I Never Planned on Moving to Ireland
Have you ever had one of those ideas that starts as a completely harmless “someday” thought, and then somehow turns into an actual plan? Not a daydream, not a vague bucket-list item, but something you suddenly realize you're genuinely going to have to figure out how to make happen?
Yeah. That's basically how I ended up planning a move to Ireland.
And honestly, if you'd asked me a few years ago whether I thought I'd ever seriously consider moving to another country, I probably would've laughed my ass off.
For a long time, Ireland was honestly just a place I wanted to visit someday. I mentioned it maybe once or twice to friends or family as a bucket-list trip, but that was really all it was. I had never seriously considered moving overseas. Hell, for most of my life I never even thought I'd have enough money to do any real traveling outside the U.S.
The funny thing is, this isn't even the first time Kyler and I have seriously talked about leaving the country. Back in 2023, we talked about moving to Japan. We weren't just throwing the idea around as a fun hypothetical. We were actually talking about how we could make it happen. Then we started researching what it would really take, and reality hit pretty damn quickly. The more we learned, the more obvious it became that Japan was going to be extremely difficult for us, especially with where we were in life at the time. There was a very real possibility we'd have to live apart for some period of time, and even if we somehow made the move work, we were looking at roughly ten years of consistent residency before we'd even be eligible to apply for Japanese citizenship.
Then there was the language barrier. I've always had a huge interest in learning other languages, especially French, which I've wanted to learn since middle school or maybe even earlier. But despite trying, I've never been able to successfully learn and retain another language. So the idea of having to learn an entirely new language well enough to build a permanent life somewhere was a pretty massive barrier for me.
Eventually, we had to accept that Japan probably wasn't going to be feasible for us. And honestly, that experience kind of killed the whole idea of overseas immigration for a while. We were working hard, trying to get our lives together, and it felt like no matter how hard we tried, we were never going to get to the point where something that huge was actually possible. We weren't even sure we'd ever be able to afford to travel outside the U.S., let alone move to another country permanently. So we put the whole idea away and, for the next couple of years, really didn't think much about it.
I was already pretty disappointed with how things were going in life in 2025. Then things really hit the fan, especially when I lost my very short-lived and first tech-aligned support role in May. That job was supposed to be my chance to finally start getting professional technology experience, and losing it left me questioning whether I was actually going to be able to break into IT at all.
I'm working now, but I've been trying like hell to replace the income I lost. Since starting a much heavier job search, I've been applying not just to IT roles, but also to Direct Support Professional and caregiving jobs and Customer Service positions. Those are areas I have experience in, but honestly, they're also areas I'm trying to move away from. I don't want to spend the rest of my career bouncing between caregiving, customer service, and whatever job will pay the bills. I want to actually build the technology career I've been working toward.
And right now, finding enough additional income to make that happen isn't exactly looking promising.
That was another big reason I started looking outside the U.S. again. Not because I thought moving to another country would magically solve all my problems, but because I had reached a point where I needed to seriously ask myself what other possibilities were out there for my career and my life.
Early on in that research, Ireland came to mind because I'd always wanted to visit. I figured, okay, we considered as far as Japan, so let's at least see what it would actually take realistically. What are the rules for Americans to visit AND immigrate? What would it take to actually live there and not flail and barely survive like here? What are rent and wages like? What does healthcare look like? What kind of jobs are available? Is any of this even remotely realistic for someone like me who was raised and has continued living as a working lower-class American, barely surviving as it is?
That was really the beginning of all of this. Then I found the Working Holiday Authorization.
That was the first time I thought, “Wait... maybe this isn't completely impossible.”
Basically, the WHA gives eligible Americans, including qualifying full-time, in-person college students, a legal way to enter, live, and work in Ireland for up to twelve months without needing another work permit while they're there. I wouldn't need to have a job or employer lined up beforehand either. Ireland's own description is pretty straightforward: “Live and work in Ireland for up to 12 months.”
