Keyword "irish-abroad" - List of latest news (315 results)

07:30 Irish abroad: I really believe in ‘one world, one family’

‘I have come to appreciate the warmth and humanity that transcends cultural boundaries’ says Irish teacher

22/04 A local hero was sent to rescue me in China and I’ll never forget him

‘I have come to appreciate the warmth and humanity that transcends cultural boundaries’ says Irish teacher

20/04 ‘There is so much to do here especially in the summer when there are festivals and open-air cinemas in the Plaza España’

Wild Geese: Lauren McNicholl moved to Madrid five years ago and is possibly the only Irish woman tailor in Spain

13/04 The Irish man who bought a home in the US after winning $100,000 on NFL fantasy football

Wild Geese: Conor O’Driscoll lives in Columbus, Ohio

11/04 ‘I’m an accidental emigrant. Once you have a child somewhere it’s hard to go back’

Author Anne Tiernan followed a man, her now husband, to New Zealand 20 years ago

09/04 This homesickness is not a yearning for return but rather for reconnection

It has only been six months since my return to Australia and yet here the feeling is

06/04 ‘When I come home, I am quite Scandinavian’: The Waterford photographer who took a trip to Iceland and stayed there

Wild Geese: Landscape and travel photographer Sibéal Turraoin took a hiking trip to Iceland, decided to stay for the winter and is still there eight years later

30/03 Sun and sand proved too powerful a lure in a cold and wet Cork

Wild Geese: Ronan Guilfoyle, Cayman Islands

28/03 Brianna Parkins: Moving to another country is hard. You’re not failing if you’re not living up to a filtered social media standard

Irish emigrants in Sydney have been taken in by all the social media of Bondi sunrises without realising a lot of travel influencing is a total swizz

26/03 Laura Kennedy: I’m a bad ambassador for Ireland, but it’s part of the package when you emigrate

As an Irish person in Australia, you are handed a minor unofficial diplomatic role. I do it gracelessly

26/03 Couple ‘couldn’t be happier’ after ditching Dublin for Berlin to buy a home

Housing, quality of life and healthcare in both cities are ‘night and day’, says couple

23/03 The Irish man behind Memo perfumes: ‘My wife interviewed 22 of the best noses in the world’

Wild Geese: John Molloy

16/03 A Carlow man of steel who helped build Dubai: ‘There was always money available to make construction projects look good’

Wild Geese: John O’Kelly owns an architectural steel company in Dubai, which is currently building the Ugandan parliament building

15/03 Patrick Freyne: Here’s what I see when I see Irish people at their best

We are hospitable and irreverent, but also cynical and parochial. When things get difficult, who do we want to be?

13/03 An Irishman abroad: ‘I’ve meditated in Bosnian mosques, Thai temples and Ukrainian Orthodox churches’

Peter Flanagan: 'Reminding us to breathe at our desks should not be a workplace perk'

12/03 Laura Kennedy: Autumn in Canberra serves as a useful reminder of how we take our natural beauty for granted in Ireland

I’m forever disappointing people at home with the news that Australia’s capital does have seasons

07/03 Irish tourist escapes with minor injuries after paragliding crash in Peru

Video footage shows glider falling to earth on busy Lima road

05/03 An Irishman in Spain: ‘Salaries are much lower here, but my mental health is far better’

Co Kildare man is enjoying life in Torrevieja, where feeling the sun on his face every morning makes him feel alive

03/03 I may very well have ignored the call to home if I hadn’t been robbed at knifepoint in Brazil

A Cork author on the incident that spurred him to leave behind the life he loved to return with his family to Ireland

02/03 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: Life in El Salvador: A ‘jaw-dropping’ adjustment

We hear from some of the last Irish lords and a jockey making waves in Australia

27/02 My mum dangles the question like a golden carrot: ‘You’ll never guess who’s died’

Calling her Irish mammy from London feels like playing a morbid round of Guess Who for this Dubliner

25/02 Things aren’t better in Australia than in Ireland, but they are easier

I don’t want to tell anyone that things are better here than they are at home, but they are easier

25/02 I’m finding life in Australia’s capital surprisingly stress-free. But it’s not the dream everyone imagines

I don’t want to tell anyone that things are better here than they are at home, but they are easier

24/02 ‘A great way of seeing a new city is to become embroiled in its bureaucracy’

I work in climate change, so preparing irrefutable evidence of the facts, expecting swift action and being constantly disappointed is my bread and butter

23/02 ‘A haon, a dó, a trois’: How a tiny French village fell in love with Irish dancing

There’s a corner of Préty, in eastern rural France, that seems it will be forever Ireland as local residents gather every week for a jig or two

23/02 ‘Last time I tried to park a car in Dublin, I couldn’t get over it’

Wild Geese: Progression with BNY and frequent travelling to the US led Alan Flanagan and his family to move to New Jersey in 2016

18/02 Irishwoman in El Salvador: I’m 60 and moved halfway around the world. Everything is different

Life in El Salvador: ‘I’ve climbed a volcano and used Bitcoin. I live with the roar of motorbikes and ire-filled preachers’

17/02 My mother’s blanket has travelled the world with me, along with her thoughts and dreams

She was a very good knitter, and wool was once not only a way to inflict emotional pain on the young of Ireland, but a necessity wrought by the exigencies of the times

16/02 Crafting jewellery in a country where it is considered rude to show your wealth

Wild Geese: Michael O'Dwyer, Stockholm

13/02 The word ‘now’ is a weapon that Irish people wield as needed. But Australians use it differently

Like us, Australians sometimes talk in a way that is a few feet to the left or right of what they are literally saying

10/02 I’ve worked in 60 countries. Here’s what people have said about Ireland

Belgian colleagues kindly explained the basics of how modern societies work; I adhered to a rule of never engaging Americans on Irish politics

09/02 An Irish jockey in Australia: ‘The longer you stay, the harder it becomes to go home’

Wild Geese: Johnny Allen, Australia

07/02 A Kildare man in London: ‘The British view colonisation like their parents’ sex life – they know it happened, but prefer not to know details'

