Hi everyone, I'm happy to say that, after a lot of searching, we've finally secured a flat in Tralee. Included in our "things to do" list, once we're moved in, is finding out about healthcare. I'm a UK/CAN citizen (as is my son), but my wife is only Canadian. I imagine that, once I find employment and start exersising my treaty rights, my wife can then apply for a residence card, and then a medical card, and then she will be covered by the Irish healthcare System. Am I correct? I will also have to obtain a medical card, from what I understand. As will our son. Where do you suggest we start with this process? Doctor's office? Hospital? Somewhere else completely? Thanks.

Kate - thanks! I think this is so important to know for people moving to Ireland. The Catholic WAy of life that WAs so deeply ingrained in Irish culture for so long still has a hold over the school System. Like it or not, it's a reality, and good to know in advance. It's probably also good to know that you can't just check the 'Catholic' box to pass through. On the application forms I've seen they require proof in the form of a baptismal cert, which if you do have, you should have ready to show.

It is different. You can sleep easy knowing your daughter is doing well 🙂 I remember when I first went to the states and it WAs all about A's and B's. I WAs almost embarrassed to mention that I got plenty of C's. If you look at the Leaving Cert grading System (and points), you would qualify for a whole host of college courses with a score of 400 (highest = 600). That's an average of a C2 I think. That would get you into most engineering/science courses, but definitely exclude you from the likes of medicine/law/accountancy etc. To consistently get A's is ...

@megmegu Hi Meg and family. Great to have you here 🙂 There's a Lucan in Dublin also. Maybe an option 🙂 Just an FYI for now, as I'm sure we'll converse more as time passes, but there are plenty of other great universities in Ireland outside Dublin. Cork, Limerick, Galway all have good options. It's cool you've given yourself so much time to plan. Do you hope to get over to visit a couple of times between now and then to scout out options? I'm sure schools too will have a bearing on where you end up. The irish school System is great, so your daughter will be well set. Looking forward to hearing more from you and Shannon as things take shape.

... trying to get a kid into school for the first time age 4/5. There's a ridiculous WAiting list System that most schools have, whereby kids are registered at birth, and by the time they're school age, they may no longer even be living in the area. Try the links on this page for info If you click through to individual schools, you'll see some have pretty good parent survey info, as well as some school inspection reports. The data might be a little old in some cases, but it's still useful. Meeting people locally is a good WAy to get looped in. Or there may ...

... live anywhere as our work is freelance type stuff which we could do anywhere (although I need to be able to fly to England about once a month for a few days). So we could basically choose any area to live in, the most important factor is meeting our son's needs. We do not WAnt to live right in a city. I have plenty of experience of negotiating the SN education System in England, but am not sure how it all works in Ireland. How easy or feasible would it be to pick a school, move to very near to it, and apply to get into it? If we made the huge decision to ...

While I don't have prior experience with this topic, selling one's old car and buying a car in Ireland seems like the obvious choice. Yes, vehicles are more expensive in Ireland (though there is a good-sized used market), but the cost of shipping is huge. And once it's there, you have the driver side on the opposite of every other driver, which might make adapting to left-side driving that much harder and perhaps entail other safety issues. There might be other issues with Irish vehicle regulations as well and may need some modification, and Ireland has a very punitive System of taxes and fees for vehicles that are too old, don't meet their fuel efficiency standards, etc. My advice - sell your car in the US, immediately get to the task of shopping for a new vehicle (and setting up an Irish bank account), and simply rent a car to fill the gap. (This is what I plan on doing.) If you have a credit card with a sufficient limit, you should have no problem with finding a rental.

... allows us to live here for 5 years. The Maltese immigration System is very straightforward. Anyone who WAnts to exercise their EU movement rights should consider here. English is also an official language here which makes it easy to settle into. If anyone has any questions about Malta seperately you can pm me. However, the advice I am looking for now is moving to Ireland. I WAnt to move back home and we will apply for permission to remain under EU treaty rights due to the fact that I can be considered an EU citizen who instead of an Irish citizen (thank ...

We are currently in the process of seriously considering a move to Ireland, and of course the biggest concern is the how ny girls will fit in with the education System and where. Based upon their current grapples with our indigenous languages and reminiscing back to my grapples it seems that genetically we are not very gifted when it comes to languages! I am thus concerned at the prospect of them learning a language at a very late stage in their education (Will be 15 and 13 when we start in 2016/2017). I have read that after 12 you may get a concession to not do Irish language in school. While I am all for fitting in 100% this would take a huge burden of their shoulders .Can anyone confirm this?

Hi Liam, We spoke to a hygienist in Ireland and she said the field is growing. My husband has to take the Ireland board exam which is offered once a year. He called the dental council and they said they haven't offered the test in a few years because of lack of demand, but will have one next year. GIS stands for geographical information System. In a nutshell it's mapping. I'm currently a contractor at Apple in Cupertino, Ca with their maps team. Going in 1 year next month. I recently applied for a GIS maps position at their Cork office (fingers crossed). Google also has a maps team in Dublin. Utilities like EBS have GIS