You have to love the geology of this country. Everywhere you turn there is stunning scenery, and as a geologist I tend to dig a little deeper and get my thrills from the strange landforms, faults, folds, exposures and drumlins. I'll just leave this post at that, with a picture of some limestone at the Burren in the west of Ireland that had been smoothly shaped by the waves.

Yuppy (?) apartments

The above photo, from the Shankill area of Belfast, may point out much of what is wrong with the housing situation in Ireland (of course when I say that I include the North). Much of the recently-built housing stock is of course yuppy apartments. Irish people have been sold (and bought!) a lifestyle. Unfortunately it is one that comes without proper transportation networks to get those yuppies to work, nearby shops, or places for kids to play. Ireland made these same mistakes that America made with the development of their suburbia, but at least in America suburbia came with land and distance from your neighbours. Ireland now seems to rely on the car, and a report on the radio last night indicated that Dublin has the lowest usage rates of public transport of any major city in Europe. Ahhh, so that's why traffic is so gridlocked!

But now, many of those recently completed yuppy housing estates are lying empty, the developers are going bust, and the places are being sold off at fire-sale prices. They're still far more expensive than they are worth, but you won't find me living in any of those Adamstown, Swords, Lusk, Balbriggan-type 'villages' anytime soon. Most self-respecting yuppies that I know wouldn't dream of living in these Legoland villages.

Irish Rail idiots....

Yep, it's confirmed. The mahem I predicted (see previous post) for St. Patrick's Day owing to the incompetence of Irish Rail certainly came to pass. Not only had the bright sparks there decided to run a Sunday service on possibly one of the busiest days of the year, but shockingly they also put on short trains only. That means fewer carriages for the passengers.

Catherine and I got on the train at about 11 am in Skerries only to find the train already very packed. Fair enough, we got on at least. The platform at the next stop, Rush and Lusk, was full of passengers, all of whom seemed to get on but it rendered the train completely full. Nobody from any of the next 5 stops could get on. Hundreds of families, kids all painted and dressed up for the parade, were left on the platform with no way into town. I just wish the head of Irish Rail was there on the platform to see the dejected looks on the kids faces.

Apparently 600,000 people were in the city centre for the festivities, and if the people at Irish Rail can't predict that it would be a major day for passengers (and therefore revenue) then they should be fired for complete incompetence.

Our first St. Patrick's in Ireland

Tuesday will be the first St. Patrick's Day that we've spent in Ireland. Sounds great, but there are a few things that most of the world probably doesn't know. First of all, the Irish don't take this all that seriously. It's just another holiday to many people I know, and those out partying on the streets are more likely to be American tourists or Italian exchange students. Apparently the Dublin accent will be a rare thing in Temple Bar on the day. Oh well, can't hurt to give it a chance.

It seems like loads of Irish would prefer to travel to New York or Boston for the celebration. It's much more of an expatriate event celebrated all over the world except in Ireland. I can't think of any national holiday that is more celebrated outside of that country than inside. Imagine if the UK went crazy on July 4th?

Still, it would be a shame not to try it out, so we'll be in town and ready to celebrate (back in my yoof I would have said 'pppaaaaaaarrrrrty'). Expect a report here on Wednesday.

It's all about the economy

The economy and its sad state is all people here seem to talk about. When the Celtic Tiger was roaring all the Irish could talk about was how much money they were making. Now they've all realized what a deep hole they have invested themselves into. The banks made loans that only fueled the rise in house prices past what the average person could afford, and of course, nobody now can afford them, banks have stopped giving loans, and the whole housing market has stagnated.

Let me give some kind of idea as to the scope of the problem.

A good wage here would be € 40,000. The cheapest property for sale in my north County Dublin town is a 2-bed, 1 bath apartment in the not-so-nice part of town for €230,000. The cheapest stand-alone house is €250,000, and that's for a 1 bed 1 bath shack. The cheapest 3 bed property is €300,000, and that's for a townhouse. So when the cheapest property that becomes acceptable is around €400,000 Euro, which is 10x the average salary, well, we have a problem.

In the heady days of banks awash with money to lend, people were taking out 100% mortgages for up to 8x their salary. They are now well and truly screwed as many are losing their jobs and being driven into negative equity by declining prices. Many can't sell even if they wanted to. I want to buy, have a salary significantly above average, but can't get a mortgage (note that I haven't tried but haven't build up enough credit here yet). So who the hell can get those mortgages needed to get the market rolling again?

For now we'll rent, and the good news is that rental prices are dropping a lot too.

Doggie bragging...

We may think of the difficulties that adults or children have when moving to a new country or setting, but we don't often give thought to how our pets adapt. So, let me just put in a plug for our dogs, Adder and Neely, as they have adapted brilliantly. In the past 3 years they've lived in four countries, Canada, USA, England, and now Ireland. In all of those locations we've been lucky to have great local places for them to run and exercise, but none better then in Ireland.

