Living in Dublin: an expat guide
What to expect when moving to Dublin
With a little under half of the Irish population living within the Greater Dublin area and non-nationals making up nearly a quarter of Dublin’s total inhabitants, the appeal is as local as it is international. Cosmopolitan to a fault, yet very true to its roots. The city has the craic in spades, but don’t be fooled — this is a serious place of business, with everyone who’s anyone in tech or international trade having their European HQ or, at least, a significant presence in the city. It offers the classic Irish welcome to industry on very easy terms, with among the lowest corporation tax in the EU, and regards expats as both international friends to be embraced and serious investors in an economy that has learned how to look after itself the hard way.
Befriending the Irish
Befriending the Irish will not be hard — be kind and open for a chat and the befriending will often find you. The Irish have a reputation for being easygoing and you should expect to be drawn into conversations with strangers wherever you are. Being polite is important too.
Expats find each other in a variety of ways. There are many informal meet-up groups (eg American Expats in Ireland and International Mishmash), where locals and internationals meet and exchange cultural interests. Send your child to any major private school and involve yourself in the parents’ networks and you will probably also expand your international horizons too.
Entertainment and the arts
Ireland is passionate about the arts and Dublin showcases it all. While you’ll get the same range of cinemas as you would in any other major city, it’s the local colour that makes Dublin stand out. The Abbey Theatre on Abbey Street in the Northside — founded in the early 1900s by figures such as WB Yeats — is the National Theatre of Ireland and is committed to holding a mirror up to the nation. The Gate Theatre in Parnell Square feels like a townhouse ballroom and offers a traditional programme while the Gaiety on the Southside is as close to a variety theatre as you’ll find now.
The National Concert Hall on Earlsfort Terrace hosts a wide selection of classical and modern music concerts and operas, while the 3Arena (which changes name regularly and is still often referred to by locals as The Point) is Dublin’s answer to London’s O2.
Sport
Sport is huge and while golfers will head north-west to Kildare for the many country clubs and courses there and elsewhere in the more suburban reaches, in the city itself, there is the holy trinity of football, rugby, and the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association). This last is itself a coverall for three principal sports: Gaelic Football, Hurling, and, for women, Camogie. All three are lightning-fast, brutal, and unspeakably exciting to watch, not least because the GAA is avowedly non-professional, and all of the world-class athletes playing will be holding down a 9-5 while entertaining up to 80,000 people at Croke Park at the weekends.
At the Aviva Stadium on Lansdowne Road, rugby and soccer share a home for the two national teams, with soccer being, as ever, a highly popular and populist sport, and rugby, though taken very seriously, a mixture of British throwback and a preserve of the expensive Catholic private schools dotted around the Greater Dublin area.
Horse racing is also a huge favourite, with courses at Leopardstown, Punchestown, Fairyhouse, and the Curragh all within a short hop of the city centre.
Where to live in Dublin
Dublin is a nuanced tale of two cities, divided by the River Liffey.
Living on the Northside
The Northside has often been characterised as the rough-and-tumble, disadvantaged and deprived half, and it is fair to say that the crumbling remains of some of the ill-thought-out housing projects of the 1960s stand testament to the appalling conditions many northsiders lived in for decades when crime and drugs were rife in the inner-city estates. Now, with Ireland having a few shillings in its national pocket again, the Northside seems on course to gentrify in a way that Southsiders would have recognised for years.
That said, there is a lot of history and beauty north of the Liffey — it’s where you find O’Connell Street, with its generations-old stores and history as the crucible of the 1916 Easter Rising, the ageing grandeur of the Gresham Hotel and the highly respected Rotunda Hospital (‘the’ place to have your baby). Further north-east you reach the very desirable residential areas of Malahide, Clontarf and especially Howth where upwardly mobile families and the cream of the Dublin media set pitched camp.
Living on the Southside
Southside Dublin is traditionally the area populated by what waggish local tongues would refer to as ‘the quality’. Much leafier and quieter than the city centre, it’s no coincidence that it is also home to some of the best schools, from co-ed Wesley College and Blackrock College for boys to Mount Anville Secondary School for girls.
Donnybrook, home to the sprawling Montrose home of national broadcaster RTE, has some options for gracious living, while Foxrock, with its reputation as being banker central, attracted a lot of gentle ribbing in the popular discourse, but is a fine place to live. Likewise, Dalkey and Killiney, in the south-eastern reaches of Greater Dublin, are wonderful if your budget is comfortable and you want sea air, rugged views, and neighbours like Bono and Enya.
