My late wife’s father was born in Ireland, and at one time we started looking into doing the paperwork to get her registered as an Irish citizen. We never followed up on it, partly because of the difficulty we were running into getting her father’s Irish birth certificate. We did, however, find out that if we get her registered as an Irish citizen I could also get registered as her spouse.
If I were to follow up on it now, I’m wondering whether I would be able to move to Ireland. I’m retired with a federal pension, which I’m pretty sure I could continue to receive. The question is, could I afford to live there?
My brother had already gotten an Irish Passport for himself and his daughter. Not his American no-Irish wife, though they have not resided in Ireland - if that even helps. You’re retired, I presume your wife is. Retiring in Ireland might be rather easy so long as you have some funds. You certainly can receive your pension or social security. It will need to be converted into Euros and the dollar is weakening (for some geopolitical reasons) against the Euro.
ETA: meant to tag in their about my brother having done it - needed my mother’s birth certificate, wedding certificate to explain how her surname changed, my birth certificate and someone of honour to sign for me: A banker, cop or priest. None of the first two felt inclined, yet I found a nice Presbyterian minister who vouched that my photos were photos of me.
It did not matter in my case - one might imagine in 2015 an American would have an easier go with getting a spousal resident-type visa in Ireland, yet that was not the case. And it certainly was not the case for a Russian citizen. Nor would it have been if I were in New York. Expensive immigration lawyers and fees ($2500 or so).
Again, in your case if you get an Irish passport you can live and work in most of the EU. I am unsure if your wife can indefinitely live with you in Ireland if she’s not looking to work there.
And in my case, I was in the UK and somehow we avoided immigration lawyers and huge fees to get her what in a few months will be a resident visa. And from the moment she arrived here and we got temporary status, she became co-director of my limited company (tax benefits) and now has a “real” job too.
I went to Ireland because I could, and be closer to St. Petersburg where I had lived (back and forth from LED->JFK) since 2010. Of course now (checks this is BBQ pit) Fuck Russia and I’m never going back though she needs to, to close out inheritance issues and sell her father’s flat so if I don’t have to go through Turkey, maybe I’ll show up there and try to avoid the Gulag.
Go for a visit to Ireland. They like Americans. Dunno where you live yet it rains a lot and is cold but not below zero cold much.
Missed the edit window on that. I worked with a fellow in Ireland who spoke of the old “Celtic Tiger” days when the Euro was strong and the dollar weak(er) and how he’d fly into the USA with lots of empty suitcases and buy up shitloads of electronics and bring them back to Dublin and sell them which more than paid for his trip. It’s believable moreso than Malarkey.
Back then it seemed like all my cousins (over 30 of them), along with the population of Ireland and every arriving Polish person (Catholic being important) was buying two houses at least. When I left in 2016, I still couldn’t afford a house yet those second houses were selling somewhat cheaply (if not at a loss).
If you have a house in the USA and sell it, you can buy a house in Ireland. Anywhere within 50 kilometers or even 50 miles of Dublin will cost you quite a bit more.
I am not your accountant, lawyer, banker, cop or even a Presbyterian minister, so you’ll have to figure some things out.
All I will say, in the spirit of this thread, is there’s no reason to flee the USA. Nothing like why I gave up on Russia after seeing too many people hauled off by the special police (OMON) for protesting. And that was 10 years ago. As an American citizen, I would “Fight the Power!” and as an Irish citizen, “Fight the power! Erin go bragh! One Ireland!” and as an eight year resident of the UK I vote and will protest freely.
My wife had died in 2004, which I suspect might complicate the process of me getting qualified for spousal citizenship. The other difficulty with me relocating would be that I don’t drive, which I presume would limit my options on finding a place to live.
I would like to visit Ireland in any case. I do have relatives living there (my mother’s family); one of my nephews went there a few years ago and was able to meet them. In fact, there’s a pub that has been in the family for several generations.
In all seriousness, as much as the idea of relocating to Ireland appeals to me I’m not sure my health would be up for it. Not to mention the cost of shipping my library.
According to available information, shipping a 40-foot container from the East Coast of the United States to Ireland can cost anywhere between $4,500 and $8,000 depending on the specific port, current market conditions, and additional fees like customs duties; however, a more accurate estimate would require details about the origin port and destination port in Ireland.
Very sorry I missed that detail (thought it was your father). I still think it possible that you could have registered as her spouse esp. if you were not seeking to work there. For you to have gotten Irish Citizenship would take 5 years. I reckon that is no longer possible unless you’re claiming refugee status and fleeing tyranny (JK - yet in the spirt of this thread) . If you have children, they’re still eligible through their grandfather.