For me, that changed the entire question. I wasn't trying to figure out how to magically move my entire life to another country permanently anymore. I was trying to figure out whether I could realistically, legally, and financially get myself to Ireland for a year, live there, work there, keep doing my classes remotely, and see what happens.
And that's where we are now.
So here's the actual plan
The current plan is to head to Ireland around late May or early June 2027 on an Irish Working Holiday Authorization. I'll finish my Spring 2027 term at Western Oregon University here in Oregon, then make the move once the school year and all the other logistics are wrapped up.
There's an important detail about my school situation that makes this possible. I need to be enrolled as a qualifying full-time, in-person college student when I apply for the WHA. Once I'm actually in Ireland, though, I can continue my WOU program remotely. Since I'm in an Information Systems program, most of my coursework can be done online anyway. So I'll meet the in-person student requirement for the WHA application, finish my Spring term, move to Ireland, and continue my degree remotely from there.
I'm working toward my Bachelor's in Information Systems with a Cybersecurity concentration. My current degree plan has me finishing around 2030, although that timeline is still being worked on because I'm looking at what can be done with my previous college coursework, my IT education, and some of the General Education requirements.
Ideally, I'll also be working full-time while I'm there. One of my biggest goals for that year is to finally get some real professional experience in the technology field I'm studying for. I'm not expecting Ireland to just hand me an IT job because I showed up with a WHA. I'll be applying, networking, working on my portfolio, researching employers, and doing as much preparation as I can before I leave.
The WHA doesn't guarantee a job, and finding short-term work can be competitive. So yes, I know this is ambitious. I'm also not going into it completely blind.
What happens if Ireland actually feels like home?
This is where the career side of the whole thing becomes really important.
The WHA is temporary. I'll have to leave Ireland when it expires unless I qualify for some other legal immigration permission. If I eventually decide that Ireland really is somewhere I want to build a permanent life, I'll need another route.
Interestingly, I originally misunderstood part of the citizenship rules. Under the current Irish rules, Working Holiday Authorization falls under Stamp 1, and Stamp 1 residence is currently reckonable toward citizenship by naturalisation. So that year can count toward the overall residence requirement for citizenship. It does not qualify for Ireland's separate Long Term Residency program, though, and the WHA itself still only lasts twelve months.
Basically, that year can potentially become part of the bigger picture, but it isn't some magic “live here for a year and become Irish” button. There are still several years and other requirements involved, and the rules could change before any of this gets that far.
If I eventually want to stay, employment is one of the possibilities I'm researching. Ireland has several employment permit options, including the Critical Skills Employment Permit and General Employment Permit. Which one might apply would depend on the actual job, occupation, qualifications, salary, employer, and whatever the rules look like at that point.
The Critical Skills route is particularly interesting for someone trying to build a career in technology because Ireland's Critical Skills Occupations List includes certain technology-related occupations and skills.
There's another important piece of this that I didn't understand before I started researching international immigration: the employer has to submit the employment permit application. It's not something I can just decide to apply for myself because I found a job I like.
That means one of my biggest goals for the WHA year isn't necessarily to find a job that will sponsor me immediately. It's to find a good longer-term opportunity early enough that I can actually work for the company while I'm on my WHA, prove that I can do the job, build relationships with the team, and hopefully give them a reason to want to keep me around.
Because let's be honest, if an employer is going to take on the paperwork, cost, and responsibility involved in an employment permit application and potential renewals down the road, I want them to already know that I'm worth the trouble.
The important part is that I wouldn't simply switch from the WHA to an employment permit while I'm still in Ireland. Current guidance says WHA holders have to leave Ireland when the WHA expires and can't apply for an employment permit while they're still there on the WHA.
So the ideal scenario would be that I find the right employer during my WHA, work there long enough to prove myself, and they decide they'd like to keep me long-term. When the WHA ends, I'd return to the U.S., the employer could submit the employment permit application on my behalf, and if it's approved and I meet all the requirements, I could potentially return to Ireland under that new permission.