In the England I live in, I cling on to my Irishness more tightly than I might otherwise

30/01 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: Irish in Oxford - ‘I felt alienated from the very start’

We hear from an Irish man who moved to Singapore in his 50s and a Cork photographer in Copenhagen

29/01 Laura Kennedy: The voice note is anathema to the values that uphold Irishness as we know it

Yet it is a crucial component of the Irish emigrant toolkit. It’s so cheering to hear my niece tell me, scandalised, that her baby brother farted in the bath

27/01 An Irishman at Oxford: My peers were from British private schools, comfortable in this world

The good, the bad and the ugly parts of studying English through Irish eyes at Oxford

23/01 Experience and the wisdom that comes with it are highly valued in Asian culture

Singapore gave this Irishman exactly the boost he needed

19/01 ‘Rome is a fantastic city to live in, but it’s very complicated. It’s a mess of a place. Madrid is clean. Everything works’

Wild Geese: Barry Haughian works for Ukrainian telco Tellias in the Spanish capital

16/01 Somebody broke in and stole our Christmas gifts – but I felt a sense of gratitude

Even as we picked our mostly valueless property up, I marvelled at the fact that in Canberra, unlike in Dublin, you get storage as standard. Lots of it

16/01 An Irish flight attendant’s top travel tips on how to avoid stress on your next trip

New year, new adventures, same old lack of preparation? Here are my five simple yet effective tricks that can transform your travel experience from chaotic to calm

13/01 ‘I landed in Addis Ababa for a challenge that blended my love of running with a commitment to those in need’

In the 40th anniversary year of Live Aid, New York-based Bray man Mark O’Toole explains what motivated him to do the Great Ethiopian Run

12/01 ‘It’s like Disneyland compared to Munich: moving here immediately resonated with me’

Wild Geese: Caroline Ryan, Copenhagen

09/01 ‘I stepped through a door and emerged as a US citizen - but now comes the journey of belonging’

With a fierce drive to prove myself, I was the underdog from Milltown determined to outwork everyone in the room

01/01 New Year’s in Australia: When you leave home to live abroad, you take any traditions you can feasibly translate

I don’t really know what a new year in Australia might hold. It has a vast unfamiliarity to me that country itself still does

26/12 Megan Nolan: Family, career, friends or adventure? Only the truly wealthy can attempt to have a bit of everything

I’m entering mid-30s and have never particularly wanted children. But the realities of this new era in my dating life have become clear

25/12 An Irishwoman sailing around the world: ‘This paradise has just seven residents and two dogs’

Dubliner Kate Ashe-Leonard left Ireland in 2017 to live with her partner in London. In 2018, they began their adventure to sail around the world

24/12 ‘It is so important to have something to get people out of the house. It breaks down the loneliness’

The networks of ‘joy and friendship’ helping the older Irish community in London

23/12 ‘The Christmas swim is going to be a lot nicer’: Young Irish expats embrace their first Australian Christmas

How do the Irish in Melbourne feel about spending their first festive season Down Under?

20/12 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: The top five most read stories of the year

The challenges of returning to Ireland from Singapore, the intensity of college sport in the US and how to get in flight attendants’ bad books

18/12 Laura Kennedy: A critic of this column thinks there’s too much negativity about Ireland, not enough about Australia’s beaches

That reader should know that, even though I live 3½ hours from the coast, I am taking her concerns on board

12/12 An Irishman in Basque Country: ‘My first encounter with a tortilla came out of necessity. Now I order one out of desire’

From my experience of them in Ireland I expected a bland flavour. How wrong I was

05/12 From an Irish workhouse to Australia - the story of the Famine orphan girls

Every year descendants of the thousands of orphaned Irish teenage girls sent to Australia during the Great Famine gather in Melbourne to remember them

04/12 Laura Kennedy: Australia offers me a more dignified life than the one I had in Ireland. It’s not unpatriotic to say so

Like many emigrants, the reality is that I am more invested in Ireland than the country I have moved to

01/12 ‘Trades are very well paid here compared to anywhere else in the world I have been’

Wild Geese: Chris Kidney is a carpenter in Melbourne, Australia

29/11 ‘I know nothing about running a kitchen . . . it looks like absolute hell – tiring, time consuming and extremely risky’

Irishman Oscar Brophy is subletting the kitchen of his new Bratislava bar-cum-nightclub, whose name translates as Falling Plaster

27/11 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: ‘Learning Gaeilge is a true challenge’

Anna Derrig talks about life in London and Martina Tyrrell discusses settling in Spain after sailing around the globe

27/11 The Italian job: In Dubai, you eat on the go. In Tuscany? Lunch is two hours minimum, and you savour every bite

Following a post-holiday dream, Irish-born Niall O’Toole and his family now run a wine and holiday business in Tuscany

24/11 An Irish businessman in Singapore: ‘You’ll get a year in jail if you are in a drunken brawl, so people don’t step out of line’

Wild Geese: Martin O’Regan has a leading role in a niche business in the island nation

22/11 Brianna Parkins: Many Irish have voted with their feet but can’t vote in the election. The reason is plain

What are opponents to voting abroad so afraid of? The explanations of ‘it’s too hard’ or ‘it’s too risky’ feel threadbare and lazy

21/11 An Offaly woman in London: ‘I was a teenager before I had the guts to identify as Irish’

I don’t really do envy, but I envied the sense of belonging all the native speakers had with their array of languages

20/11 Laura Kennedy: After Trump’s win, we all seemed to drift about with the sense the world looked very different from the day before

If you’re having an out-of-body experience, pasta and cheese may not strictly fix it, but they certainly won’t do you any harm

18/11 Patricia Killeen: In Paris it’s always about your next meal - here are my my favourite restaurants in the City of Light

Dublin woman Patricia Killeen always enjoys an excellent experience with her meal in Paris - but only if she goes go out

15/11 Brianna Parkins: ‘The Irish have a natural instinct for nosiness’

What better way to spend a hot sunny day than in the park, staking out two strange couples’ proposals?

