I will get my son christened, reluctantly
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again When you have a three-month-old baby in Ireland, there’s one question that’s inevitably on everyone’s lips. When is the christening? I can’t count how many people...
View ArticleBattle to buy a house in Clontarf, or is it Marino?
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again I’m standing in the middle of a tiny, shiny sitting-room in a new house on the outskirts of Clontarf and the real estate agent is beaming. “We’ll probably have...
View ArticleOh, the weather outside is frightful…
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again I think I’m going to have to shut down my Facebook account. Either that or delete all my Australian friends. As I look out the window at the rain that has been...
View ArticleAustralia has given me the vote Ireland would not
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again This May, Irish citizens will vote on the legalisation of same-sex marriage. In March, the citizens of New South Wales will elect a new state government. Being both...
View ArticleDublin now a city of frustrated renters and absentee landlords
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again I’ve always been a happy renter who never really cared about the whole ‘rent is dead money’ theory. Maybe it is, but as long as renting suited our lifestyle, I was...
View ArticleIt sounds strange, but now Aussie accent’s foreign
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again I got a shock at the crack of dawn the other morning when I turned on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme to be greeted by the sound of Tony Abbott’s voice. In between...
View ArticleAbbott’s comments no laughing matter
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again Watching Tony Abbott’s excruciating St Patrick’s Day message was so painful I had to cover my eyes. The Irish made the songs while the English made the laws, did...
View ArticleFollow love, not fear in same-sex marriage vote
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again In six weeks, Ireland will vote on whether same-sex marriage should be legalised. It’s a momentous occasion that would have been unthinkable 20 or even 10 years ago....
View Article‘Til debt do us part? Put the house on it
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again It’s official. We have finally bought a house. It only took us 15 months (some would say the entire 15 years we have been together) but at long last we are proper...
View ArticleYoung voters display wiser heads on equality
Isabel Hayes is A Native Once Again Ten years ago, even five years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine: little Ireland leading the way on the international stage and becoming the first...
View ArticleA move back to Ireland is not without risk
Isabel Hayes is a journalist who returned to live in Ireland last year after seven years in Australia After seven years of high rates of emigration, the tide is turning in Ireland and emigrants are...
View ArticleNanny state? I wish. Taxing times for us mums.
Isabel Hayes moved back to Ireland with her husband after almost seven years in Australia. The other day I picked up a new mammy friend in the park. I’ve never met this woman before but when our two...
View ArticleDart hits the bullseye, despite the odd p**k
Isabel Hayes is a journalist who returned to live in Ireland last year after seven years in Australia. One of the things I love most about our new home is its proximity to the Dart line. Before we...
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