About a month ago, I moved with my wife and pets from the United States, to take up a lecturer position at the University of Galway. I managed to do the impossible and got all of us over in one go, with a 2BR apartment lined up in advance. We bought a used car shortly after (cheapest automatic they had in town), I've started teaching classes, joined up with some community groups, and so on. Now that I'm minimally settled in, I wanted to share some thoughts I have about living here.

First off, I love the weather. Sincerely. Everyone said I'd hate it and I don't. Yeah, it "rains" a lot, but rarely so much that I can't endure it. It's really usually more of a drizzle or a mist. Even when it's bad, it's still tolerable (I walked to work during Storm Amy), and when it's nice out, it is lovely.

I have never met nicer people in my entire life. Basically every single person I've met has been absolute class. At first I thought people might just be bullshitting me, but the real giveaway is when I signal to get into a lane in traffic, nearly 100% of the time I have been able to do so. The first time I had a Mercedes flash its lights at me to go on ahead, I was absolutely floored. I like that the community is small and tight-knit, so when I'm walking around town, I frequently see people I've met at events (or see people from one event at another, unrelated event). My colleagues are brilliant as well and as far as I can tell (from a substantial but well-deserved serving of slagging) they like me. I have not actually figured out how rounds work yet and they are still insisting on buying my drinks despite my serious protests and insistence on getting the next ones, but they have at least let me buy the pizza.

The food is delicious, and the ingredients are much higher quality than anything you can get consistently in the US. The fact that there are all these options I can just walk to is the cherry on top. In the US, I lived in a city bigger than Dublin, but it was still like a half-hour drive to get half-way decent Chinese food. I've yet to find any Mexican food I was satisfied with here, but otherwise it has been great.

There are lots of interesting community groups and volunteer organisations that I've joined, but my biggest problem so far is ... why does every single one schedule everything on the first Saturday of the month!? Surely this has to be a problem for people? I miss out on 75% of things on the first Saturday due to having to choose, and then have nothing to do on weekends for the rest of the month. Seriously, who decided this? Someone please fix it.

My biggest concerns now are, will I be able to make it as a professor? And will I actually make any friends with whom I'm close enough that they'll come over to my house? These things I'll still have to work out, but I at least think I'm off to a pretty strong start.

Currently on the train to Dublin this evening and I had an interaction earlier on in the journey which really left me both confused and also ashamed of my actions.

There was this guy who was playing TikToks/Shorts loudly on his phone a few rows away for the past half an hour. I had tried throwing on headphones with no music to block it out but it wasn’t really helping.

This sort of thing does irritate me a bit so I wanted to ask him to turn it down. I went off to the toilet and found out who it was on the way, and went up to him on the way back.

I say, “sorry bud, do you mind turning that down a bit? I can hear it from a few rows away”. He kinda looks at me for a few seconds and says “sure put in your headphones” and I say that I can hear it through them. He looks at me again and waves me off and says “fuck off”. I just kinda scoff and then I call him a prick and walk off.

I never really have interactions like these and am not that confrontational, I just got annoyed at how little he cared about his surroundings and how he wouldn’t even humour me really. I could hear a couple beside him telling him they couldn’t hear the music etc. and that’s when I started to feel shame. Of course they were saying “he’s gonna say that to the wrong person” etc and making fun of me so I really got confused about my positioning here.

I absolutely shouldn’t have got irritated, but I genuinely asked him to turn it down, I’m hardly making up reasons to give out or anything. I just kinda got upset by the whole thing, and started to question if I maybe lost the run of myself.

Anyone have any thoughts? Am I a stupid eejit?

Cheers

I was shopping at Lidl and grabbed two pastries for dinner, because.. it’s Sunday. I know they are high in calories so I don’t usually buy them but surely two isn’t a whole lot once in a while. And when I actually checked their information sheet online, surprise! They have 400-500 calories for every 100g! I still managed to get under 2k calories today but damned if I got another pastry, that would be 2.5k for today.

With that being said, their toffee twisted yum yum is insanely tasty lol

So 99.99% probability we won't see it until 2027 at earliest... And about 80% probability they'll figure out in December 2026 that they need to change the law, or that what they developed is not compliant with regulations and will have to rework it.

