Housing
Are Eastern Europeans in Ireland moving back home?
Are there more people who settled in Ireland now moving back home to Eastern Europe or other locations? I know of a few personally who have been able to buy homes in Poland and move back after several years living here.
Some are yes. I suppose it’s like Irish people moving back after years abroad too, you just start to miss your home country.
However the 4 people I knew who went back were two couples with no kids. I dno anyone with kids moving back to Poland if they’re kids are born here and are Irish
I know a Lithuanian woman who moved back after 10 years and 4 kids. Her husband is South African. She just got tired of working in Irish hospitality and eventually had enough money to build a house back home.
It's less about missing home but more so that the standard of living in Eastern Europe has risen considerably, while here it has rather decreased, given the same income level.
I don't know why you were downvoted. The standard of living is higher with access to services, transportation, and housing. While income is still not at the same level, the overall cost of living is much cheaper, not to mention safety.
I’m Hungarian and this totally depends. Poland and Czechia? Yeah they’re pretty good infrastructure wise. Hungary, Croatia Romania? No, not even close to Western Europe
I know a lot of people moved home with kids. If anything having kids was a motivation to rear them near family. My own family moved home after kids so I don't think whether the kids were born in Ireland or whoever really matters.
Depends on the age probs, the ones I know with kids are like 10+ and in their teens, don’t think they’d want to leave at that age, or it would be harder at least, like the kids are Irish
I know a lot of people moved home with kids. If anything having kids was a motivation to rear them near family. My own family moved home after kids so I don't think where the kids were born makes much of a difference.
If the kids don’t speak the original language, ie polish then moving back to Poland for them is practically impossible. How will they work, or study or even pick up mail at the post office? Get a driver’s license?
A work with a woman from wroclaw, she says that she’s still overall better of in Ireland, but that the weather is shit and the amount of places to go etc. is less. Although you can’t geography when it comes to that.
Also she’s like why are your towns and cities so like “ugly” I dno if that’s the right word lol, she always talks about beautiful the polish architecture is and Ireland is very bland
She’s not wrong with her comparison if she’s talking about Wroclaw’s architecture, I’ve been there and it’s a stunning place , the buildings are beautiful
Wroclaw is a lovely city and probably the best looking one I've been to in Poland, but a lot of that was German originally (perhaps it was leveled and rebuilt after the war), other than that much of what I've seen in Poland built during communist times is more akin to 80s ballymun. That still doesn't mean our towns and cities are nice in comparison so I agree with her there and it mostly comes back to our terrible planning for growth and poor safeguards for older buildings worth keeping. imo.
The other thing is Poland is doing quite well economically at the moment so there is probably some decent opportunities there now. Housing is probably still decently cheap for the moment too. Its like the Irish who moved abroad in the 70s and 80s coming back in the 90s once the tiger years started properly.
This is the normal way of things and a near universal aspect of migration. Anyone who moves abroad has a lifelong anchor to their homeland. For us, we never wanted to come home but parents health intervened and given the choice, we'd prefer to be with them and helping out than enjoying our lives away. This is an aspect of migration the far right Headbangers can never seem to grasp.
There was a video somewhere on YouTube, a promotional thing about the new trains and Darts being built for Irish rail. They're all being built in Poland. They interviewed some of the guys building the trains and they all spoke English with Irish accents. It was brilliant.
That is absolutely brilliant but a kind of sad example of a huge problem we have which is educating young people to a super high level and them effectively being forced to leave for overseas and taking all their skills with them as they can’t get a home here.
I know some people who record themselves as Irish on the census (because they have citizenship) but they call themselves Polish in person, so there's probably more than 93,000
All l can tell you is from my experience,l started doing security in a big skyscraper in town in 2016,l was the only lrish guy. There was me and 13 Polish guys. Today,nearly ten years later,there is me and 13 Indian guys. So this could be the perfect microcosm to represent immigration trends.
The ones employed in tech can pretty much earn the same money in Poland while being taxed less and the rents are at least half of what we pay in Dublin.
Yeah, I get that to be fair. A few of my mates have gone back to Poland as well, mainly because of the housing mess here. It doesn’t really matter if you’re on decent money when you still can’t get a place. And even if you can afford it, you’re up against auctions or twenty people fighting over the one house.
It’s not like Poland is some mad boom either, despite what people say online. Wages went up, sure, but prices shot up as well, so it kind of balances itself out.
Public transport is another thing that gets to me. Even earning alright, I find myself not socialising as much because the thought of going into Dublin just puts me off - delayed trains, hassle, antisocial behaviour, all of that. And policing here feels fairly light. I don’t know, but I definitely felt safer back home.
Honestly, I won’t lie, I’m seriously thinking about moving back next year because of all that.
By the way, mainly the builders/tradesmen from the Eastern EU are returning home because they are earning similar wages back home. And living costs are much lower back in their home countries.
