Few countries conjure the kind of romantic images that Ireland does.
The mind immediately fills with visions of rolling green hills and quaint villages, like the pictures you've seen on innumerable postcards and travel magazine pages. Ireland also evokes the idea of simpler times and slower living.
But is Ireland really like that?
Well, it certainly is in County Donegal, right at the northern tip of the island.
When Barney Hutson, 69, and his wife, Ruth, 47, first decided to move to Ireland from Los Osos on the central California coast, they didn't quite know how things would turn out.
They chose the town of Letterkenny to settle in, but even then, they wondered what they should reasonably expect from the country.
Most people considering a move to Ireland share the same basic concerns.
The cost of living in Ireland is relatively high, the largely rural country can be inconvenient at times, and many fear a culture barrier.
When they did their research before their move, Barney and Ruth were unsure how to mitigate these factors, and even now they admit it took them about a year to fully figure some of these things out.
But a significant positive factor is that they didn't have to deal with a language barrier, and the learning process was an adventure.
One big early concern was visas. "The Irish immigration service was difficult to understand at first," Ruth says, "The requirements for the different visas are not laid out specifically. And most of them need to be renewed yearly."
What surprised the Hutsons were the costs that they never had to consider in California. For example, heating was never an issue when they lived in the US, but because even the southernmost point of Ireland is on a similar latitude to Newfoundland, Canada, it's necessary to have some sort of central heating system to be comfortable in winter. (Although, snow is very rare in Ireland, thanks to the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream current that influences the climate.)
"We ran the furnace only about twice a year in California," Barney says. So, when they moved to Ireland in September, they were caught off guard by just how much it cost to keep the house warm. Nevertheless, they found a particularly local workaround to lower costs.
Letterkenny, where Ruth and Barney live, is only half an hour's drive from Strabane, the closest town in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. It's here that many from the Republic buy kerosene for home-heating and certain foods that are cheaper on that side of the border.
"We buy ground turkey, wine, and shampoo at the Asda supermarket in Strabane, along with some other groceries," Ruth says. Asda is a chain owned by Walmart.
For shopping locally, they realized that not all local grocery stores had the same prices for the same items. German supermarket chains Lidl and Aldi, though they at first seemed interchangeable, have different discounts at different times. Ruth, being the main cook in the house, keeps a close eye on what is on offer, and when.
But, overall, groceries have proven to be cheaper in Donegal than in California. As has rent. Where a three-bedroom house in Los Osos might go for $1,200 to $1,500, the Hutsons pay the equivalent of $730 a month for the same type of house.
Out in the countryside or in smaller towns, houses go for even less. With the money they made when they sold their California home, along with Barney's Social Security payments, the Hutsons manage well in Ireland.
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