How We Ended Up In Cork
How we ended up in Cork is quite a story. We thought that we would end up in a relatively large city because we enjoy the lively vibe that comes with it. We loved spending time in Jo’burg and Cape Town back home with all its restaurants, nightlife and attractions. So why Cork instead of Dublin you might be wondering?
A little background is required here. We were having a relaxing evening playing PlayStation when my phone rang. It was about 7pm. A friendly South African voice asked if I had a moment to discuss work opportunities in Ireland. At the time I had almost forgotten that I applied for a couple of vacancies the year before. This recruiter had joined a successful recruitment agency in Ireland when she moved over with her husband who is Irish.
There was a company that also expressed their interest earlier that year. However, this company’s main concern was Brexit and the uncertainty in relation to work permits for their current employees. As we all know, Brexit negotiation deadlines kept being extended and moved on and the opportunity was put on an indefinite hold. I recall how difficult it was to come into consideration for an interview in the first place and that we had poured a lot of hope into this potential opportunity. After that we had stopped actively looking for vacancies in Ireland. The call out of the blue from the recruiter was therefore quite a surprise.
From the phone call with the recruiter to a telephonic interview with the interested company she represented took one day. It didn’t take five minutes after the interview for the recruiter to phone me with an offer. Irene and I didn’t know what to do. It had taken months of trying to secure an employment offer and here we were, like a dog that caught its own tail. They made an offer for either their Dublin office or their Cork office. There was also a combination of the two options which would require some traveling between the two offices.
Previously we had visited Dublin on an Irish / French holiday and one of our main concerns was that we knew we would not be able to afford a large property for our two Belgian Shepherds. We hadn’t heard of Cork before this so we started to do our research. The Cork metropolitan area has a population of less than 200,000 people. This is significantly smaller than Dublin, which in turn is much smaller than Johannesburg. But, it was also labelled as the food capital of Ireland and that certainly got our attention being foodies at heart! We weighed up the cost of living between the two cities and since one of the main reasons for moving to Europe was to travel more – Cork it is.