12/11 Washing up in Iberia: ‘We realised we weren’t ever going to sail the world, so we moved ashore and sold the boat’

Plans changed when this family paid a visit to a little piece of paradise during a round-the-world yacht trip

07/11 Irishman in Canada for 50 years: ‘I was about to return home after three years but then things changed’

Patrick McKenna fitted right into the political hothouse in Montreal in 1978, which provided him with the adrenaline rush he had been missing since leaving Belfast

06/11 Laura Kennedy: Swooping season in Australia brings home the ‘taking names and kicking arse’ approach of nature here

I awoke early one morning in Canberra to a bizarre sound. What the actual f**k is that, I thought, a pterodactyl? It was a magpie, but not like the ones I’d known

04/11 I moved to London certain that I’d eventually return home. Now, I’ve settled

This Dubliner has seen a lot of change happen in London, but when will she come back to Ireland?

01/11 Poet Paul Muldoon: ‘My dad, a market gardener, was a guy who could barely write his own name’

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, academic and musician Paul Muldoon on growing up in a nationalist family in Co Armagh, life in Belfast during the Troubles and moving to the US

31/10 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: A Hell’s Kitchen winner on life as a chef in the US

We hear from the man running The Irish Times pub in Prague, as well as some tips for travelling Europe by train and surviving long-distance flights

28/10 A Dubliner returning to France after 15 years away: ‘Here are some of the many changes I noticed’

A Dubliner returning to France finds smoky bars replaced by bubblegum clouds from vapes, that you no longer risk going tealess, and you can even ask directions in English

27/10 Chef Ryan O’Sullivan: ‘I was like, I have to get back to the States and make something of myself’

O’Sullivan, who hails from Cork, won season 22 of Gordon Ramsay’s US television show Hell’s Kitchen

24/10 ‘My partner convinced me to go on a European trip designed around trains over 16 days’

Phoebe Moore and Moneer Seify headed on a journey from London-Paris-Marseille-Hyères-Genova-Bologna-Venice spread over 16 days

23/10 When you return home to Ireland from abroad, you notice that everyone is a little changed

Laura Kennedy: It shouldn’t take a trip back to realise that home is, above all, people

18/10 Brianna Parkins: Dublin Bus drivers are practised in the art of soundness. Sydney could learn from them

The girl sprinting for the ferry in Sydney late on a Saturday night was meanly cut off, prompting an unusual display of social solidarity

16/10 I can’t tell you how many times someone has said to me: ‘You’re Irish! I’ve always wanted to visit Ireland. Is it really so green?’

‘As the new world invited those of us with unusual names in, and as this country accepted me, I welcome my Venezuelan deliverers to this world where they find themselves – Colombia’

16/10 How working abroad can make it easier to secure a mortgage back in Ireland

Tens of thousands of Irish people go abroad every year: many see it as a short-term plan to turbocharge their homebuying prospects

14/10 An Irish man in Colombia: Guinness is rare but after years you make do

Guinness is as rare as shamrock in Colombia but this Irishman makes do after years of living there

13/10 A Dane in Dublin: ‘In Denmark death is taboo but in Dublin I’ve been met with a different warmth’

Grief has given a Danish journalist the strength to live her life in Dublin on her own terms and find healing

09/10 Laura Kennedy: Nine tips to help you prepare for a long plane journey

Since friends or family giving Irish emigrants helpful information is forbidden in our culture, you can rely on me to do it for you

08/10 Coming home to live in Ireland? There will be tax implications for your income and assets

Immigrants and Irish people returning after working abroad need to consider their potential tax liabilities regarding savings, property and pensions

07/10 Vancouver has become a stronghold of Irish immigrants in recent years. But why?

I was not disappointed. The natural landscape leads to jam-packed summers brimming with camping trips, sunrise swims and mountain hikes

06/10 ‘The Czechs like to own property, like the Irish’

Wild Geese: Richard Curran, Prague

04/10 ‘It’s when you leave Ireland that you fully appreciate how big-hearted and generous in spirit Irish people are’

Irishman in Portugal: Life is very different in Porto but it has numerous advantages including good healthcare and transport systems

03/10 Brianna Parkins: I feel like I’ve hit the lottery with my partner. I make the money, he makes me lunches

Is this how it feels to have been a man for the best part of the 20th century? Because it’s been pretty great

03/10 ‘Many Portuguese are on a scale that oscillates between melancholic, dour and grumpy’

‘It’s only when you leave that you fully appreciate just how big-hearted and generous in spirit Irish people are’

01/10 ‘I took to swimming in the morning and writing poetry on a beach towel within a few yards of the Mediterranean’

I feel I’m more relaxed, as a writer and a father, than I’d be if I was living in Ireland

30/09 ‘Loving life in the slightly slower lane’: From Donegal to the south of France

Gillian Moore writes about moving from Kilkenny to Medellín while Patricia Killeen talks about life in Paris after the Olympics

26/09 Dublin woman in Vancouver: Finding work has been hard but Ironman gives me purpose

For this Blackrock native, training gives her days meaning, structure and direction amid other struggles

25/09 Laura Kennedy: Choosing to leave home can leave people you love feeling slightly rejected

Laura Kennedy: When I return from Australia to visit home, I sit in the consequences of that choice to leave

23/09 A Belfast film-maker in Hollywood: ‘I felt Irish American warmth in New York but nothing prepared me for LA’

When film director Maeve Murphy went to Hollywood - finally - she found a deep Irish connection and inspiration from US independent cinema

22/09 ‘If you have the health insurance, America is a great place to get sick’

Wild Geese: Jonathan O’Connor lives in Atlanta, Georgia

19/09 An Irishwoman in Paris: I feel a magnetic drag to be Franco-Irish and participate in French politics

The Olympics and Paralympics made this Irishwoman proud to live in Paris

17/09 An Irish man in California: having a therapist is more common than a gym membership. Not being in therapy can carry an air of suspicion