At that point, I could also continue my WOU degree completely online. I wouldn't need to maintain the in-person student status that I needed in order to qualify for the WHA in the first place.
That's the plan, anyway. It's not guaranteed. I'm just trying to understand the possible paths and give myself the best shot at making one of them work.
And, of course, none of this is free.
The WHA itself costs money. Employment permits and immigration registration have their own costs. If Kyler eventually qualifies for family reunification, that comes with application and registration costs too. Then there are passports, flights, temporary housing, deposits, transportation, healthcare, shipping, pet relocation, and all the other expenses involved in actually getting established in another country.
That's something I don't think a lot of Americans realize unless they've traveled a lot internationally or actually sat down and researched immigration. Having a legal pathway doesn't mean the move itself is cheap. There are a lot of financial and logistical steps between “I qualify” and “I'm actually living there.”
And then there's Kyler
Obviously, I'm not planning a future that completely ignores the person I've built my life with. Kyler and I have been together for years, and figuring out how he could potentially join me longer-term is part of the research too.
Marriage is one possible route, but it isn't the only thing I've been looking at. Ireland also has a de facto partner framework, including for same-sex couples. The relevant route generally requires proof of a genuine, continuing relationship and at least two years of living together, and what permission a partner can get depends heavily on the type of immigration permission the person in Ireland has.
For example, current Irish guidance allows eligible spouses and de facto partners of Critical Skills Employment Permit holders to apply for family reunification, and qualifying partners can receive Stamp 1G permission that allows them to work without getting a separate employment permit.
General Employment Permit situations are different and have their own requirements and waiting periods. So no, this isn't as simple as “I move to Ireland and Kyler automatically comes with me.” Unfortunately, immigration law has never met a simple sentence it couldn't turn it into six forms and a PDF.
And yes, family reunification has costs of its own. There are application and registration fees, plus travel, housing, documentation, and everything else involved in getting another person moved between countries.
For now, I'm researching the actual options and keeping documentation so that if the opportunity eventually comes up, we're as prepared as we can be.
And then there are the dogs
Apparently moving yourself across an ocean isn't complex enough.
The plan is to bring Bisha (Bee-shuh) and Ollie with me. Cabella won't be making the international move, and there's a very specific reason for that. She's old, and unfortunately, she has cancer. We're not expecting to be making a permanent family immigration move to Ireland within the next year, or even within the amount of time we realistically expect her to have left. As much as I wish the circumstances were different, bringing her on an international move simply isn't in the cards.
So Bisha and Ollie will be the two making the trip with us in the longrun of things.
Pet relocation is its own entire project, and I'm already looking into it because there are some very specific requirements for bringing dogs from the United States into Ireland. For dogs coming from the U.S., that includes an ISO-compliant microchip, rabies vaccination after the microchip is implanted, the required waiting period after a primary rabies vaccination, an EU health certificate completed and endorsed by the appropriate official veterinarian, and tapeworm treatment within the required window before arrival. There are
also specific approved points of entry and compliance checks.
So this isn't something I'm going to figure out the week before the flight. There will be vet appointments, paperwork, airline requirements, crates, timing, and probably me checking the same government websites approximately seventeen times to make sure I didn't miss some rule change.
Then there's all the stuff nobody thinks about
When people hear “I'm moving to Ireland,” the obvious questions are usually the big ones. How are you getting there? Where are you going to live? How are you going to work? How much does it cost?
But there are also a thousand even smaller questions hiding underneath those.
What do I actually bring with me? What gets shipped? What stays behind? What does international shipping even look like? What happens when your belongings arrive at Irish customs? Do you qualify for transfer-of-residence relief? How do you set up a phone plan? How do you get around? How do you find housing when you're arriving from another country? How much temporary accommodation do you need before you can get a permanent place? What happens with banking? What paperwork do I need to keep? How do I prove where I'm living?
And it's not just moving stuff. What medications can I bring? What happens if I need medical care? How does healthcare actually work? What do I need to know before I leave the U.S. instead of trying to figure it out after I land?
