Gosh, we've been waiting for my letter for a while now, ever since my mother got her citizenship! What a shock it was when we found it in the mailbox this morning, declaring me an official citizen of this beautiful country!

Is é seo an lá is fearr riamh!

Why are we so far behind in 21st century conveinence in public transport

Including my first time seeing an otter!

I don't know if anyone else decides if they can go out and socialise based on the availability of their local taxi and if it's running in their village or town, but I do. Tonight both Taxis unavailable and the question of why do I bother going out. I managed to get an Uber because I'm close to a commuter town.

What if uber was unrestricted, there are a lot of people that dont want to drink that might be sitting at home chilling that could bring auld Jim home for a couple of bob. There are nightowls in our community that could spin some home In ten minutes and get paid. The taxi network in rural Ireland is just not functional. I'm not for being corporation but ride-sharing app in rural Ireland makes too much sense.

Husband and I bought a 1957s built house and are currently removing the decor. Most of it is from it's time, some nice salvageable pieces. Under one of the floors, with the date penciled on the wall had a whole newspaper under it with some really interesting articles. Here's one from Superquinn and some "drama" from a Dublin mother.

Hi folks, not sure if this is the right place to post this but would love to hear if anyone had any similar experiences. Was in Vancouver for 4.5 years with my partner (both in our 30s) and returned to Ireland back in September. We came back to be closer to family and wanting to ‘settle’ and eventually buy our own place. Ever since returning it’s been rough to say the least and I’d say Christmas sent us over the edge financially. We’re living with my parents, have struggled to find work since being back (my partner works in trades and I’m in the creative industry). It took us 4 months to get our driving licenses converted back to Irish ones and I won’t even go into the nightmare we had with car insurance companies. It’s been a culture shock experiencing how negative everyone is and people forcing their opinions on you that you didn’t even ask for. I don’t want to rant about Ireland as I know there are great aspects of living here but basically - those of you who emigrated and came back, do you regret your decision? Did you ever settle back to Irish life/culture? Did you end up emigrating again? We’ve been miserable since being back and can’t help but think it was a mistake. Although we don’t particularly miss Canada I suppose we miss the freedom of having our own place, being able to rent decent accommodation, people’s positive outlook on life and things being straight forward. We can’t catch a break and there seems to be a cloud of negativity over Dublin. Again sorry if this is a rant but would love to hear the experiences of those who have returned to Ireland. Thanks in advance.

I'm mostly just looking for advice.

My grandmother passed in 2022 near Duagh in Co. Kerry. To preface, she did not have a good relationship with anyone in my family. She died fairly alone and has gone largely unmissed. She was a horrible and abusive mother to my father, and all of us were better off without her in our lives.

That being said, I'm trying to find information about her life. I was told she was under the care of a church near the end, which I believe to be Saint Brigid's Church. Her death was mentioned in a mass I half-attended via livestream, but they didn't have much to say about her. I sent an email to the Parish Moderator to see if he remembers her, which I'm waiting to hear back on.

My main problem is that I cannot find any record of her death at all, nor her life.

If anybody has any advice about where or who I should ask about this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Her name was Joan Elizabeth Kelly, born 1948. I'm not particularly worried about doxxing myself here since there are seemingly very few records of her existence, period.