The ubiquity of therapy in Berkeley infuses the words people use and their lifestyles with an odd deliberateness

16/09 ‘I decided to move to Tunisia alone, fresh out of university, with no connections and no plan’

Her experiences in the north African country have made a piano player and from Wexford feel accepted

15/09 ‘There are stereotypes which may infer Spaniards are not sincere, but that has not been my experience’

Wild Geese: For Dubliner John McGrail, what began as a six-month trip to Spain after graduation turned into a lifelong love affair with the country

11/09 I got Limericked before I even made it out of Shannon Airport – a record, even for me

It’s a joy to be home, but sometimes I wish Ireland would just let you love it without all the complexity

09/09 ‘I met my husband at a bus stop in Colombia’

A Kilkenny woman fell in love with Medellín, where she now runs a tour company with her husband

02/09 I’m sure my daughter’s Spanishness will be questioned by someone who wants to make her feel less

An Irishman in Spain: I hope things change and our daughter will not have to deal with prejudice and hate

31/08 Moving to Australia: ‘I would have had a very fixed life in Ireland. I feel very light here’

Despite a high cost of living, young Irish people living and working in Australia praise the social aspect and greater ability to shape their work lives

29/08 Life after running Harvey’s Point hotel: ‘We found our little piece of paradise in southwest France’

Starting again after 30 years of running Harvey’s Point was a challenge, but Deirdre McGlone is enjoying the slower pace of life in France

28/08 Is the notion of settling down a luxury my generation can’t afford or take for granted?

When you make the decision to emigrate, you’re forced to think about your life and future in a way that you can avoid more easily in familiar surroundings

27/08 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: Almost 70,000 emigrated from Ireland in the last year

The stages of moving abroad; Colm Rush talks about birdwatching in Spain; and Kerry O’Shea compares life in Singapore with life in Ireland

26/08 The flamingo whisperer: ‘I figure they have more reason to be nervous than I have’

An Irish man in Spain, an active birdwatcher, is delighted to play his part in the annual flamingo ringing event

25/08 ‘The minute you start murdering their language, they stop you’

Wild Geese: Sharon O'Flaherty Dehmel

23/08 ‘What have I taken from Dubai? What has it taken from me?’

As she prepares to move back to Cork, there are many things Yvie Neale will not forget from her time in Dubai

15/08 Irish abroad: The seven stages of moving to a new country

Approaching the one-year mark since moving to Vancouver has me wistful with nostalgia and incessant reflection

14/08 Laura Kennedy: As an Irish person in Australia, I can try to think of myself as suave and worldly, but I’m nothing of the sort

If you’re Irish, you’re always Irish in every situation. We can’t be anonymous anywhere

12/08 Imagine if the population of Dublin quadrupled but housing was affordable. Welcome to Singapore

My wife was baffled by the unreliability of public transport in Dublin, and my son’s phone was almost stolen – both of which would be exceedingly rare in Singapore

09/08 ‘As you watch the Olympics remember that the US collegiate athletics system plays a major role’

A Galway man writes about the striking contrast between student life in Ireland and the US

06/08 An Irishman in London celebrates the UK becoming a ‘nation once again’

Living in the UK almost 40 years, Peter Benson is thrilled about Labour’s election victory. ‘We have grown-ups in 10 Downing Street now,’ he writes

04/08 ‘In New York, it doesn’t matter what you know, it’s who you know’

Wild Geese: Seamus Keane on leaving Mayo for the Big Apple and setting up a gym business

31/07 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: No Dunnes Stores but Colombia has plenty more for this Irish man

This month Laura Kennedy shares some lessons about life in Australia; Brianna Parkins reflects on things that her younger self wanted; and Isabel Auld talks about moving to the Caribbean

31/07 Laura Kennedy: ‘I bought 19 bags of Tayto as an act of patriotism’

Mr Tayto felt as relatable as any other Irish immigrant in a new country – out of place

26/07 The Irish spice bag has arrived in Australia and not everyone is happy

Brianna Parkins: Sometimes, when you’re a big distance from home, it’s the small things that give you comfort

25/07 ‘Though I come from Ireland’s sunniest county . . . who could say no to Caribbean living?’

Driving past the Leinster Road sign in Barbados always makes this Irishwoman smile

22/07 ‘Toledo is very much a Spanish Derry for me in that we are part of the neighbourhood’

Tony Brown found a home from home in Spain after he left Derry in 2012 to teach in the Madrid state schools as part of a bilingual programme

21/07 Primark’s Irish man in Spain: ‘We sell roughly the same number of coats in Madrid as we do in Dublin’

Wild Geese: Stephen Mullen, Madrid

18/07 An Irish flight attendant on the top five most annoying things passengers do

Recently, Paula Gahan was on a flight with a passenger who did everything to ensure a listing on the cabin-crew blacklist. Do not do the same this summer

17/07 Laura Kennedy: You can’t escape yourself abroad, but you can find someone you’re less eager to escape from

When you emigrate, you shed the version of yourself that others consider to be who you are

14/07 ‘I find the American work culture isn’t so far removed from the Irish way of doing things

Wild Geese: Mike Gallagher works for US software company Switcher in Buenos Aires

14/07 Peter Flanagan: As an Irishman in England for the Euro 2024 final, here's what I've resolved to do

Peter Flanagan: If I see a Union Jack hanging behind a bar, generational emotional trauma is involuntarily triggered

11/07 Colombia lacks sophisticated supermarkets but promises herbal solutions to all your problems

Lush Colombian markets have won the heart of this Galway man

07/07 ‘The idea that there’s endless opportunity appeals to me’

Wild Geese: Alice Maria Murphy, California: 'I always knew I wanted to go and see what else was out there'

04/07 Irish music reduces the gulf between Ireland and the US

Éamon Ó Caoineachán reflects on his hometown of Bundoran and the warm waters that travel 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean

03/07 Laura Kennedy: I suspect the constant talk about Australia and spiders is a conspiracy to keep the sons and daughters of Éireann at home

