Our three top picks for houses

After we made the decision to move to Ireland, we had to find a place to live. This sounded easy. I went to www.daft.ie and started looking at houses. I narrowed the number of houses to look at to 810 by having already decided on an approximate location. We eliminated...

• Dublin - much too expensive and no space to breathe
• The West Coast - similar to the West Coast of the US, the weather is severe and eventually climate change will destroy portions of it
• Cork - this is a bustling city filled with young families and industry
• The Southeast Coast - horse country; we are not horse people

We started looking at houses in July 2020. The number of houses I viewed online confirmed our selection in the very center of Ireland. I spent 19 days in Ireland in September 2020, 14 of them in self-isolation in a hotel. Then I started visiting houses. 

This is the first house we both swooned over. Look at it! A swimming pool and 1.5 acres of good Irish land. It was our first pick as the perfect house. 

Alas, there was a problem. The owners did not obtain a permit before installing the pool. A review by the Planning Commission was needed. They would spend two months deliberating whether to allow the pool to remain on the property or to remove it or to modify it. We were heartbroken but forged on. In April 2021, we learned that the Planning Commission ruled that a hazmat team was needed to empty the pool. The owners then needed to have it professionally cleaned and refilled by another hazmat team. We let out a huge sigh of relief. 

The second place we fell in love sat on a gentle rise on 1.6 acres and had a killer floor plan. All the public rooms were in the front of the house while all the private rooms sat in the back. The areas were separated by a breezeway. Again, sounds like heaven, no?

Well, it did sound like heaven, but when something seems too good to be true, it generally is. This property is owned by a gentleman who resides in England. The home is surrounded by five other homes, all owned by siblings or relatives. All five of them had to agree to cede land to the seller because the folio (land drawing) revealed that the seller did not own the land where the driveway is. If we purchased this home, we would be "the Americans who forced all the Rs to give up their land". And we'd be living right in the middle of the clan. Our solicitor warned us that we were treading on precarious ground. We backed out. 

I had been looking at the house below for months and could not get a good sense of the approach or the neighborhood. Our Irish angel (Hugh, our accountant here) and his wife, Eileen, drove down from Tullamore to visit. Hugh declared it a fine house, a description reserved for the top 5% of Irish houses. We entered contract negotiations and immediately hit a snag. 

The garage for this property was not built in the location where it was approved to be positioned. During the build process in 2007, the owner decided he wanted something bigger than approved and on the other side of the house. The dreaded Planning Commission came into play again. This time, the possible outcomes were a) do nothing/approve, b) require that it be torn down, or c) modify the building. 

By this point, we had been living in a small condo in Virginia since October 2020. It was now December. Our house in Virginia was sold and pending closing. Our dog was 16 years old and rapidly losing steam. We were tired, discouraged, and so sad that we could not find a place for the four of us. We decided to move ahead with this house. 

It took an additional four months to close on the property and be ready to move. We spent those months in our cramped condo. Our beloved poodle died in February. It took a month to schedule and prep our cat for transit. We packed suitcase after suitcase. We watched the Irish COVID guidelines change multiple times for people from "designated countries". The United States went on the redlist of designated countries a few weeks before our planned departure. We pushed on and started to obtain our cat's customs clearance (cats can only fly on Mondays into Dublin) and our COVID vaccinations. Two weeks before we left, the quarantine hotel regulation was lifted for fully vaccinated people. I achieved fully-vaccinated-plus-one-day status on the morning of our arrival. Thomas had one day more than I.

It's Thursday afternoon. We arrived at the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning. We have checked the following off our To Do list. 

• met our amazing accountant, Hugh, and his wife, Eileen
• been to town three times for groceries, wine, and miscellaneous items
• gotten an Irish mobile phone
• arranged for trash and recycling pickup
• purchased a toaster, water kettle, iron, immersion blender, TV, and stove (interesting list)
• spent two hours with the previous owner to review how all the heating systems work
• met with a water treatment system specialist
• scheduled a meeting with the painting team to update the interior
• had the keys to the house and garage changed

When I look out the kitchen window, I see a field of cows. They belong to Paddy. His brother, Willie, lives on the other side of us. He has donkeys in the back yard. It seems like we've lived here forever and simultaneously just arrived. 

Sláinte! 

Why we moved to Ireland

This is a question we have been asked numerous times since we made the decision to move. Sometimes, it's phrased as, "Are you sure this is what you want?" or "Why Ireland?" or "Why not just get away from DC?". 

We chose to move to rural Ireland because...

• it is a slower-paced lifestyle 
• the rural life is familiar to Thomas
• we speak about 85% of the language
• we both have Irish ancestors
• it was a sneaky way of getting Thomas to retire
• we want to live in a peaceful country 

Once we made the decision in July 2020, it became my job to get us here. I immediately purchased a subscription to a project management tool because that is within my comfort zone. Leaving the United States involved untold hours of research on whether we could move to Ireland. There are a number of immigration schemes (scheme is Irish for method). We found one that matched our motives and pocketbook. 

Next came the truly heartbreaking decision to sell our home of 20 years in Arlington, Virginia. We had "bought" the house three times if you count the renovations and upgrades we underwent over those two decades. We added a four-car garage, gutted and rebuilt the interior, and added a sunroom in three separate construction projects, each of which left us thrilled and exhausted. Despite our deep emotional attachment to our home, our decision to sell did not change. 

We considered how difficult it would be physically for us to move. Thomas is 70 and I am 67 years old. To move anywhere other than a retirement community seemed daunting enough, but to move to a foreign country? We are unconventional people. This was typical for us. Also, we completely underestimated the difficulty of moving two senior people, one deaf senior dog, and one cat to another country in the middle of a global pandemic. I had only lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Arlington, Virginia, throughout my life. Thomas has lived in more places and was raised in a semi-rural environment in upstate New York, so this was marginally less traumatic for him. We reminded ourselves that when we team up, we are unstoppable. 

After nine months, thousands of emails, dozens of phone calls, seven months spent in a cramped condo while our house was sold and our lives were shipped to Dublin and stored, we have arrived in Ireland. We bought a house sight unseen - we saw photos of it online. We established strong bonds with our accountant and solicitor, who guided us through the home purchase and move processes (see my next post about Irish houses). We lost our dog to old age in February, so only three of us made the final trip. But we made it. Together, we are unstoppable. We are standing side by side in our kitchen, Thomas researching water softening systems and me typing this post. We are content in our empty house with ourselves and our cat. We belong here. 

Sláinte!