I’m sad that the country I love is sending the people I love to Australia

“Australia isn’t another country. It’s another planet.”
– Suzy, 38, Dublin → Perth, December 2025

Last Saturday I stood in their kitchen in Wicklow and watched my best friend tape up the last box labelled “FRAGILE – MEMORIES”. Inside were the photo albums from our lockdown summer of 2020, the one where four adults and three toddlers accidentally became a family for six months because the world ended and none of us could afford bigger apartments.

Next week that box will sail through the Suez Canal for 42 days before being unloaded in Fremantle. Suzy, Danny, and their daughters Maeve (6) and Sonny (3) will already be there, living in a three-bedroom rental they secured sight-unseen for AUD $720 a week – less than they were paying for a mouldy two-bed in Dublin 8.

I’m 41. They’re 38 and 40. We’re not supposed to be the emigration statistics anymore. We’re supposed to be the ones who “made it” – the generation who stayed after the crash, who bought (or rented) the overpriced shoeboxes, who were told if we just worked hard enough Ireland would finally work for us.

It didn’t.

The New Irish Emigration 2025: It’s Not Backpackers anymore – It’s Parents With Mortgages and Broken Dreams

Forget the 22-year-old with a J1 visa and a fake address in Boston. The 2025 Irish emigrant looks like this:

These aren’t economic migrants chasing dollars. These are refugees from the Irish housing crisis who woke up one morning and realised their children would never own a home here. Who did the maths on childcare (€1,400/month per child) versus one parent giving up work entirely. Who discovered that in Perth a primary school teacher earns AUD $98,000 base salary before overtime – €12,000 more than Dublin after tax.

How We Became Family: The Lockdown That Broke the Rules of Friendship

March 2020. We were supposed to go to Galway for a weekend. Instead, the Taoiseach closed the country on the Friday night. We looked at our 65-square-metre flats, our pregnant bellies (Suzy) and our 18-month-olds (me and P), and made the decision that changed everything.

We moved in together.

Four adults. Three toddlers. One Airbnb in the Dublin mountains that was meant to be three nights and became 187.

We cooked 561 meals together. We did 312 loads of laundry. We cried over burnt lasagne and laughed until we wheezed when Danny tried to bathe all three kids at once and ended up wearing most of the bathwater.

We watched our children become siblings. Maeve and Ted learned to walk holding each other’s hands. When Ted was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2022, Maeve (then 3) drew him 47 get-well cards featuring stick-figure superheroes labelled “Captain Feck Cancer”.

When the world reopened, we tried to go back to normal. But normal didn’t fit anymore. We’d seen each other poop, puke, and parent at 3 a.m. We’d held each other’s newborns while the other one slept for the first time in 72 hours. There’s no “back” from that.

The Maths That Broke Them: Why Ireland Failed Suzy and Danny

Let me show you the spreadsheet they sent me in September (I’ve removed the exact numbers but the ratios are real):

They didn’t want to leave. They tried everything:

• Applied for 127 rentals in Dublin 2021-2024 – zero offers
• Put in 19 bids on houses – highest was €115,000 over asking (still lost)
• Danny took extra tutoring work until 11pm most nights
• Suzy gave up her career for two years to mind the kids because creche waiting lists were 28 months long

The Australian offer came in August. Danny’s cousin sponsored them for the 482 visa. They had 14 days to decide.

They chose their children’s future over their country’s promise.

The Goodbyes That Are Killing Us Softly

At the going-away drinks in Wicklow, the conversations looped like a broken record:

• “Will the kids forget Irish?”
• “Will we become those relatives who only visit every three years?”
• “What if Ted relapses and we’re 17,000km away?”

Suzy pulled me aside at 11pm. She was drunk on fishbowl gin and grief.

“The worst part isn’t leaving Ireland. It’s that our friendship freezes now. We’ll never again have those ordinary Tuesdays where we just show up at each other’s houses with shitty coffee and better gossip. We’ll schedule Zoom calls at 6am my time, 9pm yours, and pretend it’s the same. But it won’t be. We’ll become memories that occasionally message.”

She was right. And it destroyed me.

This Isn’t Just My Story – It’s Ireland’s Shame in 2025

Since Suzy and Danny announced their move, six more couples from our wider circle have booked one-way tickets:

• Clodagh (paediatric nurse) → Brisbane
• Mark & Aoife (both engineers) → Melbourne
• Rory (chef) → Sydney
• Sinead & Conor (teachers) → Adelaide
• Laura (architect) → Perth

All aged 34-42. All with Irish degrees. All with children born in the Rotunda or Holles Street. All gone before Christmas 2025.

The Facebook groups tell the same story:

• “Irish Parents Perth 2025” – 8,400 members (created Jan 2025)
• “Dublin to Melbourne Families” – 6,200 members
• “Irish Teachers WA” – 50 new members this week alone

What Australia Offers That Ireland Refuses To

Let that sink in:

• Free GP visits for kids under 16
• 4 weeks annual leave + 10 days personal leave
• Superannuation (pension) at 11.5% employer contribution
• Public schools with actual playing fields
• Houses with gardens for less than a Dublin apartment

Ireland offers:

• €1,600 creche fees
• 14-month waiting lists for speech therapy
• A health service where paediatric oncology appointments are cancelled because of “staffing issues”
• Politicians who say “sure isn’t everyone struggling” while claiming €3,500/month rent allowances

The Last Night: What We Actually Said

2:14am. The kids asleep on couches. The adults drunk and crying in the garden.

Danny: “I feel like I’m betraying Ireland.”
Suzy: “Ireland betrayed us first.”
Me: “I hate that you have to choose between your kids’ future and your country.”
P: “We’ll visit. Every year. We’ll make it work.”

We won’t. We all know it. The flights are €6,000 return for a family of four. School holidays don’t align. Life will fill the gaps.

At 3am we made a pact: whoever dies first, the others have to scatter their ashes in both countries. Because none of us can choose anymore.

Conclusion: Ireland, This Is Your Fault

I’m not sad they’re going to Australia. I’m furious that Ireland made them.

Every time another family books a one-way ticket to Perth, another piece of Ireland’s soul books it too.

We’re not losing our young people anymore. We’re losing our future grandparents. Our future teachers. Our future nurses who’ll care for us when we’re old.

And we’re doing it because successive governments decided that property developers were more important than people.

Suzy leaves on 18 December. Ted has his final chemo maintenance on 19 December. I’ll be at the airport with him instead of her.

Two endings. One beginning that should never have been necessary.

Ireland, if you want us to stop leaving, stop giving us reasons to go.