These are the kinds of questions you don't necessarily know you need to ask until you're already dealing with them.
Even the customs side is more complicated than “put your stuff in a box and send it across the ocean.” Ireland's Revenue guidance says certain people moving their normal residence from outside the EU may qualify for relief from Customs Duty and VAT on eligible personal and household belongings, but there are specific requirements about how long you've lived outside the EU, how long you've owned and used the goods, and when they're imported.
That's the kind of stuff I never would've thought about when Ireland was just a country I wanted to visit. Now I'm researching customs declarations.
Life is weird.
So this is where the Ireland Fund comes in
I'm funding this trip myself. That's important to me because I don't want this to come across like I'm sitting here waiting for other people to make it possible. I'm not. I'm working, I'm going to keep working, I'm going to keep saving, and I'm going to figure out how to make this happen.
But the reality is that I'm also trying to replace the income I lost, and despite a pretty serious job search across IT, caregiving/DSP, and Customer Service, that hasn't been going nearly as well as I'd hoped. I'm trying to move my career forward while also keeping up with the basic cost of living, and right now there isn't a lot of extra money left over for a major international move.
That's why I'm including the Ireland Fund, but also an Amazon registry and cash payment options. The goal isn't to have people fund a vacation for me. It's to give friends, family, and anyone else who genuinely wants to help a way to do that, whether that's helping with the actual move, something we need along the way, or simply giving us a little extra breathing room while we're trying to make all of this work.
There are a lot of expenses involved before I ever step onto that plane: the WHA itself, passports and paperwork, airfare, temporary housing, deposits, transportation, groceries, moving supplies, shipping, pet expenses, and eventually the costs associated with whatever comes next. If Kyler is able to join me through family reunification down the road, that process will have its own costs too.
I'm not expecting anyone else to make this happen. I'm doing the work and funding as much of it as I possibly can myself. But if someone wants to help us out in some way, I'd rather give them a straightforward way to do that than pretend I don't need the help.
Amazon Registry: https://link.amazon/B09KoxKvA
Cash App: https://cash.app/$cashstache420
PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/SkullKey88
And if you don't have the money, don't want to contribute, or would rather just follow along, that's completely fine too. There is absolutely no guilt attached to this. Honestly, following the journey is already pretty damn cool.
And that's really why I'm bringing the blog back
I don't want this to be one of those situations where I make a post saying “GUYS I'M MOVING TO IRELAND!!!” and then six months later everyone wonders what happened.
I want to actually document the process as it happens, alongside the rest of my life. There will still be school updates, career stuff, random life happenings, projects, and all the other things I normally write about. The Ireland journey is just going to become a pretty big part of that for a while.
That means I'll be writing about the planning, budgeting, immigration research, getting the WHA, finishing school, figuring out what the hell I'm taking with me, packing, selling or donating things, shipping, getting the dogs ready, booking flights, finding temporary housing, looking for work, finding permanent housing, and figuring out what normal everyday life is like in another country.
And I don't just want the blog to be useful to someone who is specifically planning to move two small dogs from America to Ireland, although hopefully that person will find it useful too. I want to document the little things that might help anyone who's thinking about visiting Ireland, studying there, working there, moving there, or just trying to figure out what the hell they should've researched before getting on a plane.
Because there are so many questions you don't know to ask until you're already dealing with the problem. Things like medications, healthcare, banking, transportation, housing, customs, phones, paperwork, pets, what to bring, what not to bring, and all the other little logistical details that don't necessarily show up on the big “How to Move to Ireland” checklist.
If I can figure something out the hard way and write it down so somebody else doesn't have to, I'd consider that a win.
I'm sure there will be mistakes. There will probably be at least a couple of moments where I get completely overwhelmed and wonder what the hell I've gotten myself into. Hopefully there will also be a lot of really fucking cool experiences.
And then, eventually, I'll document coming home when the WHA year ends.