Irish folks are obsessed with how living in Australia means constantly coping with arachnids. Well, I am now able to say, that’s a bit mad

01/07 An Irishman in London: Britain’s once-brilliant health system is now on its knees

Using private clinics been would have been unthinkable when I first moved here. Now, it feels almost irresponsible not to use one if you can afford to do so

27/06 ‘I was a lone traveller, with a one-way ticket, going to a foreign place where I knew no one’

Shane Breen loves following the road less travelled in the northwest of Thailand

26/06 My friend has done everything right but soon they will be homeless

When we emigrants speak critically of home, we are often met with a defensive tone

21/06 Brianna Parkins: Moving to the other side of the world has given me practice in swatting away the chancers

I recently overheard a woman utter a magic incantation that would banish having to put myself out against my own will. It changed me forever

19/06 Our relationship with Britain will always be a bit weird, like making friends with your former school bully

In Australia, people I talk to seem slightly embarrassed by the fact that the king is still knocking around

16/06 ‘Come back to me when you have an idea nobody has ever attempted before’

My five-year-old and I are heading home to Hungary after a weekend visiting family in Lucan. Our bag is full of chocolate and paints

13/06 An Irishwoman in New York: I’m flattered, but why do Americans love the Irish so much?

I have no doubt that the love for the Irish is genuine, but I feel it is unearned on my part

12/06 ‘An Irish accent carries a level of privilege here in Australia’

It’s a delight to realise that your voice evokes for strangers a beloved parent who is now gone

10/06 Irish woman in Paris: When we bought our home, little did we know Olympians would be running past our window

Paris 2024 is shaking things up and the Irish going, competing and living there will have to go with the flow

09/06 An Irish designer in America: ‘Don’t overthink it ... if it makes you happy, then just do it’

A move to the US saw Phoebe Edmondson make the leap from pharma to interior design. Now she’s renovating a home in the Boston suburbs

06/06 Saying goodbye to your kids is hard when they live on the other side of the world

They had plenty of walks, dinners, wine and ice-cream as a family together over 10 days in Sydney, but now they are back in Ireland without their daughters

05/06 Romanticising and complaining about Ireland are key features of Irish people – but not when you leave

The rules change when you emigrate: your moaning card, if not your passport, is revoked

30/05 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: ‘Denmark has taught me about what I want from life’

Laoise Murray describes studying in Aarhus; Emma Nic Shuibhne talks about her experience renting in the Netherlands; and Kate Ashe-Leonard visits Dublin after months abroad

30/05 Getting engaged to an American was the start of a long immigration journey

Moving from Donabate to Baton Rouge was harder than you think – even with a US husband

29/05 Laura Kennedy: Old buildings are key to our landscape, our self-image and our national story

Life in Canberra is convenient and comfortable but when I miss home, it is the sense of age that I miss

27/05 An Irishwoman in Denmark: ‘Life here is good, safe. But a bit boring if I am honest’

The place has lots of positives. There’s just something missing: warmth, friendliness

26/05 A chance interview at ESB led to an international career in energy

Wild Geese: Catherine Hurley, Malta

23/05 ‘My main takeaways a year after swapping Ireland for Portugal’

The Portuguese have no tolerance for a chill. Once the temperature hovers around 20 degrees, it is common to see people wrapped up in coats and gloves

22/05 Seeing the GP in Australia: ‘It’s dispiriting how utterly luxurious it feels’

Figuring out the healthcare system in Australia has certainly been the most complex part of moving

20/05 From Donegal to Texas: ‘I felt part of an Irish community for the first time in years’

‘I realise just how bloody surreal it is to learn about Ireland in America’

16/05 ‘When I moved to my Dutch apartment ... my landlord told me I could stay there forever’

While renting in Dublin city centre, housing rights researcher Emma Nic Shuibhne was confronted daily with Ireland’s housing crisis

15/05 The arithmetic of emigration: ‘For a moment, you can’t imagine why you’d go back’

It’s sad when the numbers say you’re better off leaving Ireland

13/05 ‘Did you see anyone you knew?’: An Irish emigrant peers into the New York-Dublin portal

The greatest illusion of this public art project persuades us that we can be in two places at once

13/05 ‘Dad has cancer’: the words felt wrong in my mouth, like I was lying

My parents weren’t supposed to get cancer for at least another 20 years. Not until I was back in Dublin and finished looking after small children

12/05 Selling Ireland to the Spanish: ‘The majority prefer to stay at home, so you need to offer a strong proposition’

Wild Geese: Susan Bolger works for Tourism Ireland in Madrid

08/05 The landlord asked where his ‘antique toilet brush’ was and demanded recompense from our deposit

‘When you own a house, you are allowed to live in it ... without worrying that the house is starting to look occupied’

06/05 An Irishman in Colombia: How my one-year adventure has turned into almost 15

Christopher Burke says his choice of where to live has baffled both his abroad and Colombian friends

05/05 My partner has embraced conspiracy theories and extreme political views

Ask Roe: He is a great person otherwise and I love him dearly. I desperately want him to revert to the person he was before leaving Ireland

02/05 ‘The goodbyes tear me apart and yet something instinctive pushes me back to sea - it’s where we belong’

Settling down scares Kate Ashe-Leonard more than crossing oceans

01/05 Laura Kennedy: ‘It’s hard to put my finger on what’s different about the atmosphere in this gym’

I shuffled into the gym that first day, hunched up and embarrassed, feeling puffy and conspicuous in my leggings

30/04 ‘Everyone missed chicken fillet rolls and spice bags... It was a eureka moment’- Irish staples on London’s food scene

This month Mark talks about life in Sweden; Patricia weighs up the benefits of returning to Ireland and Claire notices a lack of Friday after-work drinks in Munich

29/04 Irish harpist in London: ‘I wasn’t out on the rugged Beara Peninsula any more’

Tara Viscardi misses the landscape of home but is enjoying making sweet music in London

28/04 ‘This is a land that is all about giving people a go’

