First post on this forum but have read the threads with great interest here. I'm Irish and am married to a Polish woman and am pondering the idea of moving to Poland and raising a family there, but like everything I suppose a massive change like this shouldn't be done without some thought.
The reason I am here is to see if any Irish have taken the plunge recently in moving to Poland, I myself have in-laws in Rzeszów and am starting to wonder the various factors that needs to be taken into account when moving. Things like finding work, what sort of back up plan should I have while looking for work and generally how should I prepare if I choose to move.
I've read varying different opinions about life in Poland, but for me there's a different way of life that I found wonderful compared to Ireland in terms of family. But am a realist as well, and know that it would be hard work as well.
Anyways, am asking for some opinions on life in general and finding work (have weak polish at the moment), and just general experiences of others who have taken the plunge.
Life is good here if you can settle down but in your case finding work will be a huge issue and you must talk that through with your wife in a serious way. Rzeszow is a nice town but with very limited opportunities and if you dont speak Polish then you really only have one option - teaching English. Easy to get into but low pay and would be difficult to start a family on that.
You'll find good advice such as from CMS above on a forum like this, but you should balance it by speaking to Irish who have been to Poland and returned back to Eire to see what their take was. Then make your decision. My advice would be, try it for 6 to 12 months. Make sure you have a way to return to Eire easily if you don't like Poland. Make sure that you spend time as a resident would in Poland, don't spend the time in holidaymaker mode so to speak. See if you gain what you need to remain permanently, see how you feel how about the different environment, culture and the changes from life back home.
Coincidence Mairtin, I'm seriously considering moving to Rzeszow late in 2013.
I guess I'm a lot older than you (I'm 55), and after marital break up a few years ago met a Polish woman who has been working in England. My reasoning is that I know she will want to go back to Poland anyway, plus the equity in my house here would purchase a house there and leave enough left over to draw down a living until my pensions start at 60. I am struggling to learn the language though, doing an evening course in Birmingham.
If you're reasonably well-to-do in Ireland and own your own home outright (or have a reasonably low mortgage), then I'd rent it out and move in an instant, and perhaps teach English part-time as a hobby for some extra cash. You'd be able to have a much better quality of life with a fairly modest Irish income. Poland could be a wonderful place to live if this is an option for you, and southern Poland is possibly my favourite part of the country on account of its pleasant climate (this is, of course, quite subjective), natural beauty and cultural richness. But, if you need to make money in Poland, you need to look into securing a job beforehand - there's a reason it's seen such an exodus of people, and that's the fact that economic conditions, though not exactly atrocious, are very much inferior to those of Western Europe.
Now, you could potentially work in a multinational company and earn a good salary knowing English alone, but you'd be more likely to find such opportunities in Kraków than in Rzeszów. Teaching English is certainly an option, although I haven't looked into how much it pays. If it does pay sufficiently, you could look into investing in a relevant qualification in Ireland. It shouldn't be too difficult, time-consuming or expensive.
Most people in Poland don't speak English or speak it poorly, so in the long run, learning at least conversational Polish is a must. While not the easiest language in the world, claims of it being an incredibly difficult language are overblown. It's got five tenses (as opposed to at least a dozen in English), and much of what the scary Slavic case system is really about is just replacing some prepositions with suffixes ("Michałowi" = "to Michał", "nożem" = "with a knife").
And Poland is not Japan. You can hop on a plane and be back in Ireland in no time, and it won't cost you very much.
I wish you both good luck in your proposed moves to to Poland; I am hoping that 2013 will be the year I move across to Poland also .... almost certainly Warsaw as I already have a flat there as well as a good network of friends.
I will be 50 this year so I still intend to work whilst in Poland, probably teaching English but I also have a few other things planned as I am fortunate to be able to speak Polish fluently.
It would be good to hear how you get on with your planned moves. If all goes well for me then I will move my family across to Warsaw in late August so the kids start school in early Sept.
You should know that it is very hard to find a job paid above 500 euro pcm even for native speaker. We still aren't ready for English speaking workmates among us.
Thanks to everyone for their constructive replies to date. I really feel like this is the time for me to move, I thought as much teaching English as a language would probably be my first port of call alright but was considering that as an option anyways. I would love to say I'm a fluent Polish speaker and that would make life simpler but at the moment its pretty broken and needs a lot of work before i would feel confident enough to use it in day to day situations.
But judging by some of the replies here and by PM, there's definitely chances for people out there if they're willing to take the risk, and i'm awful tempted to take it :)