Maybe that's where the story ends. Maybe I come back to Oregon, finish my degree, and Ireland becomes an incredible year of my life that I never expected to have. Maybe I come back and realize I actually really like living here. Maybe I come back, finish school, and eventually find another legal route to return. Maybe I somehow end up building a permanent life in Ireland. I genuinely don't know yet.
And weirdly, I think that's part of what makes this exciting. I'm not writing the ending first and then trying to force reality to cooperate with it. I'm starting with one very real opportunity, doing as much preparation as I possibly can, and seeing where it takes me.
A few years ago, Ireland was a place I hoped I could visit someday. Now I'm figuring out how to live there for a year.
That's a pretty wild thing to be able to say.
So yeah. Apparently I'm moving to Ireland. Let's see what happens.
Sources & Further Reading
Because immigration, employment, customs, and pet-travel rules can change, the information in this post is based on the official government guidance available when I was researching my move. If you're reading this later, please check the current guidance before making any plans or spending money.
Working Holiday Authorization
Irish Working Holiday Authorisation Program: Official information from Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs covering the U.S.-Ireland Working Holiday Authorisation, including eligibility, working in Ireland, and the 12-month duration.
U.S.-Ireland Holiday Working Agreement FAQs: Official Irish government information about the WHA's validity period, arrival deadline, and the fact that the authorization cannot be extended.
Employment Permits & Working in Ireland
Irish Employment Permits Information: The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment's main employment-permits portal, including eligibility requirements and the application process.
Critical Skills Employment Permit: Official information about the Critical Skills Employment Permit, including job-offer requirements, application timing, and current salary criteria.
Critical Skills Occupations List: The current official list of occupations and specific skills eligible for Critical Skills Employment Permits, including qualifying technology-related occupations.
General Employment Permit: Official information about the General Employment Permit, including eligible occupations, application requirements, fees, and processing rules.
Employment Permit Application Forms & Employment Permits Online: Official application information, including the requirement that employment-permit applications be submitted at least 12 weeks before the proposed employment start date.
Irish Immigration, Residency & Citizenship
Irish Immigration Permission Stamps: Official explanation of Ireland's immigration stamps, including Stamp 1 and the specific note that Working Holiday Authorisation holders are granted Stamp 1 permission that is not renewable or variable and requires them to leave when the WHA expires.
Irish Citizenship by Naturalisation: Official citizenship guidance covering the current reckonable-residence requirements for naturalisation.
Irish Citizenship Residency Calculator: Official calculator for checking reckonable residence toward Irish citizenship.
Family Reunification / Partners
De Facto Partner of a Critical Skills Employment Permit Holder: Official Immigration Service Delivery information about the de facto partner route for eligible Critical Skills Employment Permit holders and Hosting Agreement holders.
Irish Immigration Registration Requirements & Fees: Current official information about immigration registration, including registration fees and the different permissions/stamps.
Bringing Dogs to Ireland
Ireland's Official Pet Travel Information: The Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's main pet-travel resource, covering requirements for bringing animals into Ireland.
Pet Travel Requirements: United States → Ireland: The official Irish pet-travel portal's country-specific guidance for animals entering Ireland from the United States, including microchipping, rabies vaccination, health certificates, tapeworm treatment, approved entry points, and compliance checks.
Ireland Pet Travel Portal: Official pet-travel portal where travelers can select their country of departure and animal type to see the applicable requirements.
Moving Personal Belongings / Customs
Moving to Ireland from Outside the EU: Transfer of Residence: Irish Revenue's official guidance on potentially obtaining relief from Customs Duty and VAT when transferring normal residence to Ireland from outside the EU.
Transfer of Residence: Rules & Eligibility: Detailed Revenue guidance covering requirements such as the 12-month period of residence outside the EU, six-month ownership/use requirement, and timing of importing belongings.
Transfer of Residence: Supporting Documents: Official information about the documentation that may be required to demonstrate residence abroad, the move to Ireland, and ownership/use of imported belongings.
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