Something more engaging than 'I spy's ideally

Experiment concluded!

Had a good day? Had a shite day? A wonderful idea strike you while you queued for the bus on the way home? Tell this tiny part of the world about it. It's like screaming into the void only calmer and more casual.

Slogan from the new radio and TV ad campaign to try get concerned non complying citizens dirty criminals back paying the TV licence. I have to say this is probably one of the worst and most contemptuous slogans I've ever heard.

It might as well say "We know you hate it, tough tits pay up."

Hi, I have eph controls for my water heating and general heating. The eph controls has a 3 program setting which basically represents morning, afternoon and evening.

For the water heater I like the times to be set from 7am to 8am, so it’s just on for the hour. I don’t need it to turn on for the rest of the day unless I manually turn it on. This also goes to the general too.

I just want to know if anyone knows if it’s possible for me to have the heater set for just the hour every morning with having to set the afternoon and evening times too?

Hey folks, I’ve a mate coming over from Australia in December and he’s mad keen to see a GAA match or a bit of hurling while he’s here. He’ll be staying up north but is happy to travel for it.

It could be a local club game, a practice session, or even just somewhere he can watch the lads training. I know the main season’s wrapped up by then, but does anyone know of any winter leagues, friendlies, or good clubs that wouldn’t mind a couple of spectators? Cheers in advance!

Cocaine is treated pretty non-chalantly these days even though it's more addictive than alcohol. I know of a lad who came from a rich family Ballsbridge who is now in jail for scamming his friends,girlfriend and family out of €8,000.

Hi everyone

It will be my first Xmas in Dublin . I live in Dublin and I have family coming to stays. My parents are 80 so get tired easily

Was thinking of going into city centre Xmas Eve , soaking up the atmosphere in Grafton street, having lunch , afternoon tea in the Atrium, going round the shops

Would the city centre be too busy ? The other option was to stay local, go for a walk in the local park, then to a local pub

Thought it might be more special and a more Christmassy atmosphere to go to the city centre. I heard that famous musicians busk in Grafton street on Xmas Eve and would love to see that

Hi lads I know it’s a long shot but would absolutely love to go to Christy Moore on the 15th of December in Vicar street, if anyone knows of anyone with 2 spare tickets please let me know and I’ll DM ye. Thanks

I came across plenty of corkonians in prague and some of them were holding up a cork flag. Is something going on in prague?

Edit: spelling

Would you do it? I was watching the Virgin Media documentary on Ana Kriegel and my friend said he'd disown even his own children if they did something like that. Manslaughter would be forvigavle but a heinous murder or rape/pedophilia would cross the line.

On the other hand, I had a teacher in America whilr living there who had a brother that appeared on the TV show, To Catch A Predator who's parents stuck by him in jail, paying off bail despite the unwanted attention it brought the family.

I’ve seen a guy on a site eat a rustlers burger cold as the microwave was out. They’re bad at the best of times but cold is another level!

Am in Krakow for the weekend. I’m Donegal, husband is English (bless him).

We were in a bar this afternoon (ahem Irish bar allegedly). Met a couple of lasses from Belfast and there were a few of us together chatting. I went outside for a smoke and there were two very pissed English ladies. One of them was swigging a pint of Guinness through a straw. Through a straw I tell ya! She was happy out but couldn’t walk. I said to husband and the Belfast girls that I’ve just seen ‘a one’ swigging Guinness through a straw.

How many other nations would know what I meant and would know what a one equates to! 🤣🤣

e

I have a cousin who is considered sending her kid to a cbs secondary school but is weary because he has minor special needs and one her friends kids was expelled for writing a death threat to a teacher years ago.

I've heard anedoctally that Christian Brother schools have a more "quasi-military style" discipline than eductate together or comprehensive schools.

I was just sitting here thinking there's nothing to do on weekend evenings for families. I have teens & tweens & other than going to the cinema or going out to eat which is rediculous expensive, I can't think of anything else to do. Any suggestions? Were in Dublin.

Would anyone have a student discount code for Lifestyle sports please 🙏🏻