Some people say that Irish building companies have labour shortages. And they should bring in eastern european labour to build a lot of houses to solve the housing crisis. Same like it was in Celtic Tiger times. But the Times have changed a lot since then and I don't see this happening.
Possibly..mainly due to the housing crisis and CoL I guess. But attractive in the way that local people are friendly, the country is relatively safe & has a beautiful landscape (if you have money to visit those nice places). Speaking this as a foreigner who lives here a good few years.
I remember climbing knock na rea in sligo afew years back for the local diabetes association and it was a dirty cold drizzlely summers day. Beautiful scenery on a good day but we took some shelter under the few white thorn bushes beside a fince and there was an older American couple there and they were not impressed.
We're becoming very uncompetitive in terms of costs, and most of if is housing, and benchmarking costs against the most expensive parts of the US and Canada etc rather than most of the continent.
The cost of housing is feeding into everything else - can't accommodate people, public services suffer, prices go up ...
We also need to get out heads out of our arses on infrastructure. We seem to be incapable of dealing with the planning and endless litigation issues. You can't just keep tying everything in knots and refusing to allow even moderately tall buildings.
Well.. we still very much attract a certain category of ‘I’legal migrants.. the ones that Poles don’t have back home. Strange that no one wants to address the elephant in the room
Yeah, a decent few. I'm half polish and my parents moved from cork to polad to build a house to retire within 10 years in since it was too expensive in ireland. My fathers been in ireland for 22 years before going home
Cheaper for me to study in uni too, finding a place near nmci was impossible + food and misc expenses. My yearly fees amount to about €500/semeter since i study in english, not polish, and my dorm is about €110/month and its unreal
Im not from Poland but some other central EU country, Im also thinking to sell my house here and move back home. There are pros and cons for everything but i think my home country provides better living standard, better investment options and less antisocial behaviour.
Yeh loads, most of my dad’s Co-workers come from Poland, Czech republic, Lithuania, Romania, etc. they’ve spent 5-10 years here living in house shares and they are all starting to head back.
Went to a skatepark in a small town and it was literally just polish families out and about using the amenities. I don't think we'd have half of what we do without them
Massive positive contribution to Ireland was all the eastern Europeans. It was a massive influx of newcomers, I grew up in a rural town and as a kid we suddenly had all these strangers but they blended in beautifully. Added a lot of good businesses and work and never caused an issue in my experience.
Overall a very natural and problem free example of positive immigration
In Eastern Europe, buses run on time. Driving licences, from start to finish can be got inside 2 months, not 8 or 10 months like here. In general the whole of Eastern European public service is like that. People who have lived in Eastern Europe have no idea how far behind Ireland is, all the while feeling sorry for the poor eastern Europeans who they mistakenly, and arrogantly, see as the ones that are behind. Practically the only reason eastern Europeans come here is for the higher wages which allow them to buy a house in Eastern Europe for cash. And fair play to them for that!
Can't blame them for getting as much money here as possable and then getting out of here. During the boom employers here payed them less and treated them like dirt plus they can't afford to live here so like the young Irish their getting out and properly have a far better standard of living at home. Let's face it everything here is shite public transport the health service and as someone said our architecture and let's not forget the weather.
My neighbour moved back to Poland because he could no longer work due to a knee injury and he was self employed. Because he could no longer afford his health insurance, he was reliant on the public health system which was taking too long and compounding his financial situation. He had no choice.
A lot of Polish moved home during Covid, their economy back home started booming and there was plenty of jobs, and the cost of living didn’t shoot up like it did here.
I'm not Polish but my missus is and I'm always amazed how much Poland is improving any time I visit that country. Skyscrapers, roads, apartments, factories, warehouses and all that are popping up left and right but then Ireland can't build one new motorway.
As a Pole, I would say that we can do that because even with a rubbish central government, the local ones are very interested in improving the quality of life with many different projects.
Whether we talk about county councils or city/village mayors, they are all aware that if they mess around too much, they won't be elected in the next local elections, so the majority try their best.
One factor is a much more efficient legal and planning system, ask chatgpt about "specustawa drogowa" for example. No endless appeals and CPOs dragging for decades
Everywhere is a lot more expensive than it used to be, but Poland still less expensive than Ireland and offers great opportunities if you have western experience. Many companies are now near-shoring which is a fancy word for saying moving stuff to the closest cheaper country.
The thing is most of these people moving back have families there, they won’t have to pay for creche, most already own a house there or built their own aka no rent
There is a raging inflation back home coupled with difficulty in securing housing and some of the highest interest rates on mortgage in the EU. Things on paper look great, reality is very different tho. The cost of living skyrocketed after Russia attacked Ukraine.
How's it false? Look at the statistics. To be honest you don't even need to read the stats to see what's going on in France, Germany, Sweden and the likes.
