IRELAND REPORTSummaryIreland is a very easy country for a trans person. Just make sure you have other reasons for being there.
MethodologyI spent a fortnight travelling around the country. I avoided all tourist transport, instead exclusively using local trains, buses, and trams. I went solo and chatted to Irish people, not tourists.
It was ethnographically qualitative fieldwork and therefore more subjective.
I have not included References below as this is not pretending to be an article for academic publication
Please let me know if you would like to see them.
ResultsI arrived during Pride month and this may have contributed to the prominent displays of LGBTQ+ support in evidence. One coffee shop had no fewer than 20 Pride flags on display. There was no part of Ireland where this was not the case, even in the more rural remote areas, which surprised me.
People's attitudes were noticeably friendly. Coming from the UK the lack of hostility was a stark contrast. This was not only towards LGBTQ+ but generally. It is a welcoming, friendly, and relaxed nation.
There was no noticeable difference in attitudes amongst older people, nor really in the more remote rural areas.
Conversely, the more tourist hubs have a greater influx of non-LGBTQ+ friendly overseas visitors and these brought some increase in a sense of being noticed. You should also be aware that in some hotels where overseas staff are present you may encounter less trans-friendly attitudes. This is not so much the case in Dublin because it is such a young and progressive city but in other obvious tourist destinations out west this may be a factor to bear in mind. In the main this probably only affects the summer months anyway.
Before I visited Ireland I had come to believe that the attitudes of people mattered as much as the legal protections. During my visit I realised that this is not true, as others on here have equally pointed out. The fact that as a trans person you are legally protected, for example in the use of female spaces, is very important. You cannot be legally challenged. You are legally protected to be you. I became very thankful about this and relaxed to the point where I was no longer thinking about the matter.
Transphobia and homophobia are outlawed and any such abuse is a criminal offence, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. You really
are protected.
Other Comments about IrelandIreland is very green. It is ringed at the edges by ranges of hills and mountains: south of Dublin in the Wicklow area and then on around to the south-west beyond Killarney and up the Atlantic coast as far as Donegal at the top of the country.
Inside this ring of uplands, the central basin is predominantly flat with gentle undulations.
There are some very pretty towns in the centre, one thinks of somewhere like Carrick-on-Shannon or Westport, but there is also a lot of poverty relative to a country like the UK. There are a significant number of run-down and derelict houses in town centres and rural areas. Everywhere you will see the effects of rain and damp on the buildings. There has been a significant concrete scandal with defective materials, especially in the north and north-west, something to bear in mind if you are considering property purchase.
Transport infrastructure is good. I decided to use West of Ireland Airport (NOC) near Knock for strategic reasons which was in a beautiful rural setting. Other international airports are Dublin, Cork, and Shannon.
There is an extensive bus network and these run efficiently and well. Legroom is noticeably cramped which you should bear in mind for longer journeys.
Trains are modern and excellent but be aware that with limited carriages they can get fully booked. You must buy a ticket in advance anyway. The Irish Rail website is good.
The country is not known as The Emerald Isle for nothing. The centre of the country has many wetlands and peat bogs. A lot of farming out west is pastoral, especially sheep in small fields enclosed by dry stone walling. I was surprised at how many trees there are, having read that the forests were cut down. Having seen the way in which the Caledonian forests of Scotland were decimated I feared something similar and one widely-quoted figure claims that only 11% of the country is covered by trees but this is highly misleading. The figure refers to forests rather than trees. The lush supportive climate means self-seeding has occurred widely and the countryside is now covered with trees, admittedly of often young growth. They are mainly deciduous and one person said to me that it may look beautiful now but in winter 'it looks desolate'. There are some areas of the coast which do not support tree growth e.g. the Burren in County Clare. But if you like trees then you will find rural Ireland to your taste.
The country is remarkably free of litter, compared to say the UK. I counted two pieces of litter all fortnight. This seems to be brought about through a combination of education, public awareness, and hefty fines.
Ireland's weather is classified as 'maritime temperate'. It is mild for its latitude, warmed by the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift. With predominantly Atlantic westerlies, rainfall is high, especially in the west and north. In the east around Dublin annual precipitation is 750-1000 mm per annum. In some parts of the west this figure doubles and some of the mountains receive up to 3000 mm a year. Even in the east there are 150 wet days per annum. In the west this figure is closer to 225. That means you can expect 2 in every 3 days to contain some rain.
