| Background: Spend most of my life in America, growing up mostly in So. California. Went to Dublin to work for 2 years between '06-'08. I came back right when the financial crisis hit in '08. Good things about Ireland.
It is beautiful when it is not cloudy. The people here are very easy to talk to if you want to have a bit of a chat. If you want to go visit Europe, flights are cheap. Bad things
Expensive, especially electronics and food. I believe the rent's dropped since the economic crisis but that was pretty expensive too. There isn't much to do besides drink.
Food is terrible. I heard it's gotten better but if you've lived in SF or LA and you love food, don't work in Ireland. There were a nice row of Chinese places on Parnell that were pretty good though. Customer service is shite. It rains a lot, which isn't too bad since most of the time it's a light drizzle but then it's always cloudy. The worst part though is the winds that usually comes with the heavy rain as it makes it difficult to carry an umbrella since they'd just break. Banks open from 10-4 with an hour lunch break during that time (where they'd completely close down) and on some days they'd open half an hour later for "training." When I was there none of the banks were open weekends, with a new bank that was opening up advertising, "OPEN ON SAT" as a benefit of their bank. I didn't have a car and my work was too far from a bank so it was a pain to do any kind of banking that required me to head down there. This makes it sound like I had a rough time in Dublin, honestly it was pretty fun and enjoyable for the most part. All the bad points are pretty minor but having to deal with it day in day out was not fun. |
I'd like to dispute this, there are some excellent fine restaurants in Dublin. They may be harder to find against the high background noise of fast food joints, but the same is true for all north American cities too.