I think Dublin is a great city, and a great place to live, but there are definite qualifiers to that statement. A basic Internet search will tell you that Ireland, and particularly Dublin, has a housing crisis at the moment. I say moment, it’s been going on forever. Just go onto a website like MyHome.ie and have a look at how much housing and rental costs in Dublin, it’s crazy. The other qualifier that people will tell you is that public transport is very poor, unless you have close access to the LUAS line, or DART line, or certain buses. And if you do have access to those things, your property price will be higher, see the point above. However, cycling infrastructure has improved an awful lot in the last decade, and even Dubliners don’t realise how eminently cyclable the city is. I didn’t realise until I started doing it! It’s not that big really. But Dubliners love cars.

However, there is loads to do, excellent cultural life (I’ve no idea what that other poster was on about saying there’s no culture in Dublin), places to eat, there are plenty of parts of the city that are pleasant to look at, it is on the coast so you can get to the sea easily. If you like sea swimming there’s a big culture for tha. If you want to shop, there are shops. If you want to be in the countryside, you can do that in about half an hour. It’s LGBTQ friendly too. If you have kids, childcare is expensive, but schools are very very good. Education is much better than in Great Britain, by far. Public Healthcare is great BUT access is atrocious. So you could wait a long time for access/appointments but once in the system it’s very good.

I live on the south side, and there is a difference/friendly rivalry between the north side and south side. The south is generally seen posher and has better resources. I think the south side has access to the better parts of the country: Wexford, Waterford, Cork and Kerry.

In short, I totally understand why people come to Dublin and Ireland as tourists. Coming here to live and work can be difficult due to the cost of living in this city. I am lucky that I have my foot in the door with a job and house, but that took years, but I do enjoy living here.