I just got engaged to my long-term girlfriend next to the beautiful, sunset-soaked Mediterranean. We have lived in Barcelona for more than two years after studying here for a year when we were at university and it seemed like the right place to take this next step in our lives.
It never entered my mind to ask her to marry me when we were in Ireland, even though we would have been surrounded by family and friends, and it surprises me that that decision hasn’t weighed on me more. I suppose it’s a perfect example of how much we’ve come to see this part of the world as home, and how far we’ve drifted from life in Ireland. I work mostly from home as a project manager with a start up, so a lot of my time is spent in our apartment in the city centre. It’s a strange concept that I often stop to consider – a city-centre apartment that I can afford and don’t have to share with others?
We spend a lot of our free time walking the medieval city centre, having drinks and food with our friends on restaurant terraces and enjoying the sunny weather.
The Irish population over here continues to grow, and there’s a real feeling of community taking hold aided by social media, so we’re never without a familiar accent around us. We do our best to keep up with headlines, both here and in Ireland, and one common theme that continues to surface is the state of services such as healthcare, education and transport.
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It’s an interesting game to contrast and compare Ireland and Spain as there seems to be a widening gulf in quality that has been especially notable this year after the horrendous winter that the HSE dealt with in hospitals and reading a headline or opinion piece every other day about Metro North, hospital capacity, housing and other infrastructure that is barely fit for purpose.
I still hold some optimism that things may change and I might be able to return some day
The start of this year has seen strikes in Barcelona by healthcare workers and teachers rallying against budget cuts, overwork and generally having to do more with less. There have been similar strikes by almost every other profession in the public sector over the past few years as they’ve seen their work undercut by worsening conditions every year – a storyline playing out across Europe as a whole, especially since Covid.
However, Ireland continues to stand out to me with its refusal to emulate EU neighbours by downing tools and taking to the streets in a consistent and effective way, and this feeling has only grown looking at it from the outside. There have been scattershot strikes by some in Ireland, most notably perhaps the nurses’ strike in 2019, but there have been no other large-scale demonstrations even as some services seem to be teetering on the edge of breaking point.
Relatives and friends waiting years for a medical appointment, months for a driving test or hours in an emergency departments becomes a more common occurrence and yet still there seems to be no will to get out and put serious pressure on the Government to address any of these issues.
“It can’t be fixed overnight,” isn’t a common refrain heard here in Spain. Of course, in the interest of fairness it would be remiss not to mention that things are getting more difficult here too. There is pressure on services and growing dissatisfaction over wages, exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis and inflation being felt the world over.
It is difficult not to feel like so much has been taken away from my generation and I know many other Irish émigrés feel the same
Few countries, especially in Europe, are immune from the widespread social and economic ills which seem to have increased exponentially this year. Still, the situation is incomparably better in Barcelona for us than it would be in Ireland.
Waiting lists are a matter of weeks or a few months for most things, rent prices are high, but not completely out of reach, and in general you get the sense of living in a city and country where there is a feeling of civic pride in institutions and infrastructure. It is one thing to build a metro network or tram line, but quite another to take an interest in seeing that your city is well-run and well-connected, and to get angry rather than apathetic when it isn’t.
So what am I left with after over two years here? Joy and a sense of wellbeing living in a wonderful city with my fiancee and friends, and anger at rarely having felt that in the country I was born in.
It is difficult not to feel like so much has been taken away from my generation and I know many other Irish émigrés feel the same in their homes in Europe, Australia or Canada.
It didn’t have to be like this, but the slow downward spiral in Ireland left us seeking greener pastures.
I still hold some optimism that things may change and I might be able to return some day, but that’s a fading prospect with each headline I read about healthcare, housing, public transport and innumerable other seemingly insurmountable problems. For now, I’ll be content to plan a Spanish wedding and enjoy the sun.
Daire Halligan is from Balbriggan, Co Dublin. He lives in Barcelona with his fiancée Kate McNamara from Glasnevin. The couple left Ireland in August 2020.
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