Starting school in Ireland...memories....

Rule: Starting school is never easy
Exception: When you return to your native country- nothing about school will trouble you…

When we moved to Ireland I had three kids about to start school, in a new land, a new system and in two new languages (English AND Gaelic). My toddler had one more year at home so he got a nicer start.

Here we can talk about culture clash! Our school applications just disappeared in a great administrational pile, mostly it seemed because no school wanted kids who did not speak English. I had to walk down to another school and ask them for places, after school had started. It was ok. I came from there with a list of instructions on all things I needed. For the girls’ school I also got an address (orally given) for where to go for the uniform.

So here I was, a week into the new term with three book lists (but the boys’ books could mostly be retrieved through their teachers), as well as uniforms. I know now that all uniforms disappear already in June but back then I did not have a clue. I went to all shops in September and ended up with trousers without buttons, trousers and sweaters for ten-year-old to my 7-year-old boy and no ties to be found anywhere. I later found out that you bought them from the school office!

The girl school my girl first attended had really posh uniforms, bought in a small shop quite a way from the school. Here the same trouble occurred, they were out of her size but she eventually ended up with a mini skirt, and one day later we had to go back as we had not known that her PE-uniform also had to be bought from there.

All these, for any Irish family so self-explaining, things really made my life hell the first month. But then, one day. I had it all. Except English for my children... We tried in the evenings to understand what they did not understand and to train further on English vocabulary. However, as children they adapted quite easily in front of the telly, watching children’s programs hour after hour and one day they were all talking in English.

And that is how we became Irish because as they did not have their mother’s unfortunate British accent (trained in Swedish schools), they all ended up with an Irish accent. For one of my kids it was impossible to see that he was anything but Irish. And soon I also bought the books second hand and the uniforms in June.