Wild Geese: Colm Hamrogue, Christchurch, New Zealand

25/04 The demon dementia has made me uncertain about the net benefit of being around my mother

When your parents enter their twilight years, particularly when one of those parents is dealing with dementia, emigrant offspring can face conflicts

24/04 How a pocket watch led an Australian man to discover his ancestors hailed from my Mayo home

Doolough Diaries: I’d like to tell you of the tale of Bob Bingham, who hadn’t a clue of his family connection to Ireland and their influence over a county until a recent quest for his heritage

24/04 Laura Kennedy: My heart is broken for want of an elusive spice bag

The essence of this delicacy will not be found in Foxrock, but in true multiculturalism — enterprising Chinese restaurant owners

21/04 Irish in Germany: ‘There’s a good appreciation of work-life balance’ but ‘in the beginning you can easily fall foul of the rules’

Wild Geese: Claire Molloy, Munich

18/04 ‘I have never met anyone called Fiadh in Australia’

Fiadh Molloy’s name may cause her problems in Australia, but she loves it because it connects her to Ireland

17/04 Laura Kennedy: Will I ever get used to having winter in August and Christmas in summer?

There’s no warm spicy beverage to comfort us while we pull our hats and gloves out of storage. Will the year ever stop feeling backwards here?

14/04 ‘Galway is a very cosmopolitan place. New York is that on a gargantuan scale. I like to say I traded one great city for another’

Wild Geese: Paul Finnegan, New York city

10/04 Tragedy and liberation of being an Irish emigrant in Australia is the separateness it lends you

Laura Kennedy in Australia: At home we take our sense of place for granted – when we emigrate, we have to create it

08/04 ‘I learned to hide my Irish accent, or at least to feel deeply ashamed of it’

He lives in west London now, but Ross Hoey says that whatever you think about the union, England will always feel like a different country

07/04 ‘The Swedes probably have a better work-life balance to what we have in Ireland’

Wild Geese: Mark Duffy, Stockholm

03/04 A guide for those left behind: four small things you can do after a loved one emigrates

If they were the person you’d send silly cat videos to before, keep sending them

02/04 Irish staples - the chicken fillet roll and spice bag - a sellout success in London

Emerald Eats has brought the magical preserve of delis and takeaways in Ireland across the Irish Sea

31/03 ‘It’s easy to move when your kids are young’

Wild Geese: John Casey, Singapore

31/03 Moving back to Wicklow: ‘I love being back in the seasons again because in Dubai it’s either hot or hotter’

Relocating from the Middle East to Wicklow may come with more domestic burdens, but interior designer Sharon Conneely-Donaldson is relishing the DIY jobs

28/03 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: ‘I left Harold’s Cross because I wanted financial freedom’

Give up a life in music in Seoul for a medical career; a new life in Sicily; and working on the stock exchange in London

27/03 We need the diaspora to remind us we can be a shower of almighty curmudgeons sometimes

Laura Kennedy: Our jealous grip on Irish identity at home is perhaps because half the world seems to lay claim to it

25/03 An Irishwoman in Marrakesh: ‘Many Moroccans are obsessed by Riverdance’

Down woman set up travel company Boutique Souk, then moved to Marrakesh and, with her French husband, transformed a rundown farm

24/03 Tapping into an ‘enjoyably relentless’ pace of life

Wild Geese: Rob Allen, London: ‘I was flat out dealing with the international media and helping to brief four-time Super Bowl champion Rob Gronkowski’

20/03 Facing into my first Australian autumn feels like winding down at the wrong time

I must remember that people do not emigrate to maintain their ‘before’ lives

18/03 Irishwoman in Sicily: I wanted a kind of financial freedom that wasn’t on offer to me in Ireland

Anna Waters left Dublin to live Palermo for a ‘kind of life available here that has been squeezed out of my home town’

17/03 ‘I laugh when people tell me they are suffering because of snow in Ireland’

Wild Geese: Jennifer Murray balances a career working with Tour America in Manitoba, Canada, with other business and personal interests

16/03 ‘So many Irish have come to Bavaria either to live permanently or to develop as a person’

Berlin may be political capital, but Munich is Germany’s boom town and Irish capital. Some Irish there would like to see the Dublin Government pay more attention

14/03 ‘Wouldn’t it also be wonderful in a few years to have a predominantly Irish women Oscar green wave?’

Silent Grace director Maeve Murphy is glad to celebrate the Irish women making and starring in movies

14/03 Patrick Freyne: 12 reasons why it hasn’t always been cool to be Irish

Young Irish people are growing up with an unreasonable sense of confidence. St Patrick’s weekend is an ideal chance to correct the record

13/03 Moving to Australia is a bit like a death. You are gone, departed, lost to those you leave behind

If Irish emigrants are honest, it is fair enough that loved ones at home feel rejected

12/03 Does it make sense to leave our Irish home to children living abroad?

Q&A: Sorting out property from overseas can be complex, especially compared to the tax certainty and flexibility of selling the property yourselves

11/03 An Irish ‘chancer’ abroad: I swapped TV stardom in Seoul to become a doctor

Neil Smith went from Greystones to South Korea and then to Bulgaria, where he his studying to become a doctor

10/03 Author of Kala Colin Walsh: ‘The financial crash scattered my friend group all over the world. A lot of people just didn’t come back’

The Irish writer says living abroad was an opportunity to see Ireland from a different angle

07/03 ‘Living abroad is a transformative experience that opens our eyes to new cultures, perspectives and opportunities’

Julie Gilbert loved living in the UAE, where the sand, hummus and convergence of different people made the Mayo woman happy

06/03 ‘Rain here is not the poetic, misty smattering we get at home… it’s aggressive, sudden and often unsettlingly warm’

Australians are inclined to run about in search of shelter to escape a downpour, but for those who hail from Ireland, such a deluge is grist to the mill

04/03 Bombings, beatings, anti-Irish racism, and dreaming of being an astronaut

Michael Flavin's novel One Small Step explores what it was like to be a young boy growing up in Birmingham’s Irish community in the mid 1970s in the aftermath of the pub bombings

