the time of day. And there is an underlying positivity which shines through, certainly in comparison to your Anglo-Saxon neighbours.” He must be flattering us. Positive? Sure, aren’t we always moaning?
“You ask someone how they are and they say ‘grand’. And I understand that grand is a word with a great deal of nuance, that it doesn’t necessarily mean everything is rosy. But you start off saying things are pretty positive.” He mentions casually greeting a stranger, “How are you doing?” And the reply: “Couldn’t be better.”
“I promise you, there is an underlying belief in the power of the positive here. And that’s what you’re seeing in a business context, too, that there are opportunities over here and people are open to things.”
Gwendoline teaches languages, and science through outdoor learning and sustainability, and has also trained in permaculture. She’s taking a gap year, and has been writing a children’s book about what we can learn from nature, and has “found real allies over here in different communities, like Festina Lente” therapy for children through horses.
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Barny says she’s observed drivers are kinder here than in France, especially in car parks, and that she’s “enjoyed getting to know the culture through the radio, and loves the way that people talk to each other”, noting people have “differences of opinion, but it’s done in a respectful way”. They have both picked up on the Irish tendency for self-deprecation, alongside a pride: “You know, it’s always raining, but we actually quite like where we live.”
He’s painting a very rosy picture. “We’ve lived in the tropics, and my ears are a whole lot colder the last few mornings coming in here than they would have been. But at the same time, I thoroughly enjoy not having a shirt full of sweat after 30 minutes standing in the car park welcoming parents in the morning.”
He says “enjoying where you are, and reframing positively the experiences you have, is a really important part of any of our wellbeing. There is a sense of responsibility, as anyone who’s leading a community, to be doing that with a smile and enjoying life and making people feel positive at the beginning of every day when they see me on the front doorstep of the school.”
