Hello,
My name is Robert Scally. I am a dual citizen of the US and Ireland but have never lived in Ireland.
I have no direct connection to any possible family in Ireland. However, thanks to family lore and gathering the documents for citizenship I know my grandparents and their parents came from the southwest section of County Roscommon near the borders of Counties Mayo and Galway.
Since a month-long visit in March 2019 I have been researching moving to Ireland. Were it not for Covid we would have been back for several weeks during each of the past two years, but now have a six-week journey planned for this fall.
This may sound crazy, but I loved Ireland so much that my wife and I are seriously considering relocating from San Diego, Calif.
Both us are professional writers, photographers and video markers. As such we would not be looking for employment with any companies in Ireland.
We own Calif. real estate that has appreciated beyond our wildest dreams. Any real estate purchase in Ireland would be all cash.
We will reach retirement age in two years, but do not plan to stop writing and creating.
During our last trip we visited 22 of the 31 counties and drove more than 2,500 km.
This visit our goal is to see the remaining counties and venture off the beaten paths as much as possible, partly to see where we might like to live. We know that we do not want to live in Dublin, mainly because of the expense and the fact we have already lived in large urban areas in US.
Since I've been a member here for all of two days, I have already found this site to be an excellent resource.
in the upcoming months I am certain I will have plenty of questions about the ins and outs of relocating to Ireland.
@joemac Hi Joe,
My husband and I are also U.S. citizens and pursuing a very similar path. We too are in the beginning steps for submitting our application for a Retirement Visa. I believe I can gather most of the information required to submit the initial permission but I have been unsuccessful so far locating an Irish accountant to verify our finances. Our dream is to purchase a small parcel so I am working with a real estate agent and solicitor. The solicitor has referred me to an accountant but I have been unsuccessful in communicating with them. I wondered if you have had any luck.
We will be in Ireland in March, 2022 so had hoped to meet with an accountant then.
I would love to hear about your success and would love to share my experiences and provide any helpful tips I learn in the process.
Good luck and I hope to learn from your experience.
Regards,
Stephanie Ferguson
Hi Stephanie,
I wish I had more to report at this point but we had some unforeseen family matters come up and I have made very little progress on the collection of information needed for the Stamp 0 application. Previously, I started to collect my financial documents and also had discussions with my medical insurance company about long term international travel but these are all preliminary at this point.
However, and more specifically to your question I did look over all of the applicable posts in the forum and found one message I saved for future reference and this may be of help to you. The message mentioned Quintas Accountancy Firm in Cork (www.quintas.ie 021 4641400) and based on the message Quintas is well versed in the application process and is willing to help with the visa application for about 500 Euro.
I will be getting back to my application very soon and will also post a series of questions for the forum members to consider. I also intend to post about what I find and/or experience during the process but that is probably a couple of months away.
Please keep me posed if you have success with Quintas as I will also be reaching out to them in a few weeks.
Best regards,
Joe
Joe,
Thank you very much for the information. I have reached out to Quintas and am hopeful for a response. I anticipate this is the beginning of a long process. I will keep you posted of what I learn along the way.
Hello everyone!
My name is Faith. I currently live in the U.S. in Dallas, Texas and I want to move to Ireland with my husband and two young daughters (7 years old and 5 months old). It’s something we have been talking about for about 8 years and we are finally ready to actually do it. I’ve been to Ireland 3 times and my husband has been there twice. We both love it. Now we just have to figure out how to make our dream a reality.
So glad to have found this group. My husband and I are hoping to retire to Ireland. My great grandfather was born in Ireland so have always dreamed of living there and experiencing a bit of his life there. We currently live in Canada. This whole process is rather overwhelming but grateful for the ton of information. My adult children are hoping to also move to Ireland so we'll have to see first if they can find jobs. We are a very close family so wouldn't like to move without them.
Hello Xenoiphile.
Yeah, pretty quiet around here. I think covid more or less killed this site.
I too am planning a move to Ireland from the West Coast (San Diego).
My circumstances and timelines are bit different from yours. We're retiring, I'm an Irish citizen who has never lived in Ireland.
We are hoping to make our move in 2024.
I've dug through the old forums here and learned some useful things.
Although we are retiring, my wife and I are writers and thus bringing our craft with us, so we don't have the employment aspect to worry about.
I'm going to Ireland for two months this fall to see the rest of country I've not already seen and to scope out potential places to live.
If I can help in any way please stay in touch. I am interested to see how your move turns out.
Good luck,
Robert Scally
@rdscally thanks Robert! And yes, good luck to you both as well - would love to hear where you think you’ll end up. 🤗
@xenophile thanks for the reply. I at least know I'm not alone here.
If it's OK, I'll check in with you next spring and see how your move is going.
From my research from afar, County Limerick and Limerick city will be my focus for looking for a place to live when I'm in Ireland this fall. But other than Dublin and probably Cork City (both too expensive), I'm not ruling any area out.
I'm hoping COVID stays more or less under control and the global economy doesn't fall apart. Big dreams, I know.
Slan, more good luck to your family.
--Robert