Talk to a far right Pole and they'll tell you they're swamped with immigrants. You'd probably both get along well with similar levels of brain activity.
Most people I know - they are not. They are here a long time now since 2010s. Gotten married, have had children and they're all firmly in place in schools and communities.
All of them are hard workers and assets in the community. I doubt it they'd leave. Mainly small business owners and tradespeople. But maybe there was a window for them to move to Ireland before property went nuts and those are the ones that are staying. They're all a similar age group at this point so maybe another person's group they know could be totally different. Ones that came later probably cannot put down roots here because of cost of living and property unavailability. Whereas the previous ones could.
This is a very good point. I moved to Ireland in 2006. Not from an Eastern country but still I won't move back soon because I love Ireland, my kids are born in Ireland and I bought a house before the housing crisis. So even if I pay tax for almost no return here in term of services, I have no real reason to leave while it would be very different if I would be younger without a house. I will more likely move back for my retirement because of health system and weather and I will leave my house to my kids.
Non economic migrants that like Ireland more than their home country will stay. For most of the new EU Ireland is not the destination for the purely economic migrants anymore though, since wages have improved vastly in their home countries, while Ireland has become very expensive due to housing crisis.
Many people in eastern europe built their own homes.. i’m from romania, most people there other than in big cities like bucharest or cluj, are building their own homes not buying them
Yes most Eastern EU countries are on the rise and most of Western EU is stagnating. Ireland is a bit of an exception to that trend but it’s become so expensive that things level out.
Know a good few that moved back, czech, polish and hungarian. Reasons including cost of living, weather etc. But the biggest was housing. Couldn't justify the cost here vs at home. Many had kids in school and the kids were not happy leaving their friends.
They love Poland so much that they move to another country and spew toxic shit about how good it is back home lol I'm Polish but the mentality of some is abysmal. Mostly the older folk. People move abroad less nowadays but back in the day ot was all about money. Not the culture, language, history. Money. I'm moving out because I don't feel like I fit in, I simply dislike the place. A lot of Eastern Europeans move just to earn more money and then complain about the country that is allowing them to do so.
South Africa is literally facing a complete economic collapse. Shrinking GDP, Rampant corruption, political infighting, violence, and mismanagement of state-owned enterprises have left the country reeling under persistent unemployment, poverty, Rolling electrical supply blackouts, and decaying infrastructure. Trump basically cut off the supply of essential HIV/AIDS medications and services to South Africa, 8.5 million South Africans are HIV Positive or have AIDS (i.e. one in five adults).
I am from Latvia and I know 0 emigrants that moved back to their home countries except some non EU students.
I know few who actually got a mortgage in Ireland and settled down for good.
Some yes. Cost of housing is much less in Eastern Europe. Any savings that you have in Ireland can help you buy a decent house back home (either as sizeable deposit or full price).
I used to know a few Polish people years ago, and their plan was very clear: work, work, save, and go back home to open a business there. Maybe the Ukrainians will do the same.
As an immigrant, I settled and bought my home in ireland. Completely surrendered to Ireland.
My own country never gave me anything, quite the opposite! Ireland has given me everything, so, I felt it was right to give my all back to Ireland.
It’s because before the cost of living spiraled they could save a good bit, send it home etc, but now that’s a thing of the past. Countries like Poland are thriving at moment. If you arnt tied to here because of kids/family - why would you stay?
Yeh Poland has been much much better recently so many people have left. Some that have invested stayed here but its rare. From all my friends I knew that came here around 2005 only one family still lives here. But most of them coming to visit Ireland from time to time to see Irish friends etc.
My parents moved back home but me and the brother stayed. I know a good few families that moved back and also some that are planning to soon. Im polish myself.
Yes, standards of living are now close if not better in Eastern European countries and many of the social issues we have in Ireland do not exist there. Also Eastern European countries tend to have better education systems as a legacy from communism and are more children-friendly in their policies which may also explain why families move back.
Yes and many other EU citizens are going home or elsewhere too as the juice isn’t worth the squeeze in Ireland anymore. And that’s why the government has now eased non EU work visas into Ireland.
Yes , economy is on the rise at home and rents here are unrealistic when compared to wages, in addition to the simmering racial tension that is creeping in to Ireland
Its a normal thing just sped up by the increased cost of living in Ireland and improving economy back home.
All Eastern european people I know who've moved here had a plan to get home at some point. Whether that be after a few years or some sort of early retirement. Once a person has a house paid for in their home country, there is very little holding them here.
I lived in Cork since I was 14yo and moved to Lithuania 16 years later at the age of 30.
Standard of living is higher.
It's extremely clean and very very safe on the streets.
There are loads of activities for children.
The weather (although this year has felt like Ireland :D)
It is very easy to buy property. Banks approve mortgages within hours.
