Sue McCormick

“I quit my job, rented out my house, and moved by myself at the age of 36 to a country where I knew almost no one.”

Imoved to Dublin in 2017 and have Irish citizenship through the Foreign Birth Registry as my maternal grandmother was born in County Donegal.

The question that is inevitably asked is…but WHY did you move here? I don’t have the short, simple answer of “for work” or “for love” that a lot of Americans are able to use as their response.

Well not exactly true. I suppose my love of Ireland is the short, simple response. (I know, cheesy!) In my senior year of college I did a three week course in the suburbs of London at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. During the middle weekend of the course, a lot of my American classmates were planning a quick trip to Paris. I, on the other hand, went to Dublin with two other people in my class. That weekend was when I fell in love with Ireland.

But I didn’t make it back over until another four years later in 2005. It was then that I found out (from a tour guide by the name of Michael Redmond…isn’t it funny the names that stick with you?) I could get Irish citizenship through my grandmother. My Grandmom Quigley had emigrated to the Philadelphia area in Pennsylvania with her family when she was only two years old. Prior to my first chance to visit Ireland, I of course knew I had Irish heritage but never really thought much of it other than on St. Patrick’s Day. As I got older and more curious about my heritage (and let’s be honest, spent plenty of time drinking in Irish themed pubs) I became more loud and proud about being Irish. Not then realising the irony that to be truly Irish you aren’t loud and proud about being Irish…unless you are mistaken for being English!

I still didn’t pursue getting my Irish citizenship until about 2013. The CEO of the company I worked for described how he had just gotten his Irish citizenship finalised. Both of his parents had been born in Ireland. Right. I decided that I had put it off long enough.

I gathered the requested documentation, submitted it, needed to re-submit certain items and within a year I was granted a certificate stating I was an Irish citizen. At the time I thought it was just a cool thing to have and didn’t have any intention of ever moving here. I visited Ireland again in 2015 and the seed was planted but never thought I’d actually have the guts to make the move. I applied for my Irish passport which was a breeze since I had the citizenship in hand.

A year or two went by, and I would occasionally float the idea of moving to Ireland to friends and family. No one (including myself) took me seriously.

One evening after work I was talking to a colleague over a drink

View flying into Ireland from America

and again mentioned the possibility of moving to Ireland. Maggie, with her Long Island accent, bluntly said, “Sue, you just need to do it! You keep talking about it, and your friends and family won’t encourage you because they don’t want you to go. So I’m telling you. What is stopping you?” That was the push I needed.

Sometimes I can’t believe I’m here and I actually did it. It was almost a year between when I decided to move and when I made the move. I quit my job, rented out my house, and moved by myself at the age of 36 to a country where I knew almost no one. All for no real reason other than I was in a rut,

I love Ireland, and I did not want to live with the regret of thinking “What if?”

Within two weeks of moving here I met the man I will marry. We have been living together for two years now and I can’t believe I needed to move to another country to meet the love of my life. It’s even weird to write it down like that, but that’s what happened.

Of course there was (and sometimes still is) a lot of tears, homesickness, distress of being away from family and comforts of home, fear of the future and the unknowns…but all in all I am happy with the decision I made to change my life.