29/02 ‘There is a strong awareness of Ireland in Mexico, visible in the country’s written history and built heritage’

We hear from Liz in Spain on her fertility journey; Adam who is baking cakes in Mexico; and Nicole about her life in New York

29/02 ‘The England I emigrated to in 2011 would have found the government’s Rwanda policy completely beyond the pale’

An independent Britain was supposed to be off the leash and on the lash – instead Irishman in Hackney Peter Flanagan is watching it veer to the right

26/02 Co Leitrim to Birmingham: Get the boat, get the start, get on

Tony Downey went from Yeats’s Faeryland to the ferry, but Dromahair will always have a place in his heart

25/02 ‘I feel I am in the centre of Europe. Once you live in a big city, it is difficult to move to a smaller place’

Wild Geese: Brian O’Farrell lives in Berlin and works in a recruitment agency to match applications with an employer

23/02 The day in 1827 when Irish women convicts broke through their Australian prison gates

The Irish female convicts who launched Australia’s first industrial action were starving

22/02 ‘Single and fabulously fertile was how I was. In a loving relationship and painfully infertile is how you find me’

'Single and fabulously fertile was how I was. In a loving relationship and painfully infertile is how you find me'

21/02 Mabel: the small, weird, taciturn cat friend who lives in my house

Everyone said we were mad to save her life and then to bring her to Australia, and so we were

19/02 ‘I am an avid slow-traveller - I will choose the bus, train or ferry over the speed of a plane’

Tipperary woman Phoebe Moore asks why, at a time of extreme eco-crisis, is the decision to take a ferry or a train so difficult - surely it should be rewarded?

18/02 Why many Irish people chose Vancouver to go for a holiday or a longer stay

With its many sports attractions, atmosphere of pleasant civility and thriving ex-pat community, this city is just the ticket for a holiday abroad or longer-term stay

18/02 ‘I had never really failed quite so badly at something before’: Irish writer Nicole Flattery on her New York life

The Westmeath author channelled a crushing Devil Wears Prada-like experience into her novel Nothing Special

15/02 ‘My partner and I are renting an apartment for the same price we were paying to share with five others in Dublin – and we’re 10 minutes from the beach’

A Meath man in Perth will never take air conditioning or being able to eat your lunch without swallowing some flies for granted, but he loves it there

14/02 These days, the emigration experience is both alien and familiar at the same time

The effects of growing globalisation make being somewhere else feel a little less of a shock

14/02 Four-thousand days and counting: ‘If you drink, your life expectancy is between one day and six months’

I am still amazed by the imbecility of people who know about my condition but nevertheless say: ‘Surely one little drink wouldn’t hurt you?’

12/02 The Irish ex-mayor of Ipswich: ‘When you move to the UK the difference in culture, humour and attitudes is obvious’

Mary Blake waved goodbye to her family in Artane when they moved to Ipswich. Little did she know she would join them and eventually become the town’s mayor

12/02 Bad Bridget: The haunting untold stories of the Irish women who sailed to the US for a better life but ended up in jail

Leanne McCormick and Elaine Farrell’s grim retellings detail harsh reality of immigrant life that was often heartbreaking and occasionally hilarious

11/02 ‘I’m from Tralee and I don’t get carried away by flaky fads in California’

Wild Geese: In the US, Margaret Faul has had pharma career opportunities she would never have had at home

07/02 Five months on, the truth is that I don’t know if I feel like I live in Australia yet

I wonder if this waiting is just how emigration feels

05/02 Baking and selling lemon drizzle cakes in Mexico was not in the plan

Adam Browne is an Irish baker in Mexico. He has always been a baker, but baking at altitude has been a challenge

04/02 The Irish woman opening the door for high-end brands in a Canadian city with a ‘fabulous quality of life’

Jane Hanrahan cofounded a brand-positioning consultancy in Toronto, where the Irish are viewed as hard-working, well educated and kindred spirits

02/02 The Irishman who walked from New York to San Francisco just to prove his rival wrong

In 1910, John Ennis beat the record set by Edward Payson Weston: ‘I’ve got a pair of good Irish legs, and I thought I could turn out as good or better a stunt myself’

01/02 Finn McRedmond: Ryan Tubridy’s London dilemma – what to do with the Irishness?

It would be far too easy to make his nationality central to his shtick, but that’s not how London works

31/01 ‘The Czech Republic has been good to me. It is a country that rewards entrepreneurship’

Having managed drinks brands for most of his career, Paul Dubsky has taken the plunge and will be releasing Ulysses Whiskey x Art

31/01 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: How do you raise Irish children abroad? Bringing ‘the púca and children who were turned into swans’ to Belgium

Elaine McGoldrick writes how nursing in Ireland drove her to Scotland; and amid rainy summer days Laura Kennedy observes how Australians are tougher than the Irish

31/01 ‘Emigrating is one of those life-changing experiences that represent a change from which you can never return’

Laura Kennedy: Every emigrant has a little of Joyce in them — the longing for home and awareness of why some leave

29/01 ‘Influencing my decision to emigrate was the fact it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage 12-hour nursing shifts’

I feel there is a half of my heart in Scotland and half in Ireland, says Elaine McGoldrick

25/01 ‘I love sitting by a campfire till 2am drinking a glass of wine, listening to lions roaring in the distance’

Eddie Ennis moved from Marino to South Africa aged 24 and voted in the 1992 referendum to end apartheid

24/01 ‘Australian people are tougher than we are. They just are’

A country of extremes requires residents to become durable and versatile in ways we cannot imagine in Ireland

22/01 Raising Irish children abroad: ‘They made me re-evaluate my own attitude to Ireland’

Reading stories made my children curious about their Irish heritage, about which they knew little

21/01 An Irish comedian in New York: ‘I wouldn’t have done stand-up in Ireland, because everyone’s funny there’

Wild Geese: Katie Boyle also ‘wouldn’t have had the confidence. I’d have been mortified’

