‘People in Ireland are very calm for me. In Chile people are very fiery’
When deciding to leave South America, Victoria Esperanza googled Irish cities and chose Cork. ‘I just felt it. I know it sounds ridiculous’
New to the Parish
From Italy to Dublin: ‘I feel I’m part of Ireland’s culture. I’m contributing to Ireland’
In 2021, Corrado Grappiolo was very keen to live in Ireland again, but a lot about Dublin had changed in the years since he first lived in the city
I’m a citizen of almost everywhere and nowhere. Am I Irish? Taiwanese? Singaporean?
One of the biggest differences Kian O’Shea has noticed between Singapore and Ireland is how people approach friendship
‘All these years in Dublin I have never had a driving licence and I never will’
Miren-Maialen McDonald moved to the capital 26 years ago. The biggest change she’s noticed is in Dublin’s transport infrastructure
‘Smiling at strangers in the street is not something you encounter in Russia’
Arthur Velker moved to Ireland from Siberia as a child
A Brazilian man in Ireland: ‘I was working nights just collecting drunk people’
Now an engineer living in Waterford, Diego Silva recalls his first job in Dublin as a rickshaw driver
‘I feel that Irish people are similar to Korean people ... we have the same humour’
Yujung Kim (34) moved from South Korea to Dublin in 2015 after working with Irish people in a pub in her home city
‘The more I read about Italy, the more I don’t want to go back’
Gabriele Frattaroli, who moved to Dublin 12 years ago, grew up with the idea that food in northern Europe was ‘inedible’
From Mexico to Ireland: ‘People in Dublin assume that in my country we are just poor’
Angel Morelos Ortiz-Castillo moved to Ireland in 2021
From Portugal to Ireland: ‘There was some part of me that started to be a bit more awake’
Irene Dennehy moved to Ireland in the 1990s
An Afghan woman judge who escaped from the Taliban: ‘Ireland saved our lives’
Judge Zahra Haidari was eight months pregnant when she and her husband arrived from Afghanistan after first going into hiding
‘I watched a movie about leprechauns when I was a child. That was the only thing I knew about Ireland’
Blanka Tachscherer moved from Hungary to Cork in 2016
‘I work with a lot of Irish people around my age. Sometimes they ask me questions that are a bit weird’
Barbara Calixto moved to Cork from Brazil in 2023
From embassy childhoods to settling in Ireland: ‘No one seems to look down on you here’
From embassy childhoods to Irish book clubs: Amelia Doyle on navigating identity, family, and career abroad
From California to Ireland: ‘We need to move somewhere where it rains’
Bill and Anne Hillyard moved to Ireland in 2020 after experiencing wildfires in California
‘We realised we don’t know English, not the way it’s spoken in Ireland’
Yuliia Riabova moved to Ireland by herself in April 2023 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
‘I knew nothing about this island’: From Venezuela to Ireland
Maria Isabel Meza-Silva moved to Ireland from South America in 2017
‘When my boss said ‘what’s the craic?’ I thought he was talking about drugs’
Cristiano Ruschel Marques Dias struggled to understand people when he first moved from Brazil to Dublin, but it’s gotten easier
‘We don’t call India our home; we call Ireland our home because that’s where our home is’
Ankit Gulati felt a call to move abroad from Delhi after his father died at just 52
A recipe for stew from Zimbabwe, filled with pride
Zola Sibanda has settled in Ireland but misses her hometown of Bulawayo
‘A famous influencer came into my store’: A Bulgarian entrepreneur’s Irish success story
Three days after a chance meeting, Tsankova and her husband were on a flight to Ireland with new jobs
‘Life in Dublin was very chaotic. It was bad then and I’m sure it’s worse now’
Barbara Vieira is a care assistant and aspiring writer from Brazil who lives in Sligo
‘Irish people really value privacy. In Greece it is completely different’
IT developer Annie Angelopoulou moved to Co Clare in 2017
Global grub: a traditional oven-baked meal from Bolivia
Hot corn cake from Santa Cruz uses corn kernels and mozzarella cheese
From France to Ireland: ‘I called my parents after two weeks and said I’m not coming back’
French musician Léna Descottes lives on Inishboffin. When she learned about an early childhood road trip, her grá for Irish trad made sense
From Ukraine to Kerry: ‘We’re not playing Irish music the way Irish people would’
Kseniia Yershova moved from Ukraine to Kerry in 2022
Meet the Americans moving to Ireland for a better life
There has been a 96% rise in the number of people moving from the US to the State. Here’s why some of them made the leap
‘I’m sad because a part of my heart is in Ireland but I don’t want to die here’
Colletta Dalikeni moved to Cork in 1988 before returning to her native Zimbabwe. In 2000 she moved back again to ‘a very different island’
‘Americans talk about how difficult it is to make friends in Ireland. I’ve not found that’
When Mary-Alice Wildasin and her mother, from Maine, set about researching their Irish ancestors, they found a lot more than a branch of the family tree
An Indian man in Ireland: ‘As I was turning back to my friend I was punched in the head’
Gaurav Garg moved from New Delhi to Ireland in 2019
‘Dublin should be a joyful city but there is a certain sadness floating in the air’
Yang Hao moved to Ireland three years ago and studies at Trinity College Dublin
Ambitious, immigrant graduates are our secret weapon
Three immigrant graduates talk about their experiences of coming to Ireland – and the possibility of running for president
‘Dublin has a really good energy. It’s easy to have a nice night out and chat with people’
Kuba Shand-Baptiste moved to Ireland the day before the Dublin riots in 2023, and and was shocked by her initial experiences
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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