Ballinteer, Rathmines, and Rathgar manage to keep proximity to the centre while maintaining a villagey feel.
Living in the city centre
You could, of course, go for broke and move into the city centre, but prepare for compromises. Very few of those Georgian front doors open into houses for living any more, having been bought up by architects, solicitors, and boutique hoteliers long ago, so it may be a generously proportioned docklands flat (with London-scale price-tag) for you if you want to be moments from the action.
Getting started in Dublin
Mobile and internet access
All the main mobile operators (at the time of writing these include eir, Three, and Vodafone) offer standard-issue contracts on inexpensive tariffs and, in all but the most remote areas of the country, mobile coverage and high-speed broadband access is of the high standard you would expect from one of the most rapidly growing economies in Europe.
Setting up a bank account
In-state banking is dominated by Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish but all major banks have a presence too — Santander, Bank of America, HSBC, and even the Bank of Montreal, among many others. The IBAN network will also ensure you need never worry about your overseas reserves again either.
Healthcare and insurance
Ireland’s healthcare system is quite easy to navigate. There is, effectively, universal healthcare with the worst-off being accorded treatment free at the point of need and everyone else investing in relatively inexpensive insurance. All care is a fraction of US-style prices even for self-payers. Vhi is the state-backed insurer but there are plenty of others to choose from.
Befriending the Irish will not be hard — be kind and open for a chat and the befriending will often find you. The Irish have a reputation for being easygoing and you should expect to be drawn into conversations with strangers wherever you are.
Day-to-day living in Dublin
Getting around
Traffic can be congested, especially in the morning and evening rush hours as many Dublin workers live well outside the city. The M50 motorway provides a pretty effective toll-based road between Dublin and Cork (although you would not be wise to try and live in one and work in the other even now as it will still add a five-hour round trip to your day) and the M1 runs North-South between Dublin and Belfast, turning what was once a three or four-hour trip in the early 1990s into a 90-120 minute ride now.
Public transport is improving across Ireland and in Dublin itself, buses and a zippy tram network (called An Luas) whisk people to all points of Greater Dublin with speed, ease, and frequency along dedicated lanes and tracks which get priority.
The best advice one can give about affordable parking in Dublin city centre is ‘don’t even hope’. Permanent parking spaces were changing hands for a solid six figures during the boom times.
Shopping
Whether you’re looking for bread and milk or the latest pair of Louboutins, Dublin has what you’re after. There are supermarket chains aplenty while every community will have local convenience stores and there are, citywide, independent grocers, bakers, butchers and farmers’ markets. The closest Ireland has to an upscale supermarket chain is Donnybrook Fair, whose six branches are largely located in Dublin’s more affluent suburbs.
For clothing and luxury goods, Grafton Street and Stephen’s Green are the places to go. Brown Thomas has been kitting out Ireland’s top tier for over 170 years but is owned by the same private equity firm that owns Penney’s which clothes everyone else for almost nothing.
There are also the sorts of city-edge shopping centres and outlet malls that you’d expect, with Stillorgan and Cornelscourt being the most well-known.
Nightlife
Pub culture in Ireland is a quintessential part of Irish life — the traditional Irish pub is not just a place for drinking but a meeting place to socialise and share stories. The stereotype of the Irish pub is not as prevalent as it once was, but there are still plenty of lively local spots to choose from. Nightlife does not only revolve around pub culture — Dublin has its fair share of fine dining restaurants, particularly around St Stephen’s Green, Merrion Square/Street, and the more affluent Southside suburbs.
That said, Chapter One — one of several Michelin-starred restaurants in the city, sits squarely in the Northside on Parnell Square. You can always dial down the chic in favour of the craic (a good time) at The Dawson Lounge — Ireland’s smallest pub, where it is rumoured that no matter how much you consume, there’s not room enough to fall over. For specialist outlets, from jazz bars to LGBT+ life, the rule of thumb is few, but high quality.
The coast and beaches
The coast is as much part of the city as the architecture is, as Dublin hugs the Irish Sea and the bay houses a lot of exquisite seafood. Head for Clontarf or Howth in the north to make the most of the beaches, or Dun Laoighire and Greystones to the south for a sense of seaside resort a short jaunt from the city centre.
The last word
Dublin is a vibrant, punchy city with stacks for families and one of the most lauded education systems in the West. It is a little rough around the edges in places, and, with the country not even 100 years old, it still has lessons to learn, but with Dublin’s place on the doorstep of a nation rich in history, beauty and culture, with its face turned proudly towards Europe and the wider world, you should find a home to love among the tongue-in-cheek whimsy.