20/01 ‘It’s an easy place to live’: Meet the growing band of Irish artists at the top of their game in Berlin

Many Irish artists have moved to Germany. A new culture programme, Zeitgeist Irland 24, aims to promote their work over the next year

18/01 ‘The things some married pilots say to get you into bed’

The wife thinks her pilot husband is in a hotel room in Bangkok, pining away. My cabin crew experience is different - and I’ve heard every excuse out there

17/01 Thousands of young Irish are not ‘choosing to leave for the craic’

Laura Kennedy: More than 21,000 of Ireland’s young people received working holiday visas between July 2022 and June 2023. Apparently, this the highest recorded figure in 16 years

15/01 The Belfast film-maker who was Shane MacGowan’s cleaner in London

The Irish in England loved him. And many English in England loved him also

14/01 ‘When you are Irish, there’s a red carpet out for you in this town’

Recruitment consultant Catherine Flood has devoted much of her life to helping Irish people get a start in New York

04/01 My 9-year-old daughter has opportunities in Luxembourg she wouldn’t have in Ireland

Dubliner Darren Gorman thinks being immersed in different cultures and languages at an age when learning is easier is great for his daughter

28/12 A snapshot of house prices in five cities around the world and how they compare to Ireland

Tight supply and a shortage of affordable housing are common themes despite recent cooling of prices in several markets

26/12 Connecting returned emigrants with mentors who can help bridge knowledge gaps in business

Colin MacAndrias moved from London back to Dublin with his wife and children just two and a half years ago, after he lived abroad for over 25 years

25/12 My first Christmas away from home, I wore nothing but a hat and sunscreen on a beach with two new friends

Rosita Boland reflects on two very different Christmases in far away places

24/12 The most-read stories of 2023: From the deaths of Irish musical heroes to riots in the capital

IT Sunday: Death of Sinéad O’Connor, Dublin riots and RTÉ pay scandal were just some of the stories to hold readers’ attention this year

24/12 Laura Kennedy: It’ll be lonely this Christmas - for many more of us than we like to pretend

This is a time that drags every ‘should’ and ‘ought’ you’ve stored away to the forefront of your mind. The relationships you don’t have. The ones you have but feel alone in. The people whose chairs will be empty

24/12 Our son’s preschool – cost: €30 a month – welcomed us with open arms, not a waiting list

My husband and I met in Dublin, then moved to Hungary, his home country. I can give you 10 reasons why we’re staying put

22/12 ‘It will not feel the same as it did at home because I am not at home’ - Stories about Christmas from around the world

Kate Ashe-Leonard wrote about Christmas on a sailboat; we heard expectations of what Christmas would be like in Australia from Laura Kennedy; and Jane spoke about her trip home into Dublin Airport

22/12 ‘Working in hotels just seemed a hell of a lot nicer than being a farmer’

Wild Geese: Peter Clarke, Atlanta

22/12 I was born in a mother and baby home. The nuns wanted Mammy to sign adoption papers

When I went blind I was sent to a residential school, but I was determined not to live down to people’s expectations

21/12 An Irish flight attendant’s five passengers of Christmas: from Little Miss Last-Minute to Laid-back Johnny

Flying back to Ireland for Christmas? What type of passenger are you?

14/12 Dublin man a rising star in Australian insurance industry

Wild Geese: Tom Hatton — followed the well-worn path of many Irish ex-pats before him, heading for Sydney

10/12 ‘There have been Sundays when I wished I could just sit on the couch and look out the window at the rain’

Wild Geese: Andrew Fitzgerald, San Diego

30/11 Irish Times Abroad newsletter: After the Dublin riot ‘suddenly everyone has views on Ireland’

Laura Kennedy writes about experiencing the unrest from a distance in Australia while Claudia Smith tells of moving to Parma for a job opportunity

29/11 The Galway woman who went to Trinidad a teacher, but died a heroine

Extraordinary Emigrants: Kay Donnellan was a ‘valiant daughter of the Irish countryside’ who fought for the emancipation of the people of Trinidad

29/11 ‘This is a difficult time to be Irish, no matter where you live’

It has been unpleasant to witness from Australia, though I can’t imagine it has been less so closer to home

29/11 ‘This is a difficult time to be Irish, no matter where you live’

It has been unpleasant to witness from Australia, though I can’t imagine it has been less so closer to home

26/11 ‘With my surname, everyone assumed I was German and fluent in the language. I hadn’t a word’

Wild Geese: Steven Stein, Barcelona

22/11 The emotional toll of living so far away: ‘Someday, something dreadful will happen to one of those at home I love’

The price emigrants pay for eluding some of the challenges of family is being on the outside

19/11 An Irish lawyer in New York: ‘NY demands your full commitment to work. It suits me’

Michelle Oliver’s decision to move to New York when she qualified from UCD turned out to be the easy part

14/11 Laura Kennedy: Choosing to live elsewhere is indeed a rejection of Ireland

Irish people have a complex relationship with our home country - a bit like my relationship with my brother

13/11 From Ireland to Italy: Trying to do a ‘big shop’ in the local supermarket was when we really noticed the differences

Claudia Smith loves life in Parma and has embraced the food culture there

12/11 The Dublin chef who got his big US break on Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen

From ‘terrorising’ the streets of Rathfarnham as a youngster to finishing third on Hell’s Kitchen, Irish chef Declan Horgan has had a culinary career spanning 25 years

06/11 The Irish journalist who became the ‘most dependable evaluator of military strategy’

Extraordinary Emigrants: Dublin-born journalist James O’Kelly reported from Cuba on an uprising against Spanish colonial rule

06/11 What you need to know about moving to Britain

What exactly what do you need to know before moving across the Irish Sea?

05/11 Conference calls from the Cayman Islands can feature chickens

Kennedy has no plans to return to Ireland in the foreseeable future and has no regrets about the decision to move there

29/10 ‘Austin is known for being the blueberry in the tomato soup of Texas’

Wild Geese: Eoin Sorohan’s adopted home city is an oasis of liberalism in the Lone Star State