Temperatures are mild throughout without either extremes of heat or cold. However, air frosts are still common in winter.
Ireland is a member of the European Union and the currency is the Euro. Support for EU membership remains high with over 2/3rds of people continuing to support membership post-Brexit (Britain's exit from the EU). Some commentators have suggested that Ireland is the most pro-EU country of the 27 member States. This may be because, in general, Ireland has benefited from EU economic support. However, EU flags were not prominent and there are a few ongoing arguments with Brussels e.g. over the widespread use of peat for winter fuel and over the defective concrete. Regional flags were more common than Irish ones e.g. yellow and blue flags throughout County Clare and County Tipperary.
Ireland is not a participant in the Schengen agreement of free movement. This is how a Common Travel Area is allowed to exist between Ireland and the UK, which is no longer a member of the EU and which was also never part of Schengen. This means that as a UK citizen you can travel and live in Ireland freely, and vice-versa. However your passport is still checked on arrival and exit. You are able to access the Irish health service, and vice-versa.
If you so wish then after approximately 5 years of mostly continuous living you may be eligible to apply for Irish citizenship (please see Irish Govt guidelines on this). As an Irish citizen you would be eligible to travel and live anywhere in the EU.
The Irish Government also has citizenship eligibility criteria for those who can prove close Irish descent. Please see their advice and rules about this.
Ireland is the correct name for the country and Irish is the language. There is no need to attach the word 'Republic,' and most people don't use the Gaelic equivalents. The main languages are English and Irish (Gaeilge). The latter is widely used e.g. in public announcements on trains and also especially out west and in Donegal.
Northern Ireland is a separate country and is part of the United Kingdom. There is a soft border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, which also allows a (convoluted) trade system to exist without breaching EU regulations. Whether there will be a united Ireland is an ongoing but currently muted debate. Younger people tend to be in favour. One older man in the south told me that he was quite happy to leave things as they are: he didn't want the north messing things up.
Ireland is sparsely populated relative to the UK: 77 per square km compared to 426 in England, so roughly a sixth of the density. This was very noticeable to me.
Sport is dominated by Hurling, Gaelic football, Rugby Union, and Soccer, as well as horse racing, and golf.
Catholicism is very noticeable, especially in the rural areas. There are numerous mini-shrines and statues as well as graveyards: cremation rates are only 20% compared to 75% in England and Wales. However, a lot of the religious belief is of a cultural and superstitious nature rather than, say, evangelical conversion fervour. Outsiders may not at first understand this relaxed attitude. It helps explain why the country is at the same time so progressive on many issues: Ireland was the first country in the world to enact same-sex marriage by a public vote in 2015. It took a long time to overturn the Catholic Church's abortion restrictions, but this too was made by public vote in 2018 with a 2/3rds majority in favour.
ConclusionMuch of this report has not been about trans issues
per se. And there's a reason for that.
In the 2003 film
Finding Nemo [spoiler alert] the inhabitants of the fish tank spend their lives planning how to escape the evil dentist, and especially his niece Darla. Right at the very end of the film, after the closing credits, you see all the fish bobbing outside in the harbour. Their plan has worked: they escaped.
But they're still stuck in the bags. They had spent their entire time planning how to escape, not what came next.
My point is this: for someone living in the UK, or the US, it is very understandable to allow trans issues to dominate your life. The present environment is so toxic that it easily takes over. It's not just the legalities. It's also the attitudes: outright hostility has become very noticeable; and people now feel legitimized in this. It's worth pointing out that this is part of a wider swing to the Right in both the UK and the US, with the Reform party now leading in all the UK national opinion polls: something which would see Donald Trump's friend Nigel Farage become next UK Prime Minister.
Go to Ireland and you may be thinking about trans issues on Day 1 but I virtually guarantee that by Day 2 you will forget about them. In friendly legal Ireland they, literally, cease to be a concern. You are protected by law and people's attitudes are non-hostile. You can get on and live your life.
So if you intend to move to Ireland just be sure that you have considered the Day 2 Nemo question: 'Now What?'
It's not just about escaping a toxic hostile country. It's about what comes next.
xx
