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A few days ago I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across a post from Vanessa with the blog Tunipseed Travel. She had posted a photo of Dublin and commented that it’s not a place that she loves. She likes Dublin, feels comfortable when she’s there, but she doesn’t love the city. I posted a comment agreeing because here’s the truth; despite living for a year and a bit in Dublin, working there, (and visiting many times after I lived in Donabate for a several months), I never fell in love with Dublin.
I’ve debated writing about this before, but I always had a hard time gathering my thoughts. Part of me felt guilty that I never “fell in love with Dublin” as I thought I would before moving there. I didn’t hate Dublin. There have been some places that I’ve fallen in love with right away. However, there are a lot more places I’ve visited that I’ve found to be more “all right.” With those places, there isn’t any, “this place is so amazing” feeling that comes over me. Feeling just “okay” about a place is actually okay. Whether someone loves, just likes, or even hates a place is pretty subjective. Not every place is going to be the greatest place on earth for every person.
I often wonder if the reason I didn’t love Dublin was because of the circumstances that I was there. My experience was a lot different than someone going to Dublin for a vacation. I moved to Dublin on a temporary working holiday visa, having never visited the city (or anywhere else in Ireland) before. Upon arrival, I was already anxiously trying to find a place to live, a job, and doing all the other little things you need to do when moving to another country. None of this went as smoothly as I anticipated, and this probably coloured my Dublin experience in a more negative light than if I’d just been there on vacation. I didn’t know anyone before moving to Ireland, and getting comfortable in Dublin (feeling that I knew what I was doing and where I was going) took time. Equating my feelings about my time in Dublin with a relationship status update would be “it’s complicated.”
When I first got to Dublin I imagined some moment where I’d be hit with this feeling of “this feels like home.” That did not happen. There were things I enjoyed about Dublin like visiting the free museums, grabbing a pint at a pub, walking in the parks, being close to the sea, the people I met, not having to deal with -30°C in winter. There were also things I didn’t like about Dublin including stupid high rent prices, how long it took me to find steady employment, the narrow sidewalks in some areas, and the train schedule where I lived (last train back home was at 11pm so if I wanted to stay out late I had to take an expensive cab).
Let me be clear, I didn’t hate Dublin. Nothing horrible happened while I was there, aside from some job and apartment hunting stresses, a mouse incident, and going temporarily blind on the train. That last one was the worst of all and I’m not sure what caused it, my theory is I either got heat stroke (yes) or I had a panic attack. Either way not great. But also not something that is the fault of Dublin. It was just a shitty thing that happened there.
Eventually, I felt comfortable in Dublin. Soon, I figured out how to get around town. I felt proud when I could give accurate directions to lost tourists. It took time, but I began to understand the North Dublin accent (the area where I lived and worked). I got to know what some of the Irish slang I heard meant. I’d go grocery shopping at Lidl or the big Tesco in Clarehall close to where I lived. I’d pick up a spicy chicken fillet roll from the deli. I felt comfortable going into a pub and ordering a drink. Maybe I wasn’t a local, but I was local-adjacent. Yet, part of me knew while I was in Dublin that this wasn’t my home. That I was an observer, just there for a short period of my life.
Thinking about it I’m glad I didn’t fall in love with Dublin. Places I’ve fallen in love with instantaneously like Montreal, or Hong Kong I visited on short vacations. Living there would be a completely different experience than being there on a holiday. Moving to and living in Dublin made me realize how different that experience is from just travelling somewhere. It’s fun to wander around a city to find a nice spot to grab lunch or a museum to visit. It’s a lot less fun rushing around a city handing out resumes and looking for a place to live. Plus, if I had fallen instantly in love with Dublin it would have made it much harder to leave. I didn’t love Dublin, but it was still hard to leave when I had to go back to Canada.
This post isn’t meant to discourage you from travelling to Dublin. There are lots great things to see and do in the city. For anyone going to Ireland, it’s worth stopping in Dublin for a few days. There are day trips close to Dublin to the Wicklow Mountains, Dún Laoghaire, Howth, Malahide, and even Donabate (where I lived for a bit). You could easily stay in Dublin for a week or longer.
I don’t regret moving to Dublin, even when it was hard. Living abroad was an experience I always wanted. As one my favourite lyrics in the musical Sunday in the Park with George goes, “the choice may have been mistaken, the choosing was not. ” I don’t know if moving to Dublin was a mistake or not, but it taught me many things I didn’t know before. Despite the hard times, or maybe because of them, I’m glad I lived in Dublin and got that experience.
Now I get this weird nostalgia for my time in Dublin. It was hard, beautiful, fun, overwhelming, and sometimes just okay. I’m not done with Dublin, and I’d like to go back someday for a holiday. I’ll order a pint, grab a spice bag from a takeaway, take the DART, see sites I didn’t get to see. Perhaps Dublin won’t feel quite like home, and I probably won’t fall in love with Dublin either. Yet, because of the experiences I had there, Dublin won’t feel quite like anywhere else in the world.
Have you been somewhere that you would equate to the “it’s complicated” relationship status?