I shipped a shrink-wrapped pallet of stuff from Dublin to Yorkshire for about 200 € A library? Probably not too much customs duties, yet sounds like you’ve a lot to move and DavidNRockies post above is one to mind.
Elon Musk, the unelected oligarch, eliminated the agency that funded the life work of me and my wife. We are now without a vocation and the federal government is refusing to pay the company millions of dollars it owes, meaning that employees might not get their salaries. We will have to quickly sell our home, or dip into our retirement savings a decade early to stay in America.
Do I have your permission to feel that things are pretty bad you pompous piece of shit?
This pretty much sums up my situation. Retired, no spouse or children. Unless the government decides to screw with my Federal pension or health benefits my primary concerns with the current regime are how badly they’re screwing up the country in general. I’m not sure how I could fight them, but given the chance I will.
The idea of getting Irish citizenship, passport, and emigrating is pretty much a pipe dream at this point. As I had said earlier, it was something we had thought about when Patti was alive; we used to half-jokingly talk about retiring to Ireland and we figured being Irish citizens would simplify the process.
Here is a fairly recent US population pyramid. I notice a small bulge in the +55 range, which is where you would be likely to find people who have a lot less to lose when it comes to fighting back. Fucking with old fogeys is dangerous practice, and many of us are pretty damn pissed.
This reminds me of something from just after the 9/11 attack. A friend and I always went to Las Vegas the week after Thanksgiving, and we had already booked our flights for that year. When it looked like all flights were being grounded for an indefinite term our friends were joking about hearing reports of two heavyset guys storming the desert looking for bin Laden for interfering with their Vegas plans.
And that’s why the perfect sobriquet for 45/47 is the America-hating fuckstick. Because what this country is supposed to be is a well-defined set of properties, empirically and objectively delineated (for all that those properties are aspirational).
Are you sure you will be receiving SS abroad if Laurel & Hardy get to play president for a couple of more years?
I can so see SS-abroad disappear (fits their narrative perfectly), b/c we will use those foreign-fat-cats’ money to help out and feed our poor in AMERIKA … just look at Venezuela, the playbook is always the same …
I refuse to live my life in fear of what might happen. I still have a residnet address in the United States, so no I am not the least bit worried.
I think it is more likely they will require people abroad to prove that they are still alive more often than they already do. Its more likely that they will require people in the States to proved that they are alive, I think that is where they are going. I think a lot of the savings will come from delaying payments to people who don’t respond to notices to prove tha they are alive.
Americans will be welcome, as long as they are the odd person … once millions start pouring into UK/IRLand/AUS/NZ, there WILL be pushback … if you speak your mind or don’t … you will take local’s jobs/flats/education slots/ healthcare slots, etc… NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL, YOU ARE AN AMERICAN.
IOW: the dose makes the poison.
(I am also foreigner living for 25+ years in a foreign country and I have seen the scene going sour from “How lovely, you are Venezuelan, tell me more about you” … to basically “Go HOME! Veneco” in a lapse of 3-4 years with 1,5mio Venezuelans in a small country)
Sorry, but I can literally hear Musk screaming in my head , not only did we stop feeding fake 150 y.o. with our SS, but also millions of foreigners in (.ph), who live off the US sending our money their way to spend it there. This loophole of them stealing us 'mericans blind, will be plugged as of today. My Lie-o-meter tells me, this will save the taxpayer 21 billion per year.
1000s on foxnews applaud.
the goose is cooked
ps: keep your us-address and go back and forth often.
The US is by far the best place to be when the shit hits the fan. It’s the only place in the world that is self sufficient with regards to food and can be with regards to energy and labor. That’s it, that’s all you need to survive as a viable country. I understand the worrying and dooming going on right now, but when people start talking about China or Russia taking over the world it just tells me they have no idea what is going on. Even forty years of Trump would not be as bad as what forty years of a one child policy does to your country. China and Russia are worst case scenario for the US in about 50 years, that is how far ahead of us they are in whatever “collapse” will happen.
With due respect, I don’t think you are correct. Take your example of food: if you look at famines in the last few hundred years, they’re largely not a problem of food production, but of food distribution. Something happens to affect the local food supply, and the government isn’t functional enough to get food distributed from elsewhere.
Look at how well the US has done with getting food and water to people in the disasters from Hurricane Katrina forward. Pretty well, with a lot of the gaps filled by churches and other charities.
Now imagine the same large flood, hurricane, or wildfire in a world where the shit has hit the fan: FEMA has been defunded out of existence, churches will only help fellow MAGA-hats, and road and rail infrastructure is no longer being maintained because nobody is paying taxes and there are no government workers.
How does the copious surplus food get to the people who need it?