We live 100m from the beach, so they get their daily trip to sniff stuff and pee on the sand. They've also become much better at dealing with other dogs seeing as there are so many around this town. I think they're happier than they've ever been, as are Catherine and I.

So here's a couple of photos I took of them during their morning walk today. It also gave me a chance to play with my new camera.

Adder is above, Neely at right; both are miniature wirehaired dacshunds.

I hate pebble dash!

I promise this blog won't be continuously negative, but there is one more thing that I must get off my chest.

I hate pebble dash*. Really, really, really hate it.

Unfortunately the 1960's were not kind to Irish architecture. While the rest of the world was building concrete brutalist structures such as the Barbican in London or my former high school back in Canada, the Irish were pebble dashing (if that's a verb) everything in sight. The suburbs are full of the stuff. It collects dirt, and in a wet country like this, mould and moss.

Wow, I rarely express such strong hate for anything, but this week's 'thing I hate' is pebble dash.


* pebble dash is type of house exterior wall finish where the surface coating is of small stones, chips of stones or gravel that are thrown at a coat of wet plaster while it is still 'soft'.

Irish Rail.....

This is the first of what will prove to be many posts about the state of Irish infrastructure.

Most countries that went through boom times spent a lot on infrastructure such as public transport, roads, public buildings etc. Not Ireland. Considering how they had 10-15 great years, the state of public transport is appalling.

I commute in every day from north County Dublin, a train ride of about 40 minutes. Three separate services use the two tracks (one for each direction). There is the DART system extending as far north as Malahide, the Commuter Rail system as far as Drogheda and Dundalk, and then the full intercity system, with trains heading north to Belfast and beyond. You'd think with those three services sharing the one track each way they'd figure out some good timing system. It's especially critical as the DART stops at every station. But no. The number of times the commuter train gets stuck behind the slow moving DART is crazy.

But hey, at least I live on a train line. Most commuters are stuck with the dreaded Dublin Bus system, with an indecipherable schedule, crappy website, strange system of fares, and surly drivers.
Today I stood in Pearse Station and read a poster that made me shake my head in frustration. St. Patrick's Day is a national holiday, but also a day when a huge number of people will be heading into the city centre for a bit of fun. The poster even warns this will be a busy day for transport. So, what do they do? Put on extra trains? Keep the trains running late into the night? No, the bright sparks at Irish Rail are announcing that day will only offer Sunday service, which means a 2 hour gap between trains, and the last train leaving the city at about 9 pm. Unbelievable.

My previous life as a blogger

So yeah, I'm not all that new to blogging. I did have a blog going for one of my classes at St. Lawrence University, but I've actually lost the password and login is no longer valid.

It was for a class on environmental issues in China, a class that came complete with a 3 week trip to China for the students.

Oh well, here it is in all its glory.

http://sluchina2007.blogspot.com/

So, why am I (we) here?

I must be crazy. My wife and I emigrated six months ago to a country, Ireland, that everyone seems to want to leave. Many of the eastern Europeans have gone home, and the newspapers are full of stories of recent graduates picking up and going to either Australia or Canada. The economy is in the toilet, I can't afford a house, and as much as people have this romantic image of Ireland it is only marginally true. I gave up a tenured and endowed professorship in the US to move here. Most of my American colleagues called me crazy. Am I crazy? I don't think so. Obviously I wouldn't have moved here if I didn't have a guaranteed job, but in this economy is any job guaranteed?

Yeah, this country has a lot of problems. So why did we move to Ireland?

That's actually very difficult to answer as there were many, many considerations. But overall, I've always had itchy feet, love the next challenge, and didn't feel comfortable in the US. When I got tenure I saw it as been there, done that...what now? Most tenured people see it as being secure for the rest of their lives. I guess I'm not most people.

My wife and I spent a year in the UK where I was a director of a study abroad program for my former university. A one-year gig, then back to the main campus. Well, that one year was like a homecoming to me. I was born in England and spent quite a bit of time there in my youth, and only on this trip did I realize that it (well, English-speaking Europe) could be my (our) home. I never did make it back to the main campus except to clear out my office.

So the ideal job came up doing the same thing (basically) in Ireland for a different American college. I applied, was interviewed, offered the job, and with very little hesitation here we are. It just felt like the right thing to do. Six months in, it still does.

This blog will chronicle life in Ireland from the perspective of an outsider, or 'blow-in' as they call them here. I think I can evaluate and comment on this country, its ups and downs, having lived at various times in England, Canada, the USA, and now Ireland. It will talk about the rubbish public transport system, the wonderful scenery, the complete lack of convenience in anything you want to do, and the amazing people.

Six months in and I still love it!

Stay tuned, Stephen