At 33, Virginia Loughnan decided to uproot her life in New Zealand and move to Dublin.
Coming from a small town, Cheviot, about an hour-and-a-half from Christchurch, Loughnan grew up on a sheep and beef farm. “I’m Ngai Tahu, so I’m Maori on my mum’s side. I have a real connection with the land and farming.”
After finishing high school where she boarded in Christchurch, she set off on a gap year in Australia. She then returned to Christchurch to attend Lincoln University and studied environmental management and planning.
A rite of passage for many Kiwis is going on an overseas experience, traditionally after university. Loughnan spent two years in the UK with friends after completing her studies. She returned home to New Zealand and worked for 10 years in local and central government in areas of environmental management, agriculture and policy regulation.
Like many others, she expected she would settle down, buy a house and get married. “I’ve got a house in Christchurch. I was pretty set to stay there.”
But while working in an intense job with New Zealand’s ministry for the environment, she says she realised how small her country can be, how far away it is from other things and how she wanted to meet new people. “It’s my favourite place in the world, but it was just not enough. So, I was like ‘screw it’ why don’t I move overseas? And here I am.”
When deciding on where to move to, Ireland came as an easy first choice: she had travelled to Ireland before; she is of Irish heritage; Irish history always fascinated her at school; the two countries have similar-sized economies and both are English-speaking regions.
“Being from New Zealand, a lot of us have Irish heritage and it [Ireland] is almost a bit romanticised.”
She now works with PwC. “It helps working for a big company, they helped with visas and got me on to the work permit.”
She enjoys her job as it’s “international”. “Not only is it Irish people [working there] but I’ve been meeting different nationalities, which you don’t get in New Zealand. It’s so far away, you don’t get the exposure.”
In the 18 months that Loughnan has settled in Dublin, she is most proud of the network of friends she has built up of Irish and New Zealanders, considering that she moved here alone in September 2023.
She says sport is a great way to meet people and build connections. “It’s the best way to integrate into proper Irish life.”
In Dublin, Loughnan is involved with tag and touch rugby teams. “Club stuff, they take it quite seriously, but in a good way. It’s a lot of organisation, there’s always competitions on and social things on.”
Loughnan is a member of the New Zealand embassy’s kapa haka group. When the embassy hosts delegates, she performs songs and the haka.
She has also set up a “Kiwis of Dublin” group as she wanted to unite fellow New Zealanders. “It’s a bit like the Irish, we stick together when we find each other.”
While living in Ireland she has enjoyed learning about the GAA. “I’ve been to a couple of GAA matches. To go to Croke Park when it’s full, it’s insane. We’ve never experienced something like that.”
“Lots of people said to me when I moved here, ‘It might be quite hard to make deeper connections with Irish people or maybe it’s cliquey.’ I have not found that at all.”
She has enjoyed learning more about Ireland culturally with weekend visits to theatres, museums and walking tours of the city.
“It’s scary to go somewhere new. Definitely at times I’m like, why do I feel the need to put myself in these situations? Taking myself away from my family and friends, but I’ve met such cool people, everyone is just so nice, happy, welcoming and interested. It’s actually been such a pleasing experience.”
“Kiwis, we move a bit like the Irish. I’ve lived overseas a couple of times now already, so it’s not necessarily a big thing.”
“I like meeting new people, but it’s also been really difficult being away from home. It’s just that New Zealand is so far away and when things have been going on at home, you can’t just pop over. Being away from all my friends and the people that know me is sometimes really hard.”
“One of our Irish friends said the other day, he has enjoyed seeing Dublin through our eyes because of the way we talk about it. It’s actually given him a bit of perspective, which is cool. Everything is still such a novelty for us.”
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One of her favourite things about Ireland is the pubs: “The pub culture and the history that comes with it, just sitting around and talking, it’s a really good way to meet people. It’s been really cool.”
As her brother lives in London, Loughnan enjoys Ireland’s proximity to Europe.
She finds the pace of life in Ireland slower than in New Zealand. “It’s made a lot of us slow down a bit, I was definitely operating at a much faster pace at home. It feels like people work to live here as opposed to living to work.”
While she finds it expensive to live in Dublin, shesays New Zealand also has a cost-of-living crisis. “Our food and groceries are very expensive, far more so than here. But then other things, like obviously housing and rent are more expensive here.”
Culturally, she sees both countries as similar. “We’re both countries that have had a British influence. From a Māori and an indigenous culture perspective, I see a lot of similarities in terms of history and colonisation.”
While she sometimes struggles with the different Irish accents, she has also found that people find hers hard to understand at times. “I’ll be on the phone and they can’t understand what I’m saying. That’s been interesting, I never had that before.
“I’ve learned that you can hold really opposing thoughts in your mind where you’re having such a good time and you want to be here. But equally you’re terribly homesick.”
As her “heart is in New Zealand”, she does see herself returning home at some stage, but for the foreseeable she likes the busyness of city living and the fast-paced energy that Dublin offers.
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