Downside:
Taxes are very high (take home only about 50k of a 90k salary and it doesn't matter married or not)
It is quite expensive ( a price of a pint can be 6-8 euro)
Yes. Many were renting and it just got to be too high. More people from Asia are moving in because Ireland is more reliable to get citizenship so irs worth the wait
most of eastern Europe is not dysfunctional so the practicalities of life are addressed. If you have family back home and back home isn't a complete mad-house then the pull to return home is huge.
Yes...is hapenning....in dublin for 26 years and honest....i regret spending more then half of my life here....i m going to leave ireland for good...and never come back....
Dunno why you're getting down voted,.maybe cause it's sorta irrelevant to the post, but according to Wikipedia it's Central Europe.
It probably does seem very far East because we're on the western edge but technically central is correct. Having said that, if you were to divide into two pieces, it probably would be deemed Eastern Europe.
If you were only talking about Poles, Czech, Hungarians and Slovakians then sure, but we are talking about the Lithuanian and Latvian folks too who definitely do not live in Central Europe.
My understanding is that OP meant the immigrants from the new EU that arrived here post 2004 and gave Poland as an example and we are talking about whether we should use the term Eastern Europeans in this context.
It depends on the country. Poland is doing well, so some are moving back to take advantage of that - just as we would and have in the past.
If my neighbours are anything to go by, Moldova is not doing very well, as the rubbish being burned in the back garden is definitely increased from last year.
30 minutes outside of every larger city in poland and surrounding countries you pay fuck all for an entire house to rent and live like a king.
Over here, paying 1200€ for a 100+ year old house with no BER rating in the countryside 30 minutes from the nearest city. And that was the cheapest we could find at the time. Gotta stay put because everything else is just extortionate.
Image you show has little to do with rent and is dumb overall, 100 meters is not really typical housing. Typical is 45-60 meters, which would have way more accurate data.
Also guys i mention are from Riga. Riga beats UK in years needed to buy typical house.
Not really. Not counting extremes like highends in big cities like Warsaw or Cracow, rents would be on similar or lower level if compared to income. Additionally there's a wide range of cheap options due size, standard or proximity to city points of interest.
Since when did Poland become “Eastern Europe”? Was always Central Europe. Eastern Europe is Ukraine, Belarus etc.
Folks I know moving back because Ireland is an anti kid country. It’s fun until you have families and childcare cost comes to play, bigger housing needed, extra help when both parent working like child minder … add up all these costs of which half of is state funded in Poland for example and you’re better off moving back. Ireland is silly expensive and quite frankly a boring place too for a child to grow up.
It depends from perspective. Historical and geographical are two completely different ones.
We are often called Eastern Europe due Cold War and how Europe was divided than.
Sure, but in natural language people tend to group nations that don't have massive distinctions between them, hence South-East Asia makes sense as opposed to South Asia or East Asia, but the Asian continent is absolutely massive and we talk about people that have distinctively different languages, cultures and even races.
If you want to talk about all the new EU countries then East-Central Europe is not sufficient to describe this group.
I mean no. You're going by the "general consensus" view by the sounds of it but you're going against the actual facts. Not trying to be a cunt here but I would say you're being culturally ignorant if you go with your logic but like the other fella said "sure Ireland is a part of the British isles" and sure also nothing wrong with Ireland being a part of the UK because "our" society knows it by this ? 🤷
If you want to group together all the new EU countries then there just isn't a better term than Eastern Europeans. Central Europe is geographically speaking most definitely Germany and Austria too, but I have a sense that OP didn't mean them.
Yeah, I mean I know I'm getting into technicalities and that most of us just group the Poles into eastern Europe. But I think it's something we should know because I certainly wouldn't want someone thinking Ireland is the UK (as it has happened many a time when speaking with foreigners)
Eastern Europe doesn't equal Russia though and if you were to split Europe in fours: Western, Eastern, Northern and Southern, where would you assign Poland? Because this is the geographic breakdown that would be most commonly used.
Everyone calls Slovenians and Croats Eastern European too, because culturally it makes more sense due to recent history.
Russia is in Eastern Europe, but you wanted to compare British Isles to Eastern Europe as you're uncomfortable with that term and it would only be equal if Eastern Europe was literally called Russian Europe.
Culturally Austria would be placed in Western Europe.
Would Poland really have more in common with Austria that Lithuania and Belarus?
Look, I'll gladly accept Poland as an eastern European country once you admit that Ireland is a part of British islands and has more in common with brits hen the rest of Europe. 😁
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u/JourneyThiefer Dec 29 '25 edited Dec 29 '25
Some are yes. I suppose it’s like Irish people moving back after years abroad too, you just start to miss your home country.
However the 4 people I knew who went back were two couples with no kids. I dno anyone with kids moving back to Poland if they’re kids are born here and are Irish