Cold feet re_moving house

A one off house very close to the city might be the best of both worlds, bit more expensive but not hugely if you buy in the likes of ardnacrusha
 
OP, My guess is that the real benefit of the field is that you look out your window and see a field of sheep and not a housing estate.

If you really think that you are used to living in an isolated setting and you would hate a housing estate then its not the right move.

Kids are happy when they are living in a happy family, in any sort of house or location.

Unless you have a strong reason to move now, you should stay where you are and consider a move later if or when you find a better house or you find the restrictions of rural living with kids a pain.
 

Other half hates the one hour fifteen minute commute to galway-city for work despite the sub 30km distance, that and her college friends living around Limerick

I have little motive to move myself bar I'd spend less on motor fuel
 
We did the opposite - Moved from a very standard semi d in Limerick (Dooradoyle near The Crescent - def a very average area & not a ghetto) to a bungalow in the Countryside.

Everyone is different but I'd advise you to proceed with extreme caution and to have your eyes wide open.

I don't miss:

  • Hearing our neighbours power shower at 6.34am every morning. (Also blaring music/TV at different times)
  • Looking out the window and seeing the latest traveller family (as habitually let to by one of our ex-neighbours) robbing the kids go-kart from the garden / clothes from the line. (Over 5 years our road went from no rented houses to about 6)
  • The house beside us that used to be a lovely professional couple who moved on and rented it to 6 Polish lads with a really bad attitude (read unpleasant demeanour) waxing the same crap 'racing' car while drinking cider for an entire summer with occasional fist fights.
  • Rubbish dumped on the greens, including regularly lots of broken glass.
  • A walk on a sunny evening on paths full of dog faeces with traffic everywhere.
  • Trying to relax in my back garden with no feeling of privacy due to the 42 windows overlooking you.
  • Having a garden that would be wiped out by the presence of 1 trampoline.

Our kids have buddies up and down our rural road and are not socially isolated - There's a ton of activities within a 10-15 min drive also.

If you do go back to suburbia would it be an option to rent for 12 months first as a safety net?

Best of luck to you anyhow, hope all works out well for you.
 
Last edited:
"I'm pretty intolerant of noisy neighbours and that is an occasional possibility in suburbia, it's probably myself I'm most concerned won't adapt"

Galway_blow_in : it's not an occasional possibility, it's a definate given. Live in town and yes, you will have noise, noisy neighbours, music, lawnmowers all day on Sunday, cars, busses, neighbours that you don't like .......
I think you'd be mad to leave a hard-earned two acres, you earned this, it's not as if you just inherited it or were given it, you bought this place I assume because you liked it and wanted it. That doesn't seem to have changed for you. You have a wonderful few acres of your own that you can walk around as you please and do what you want. You won't have that in a street of houses.

And if you move to a detached house further out of the city - it'll probably take half an hour anyway to get home from work.
So you're giving up your peace and quiet to save only half an hour of your other-half's commute.
Friends move on, even the most settled of people change, fall out, marry, divorce, downsize. I wouldn't move house to be near to someone's friends.

And further down the line, the kids will probably kill you for selling off their sites ...........................

hope it all works out.
 
Nice hedging inside field boundary, sheep keep it like a lawn and the kids like the sheep

Not like we could sell the field without the house
I know loads of people in their McMansions on the one or two acres. My mother, a sister, inlaws. All trying to solve the problem of how to cut the bloody grass. Ride on lawnmower or let it go wild or get a sheep, for ground never actually used by the household. I can cut our lawn in 30 minutes. When I last lived 'at home' it was a constant fight over who would cut the massive lawn. The back of the house would be quite a la mode these days with all the talk of letting the grass go wild for the bumble bees and other insects. My mother never realised she was an eco warrier as she lamented the state of it. Every few years she'd bribe the council hedgecutter to come in and sort it out.
 
Other half hates the one hour fifteen minute commute to galway-city for work despite the sub 30km distance, that and her college friends living around Limerick

I have little motive to move myself bar I'd spend less on motor fuel
So we finally found out the 'why'. That was the one that finally broke me, the commuting. Couldn't hack it anymore. Didn't want to spend a lot of my day in the car. My husband didn't care about fuel as he had a company car.

If you've zero motive either way, and she has on two counts, major ones it has to be said, then you should think some more about it.
 

I cut our lawn in ten minutes, we have a field outside the wall surrounding the lawn, it's not a "mc mansion" either

Bungalow built in 1975
 
So we finally found out the 'why'.
Indeed. There's no way I'd do a commute that's over an hour.

It seems you don't want to move at all but perhaps the situation cannot stay as is. If it was me and I really didn't want to move I'd ascertain whether my OH would consider changing jobs to a shorter commute or becoming a SAHM.
 
Indeed. There's no way I'd do a commute that's over an hour.

When she's stuck in the car for 3 hours a day she ain't wishing to be at home looking at the sheep in the field over the wall.

Bet anything the 1 hour and 15 minutes is way longer in winter too. The roads going into Galway are unbelievable at rush hour, both ways. And it's near impossible to park too. Whole city is chock a block.
 
Presumably the commute from Castletroy in Limerick to Galway city will not be any shorter though will it? So I'm not sure how that will solve the commute issue - or is she planning to get a job in Limerick city if you move?
 
Presumably the commute from Castletroy in Limerick to Galway city will not be any shorter though will it? So I'm not sure how that will solve the commute issue - or is she planning to get a job in Limerick city if you move?

Correct, she would transfer to Limerick
 

Most people in meath, Kildare or wicklow, do a one hour commute, we can get to eyre Square in half an hour outside the busy commuter times, Galway is a near unique case with regard traffic congestion, for such a small city, its extraordinary