![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787636775_47_Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-14.49.17_clipped_rev_1-133x133.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Sasha Piton<\/p>\n
As she leaves her adopted home of Dublin behind for a new adventure, Irish-French-American Sasha Piton shares some parting insights on the Ireland that found her.<\/p>\n
I\u2019VE TRAVELLED TO Ireland a few times before, always drawn to the west, but this time feeling the pull to the east.<\/p>\n
I got advice from every direction when I first arrived. People kept telling me to go west and that\u2019s where the real Ireland was, they said, the wild coast, the quiet villages, the postcard version that\u2019s absolutely breathtaking. But almost as often, I met people right here in the east who loved it fiercely, who couldn\u2019t imagine living anywhere else.<\/p>\n
I met creatives building lives out of studios and small stages. I met other women who\u2019d moved here recently too, still finding their footing the way I was, comparing notes on housing and where to get a decent coffee. And I met Dubliners, born and raised, who looked at me like the answer was obvious and said, this is the place. Somewhere in all those conversations, my gut got louder than the advice. I stayed east.<\/p>\n
![\"fishingcottageeandboatscreebeconnemaraco-galwayireland\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787636776_383_.JPEG\")
\n Americans often get told the west is the ‘real’ Ireland but my gut told me to look east. Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Shutterstock\n<\/p>\n
My American accent gave me away everywhere I went, and it opened conversations I wasn\u2019t expecting; people meeting my fresh start with real kindness, teaching me how to take a bus for the first time in my life, how to get a Leap card, which DART line platform I needed to be on. Somewhere in that same breath, every conversation turned to housing. How impossible it is, how expensive, and how long the waitlists are.<\/p>\n
I sat on the train next to a 22 year old who shares a room with two other people just to afford living in this city while working full time. I\u2019ve met people my own age still living at home, not because they want to but because independence has a price tag that\u2019s astronomical.<\/p>\n
And I recognised the stress in these conversations, because I watched it happen at home first; tax breaks that favour the already insanely wealthy, rents and mortgages climbing while wages are hanging out where they\u2019ve been, ordinary people priced out of the place they grew up.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the price tag, but it\u2019s the math behind it.<\/p>\n
Wages here haven\u2019t kept pace with rent the way they need to, and new supply gets tangled in years of planning delays while demand keeps climbing. I\u2019ve heard the same story again and again: a good job, a decent pay cheque, and still not enough to live alone in the city you work in.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s insane. And has nothing to do with someone\u2019s success. That\u2019s a system doing exactly what it was built to do. I\u2019ve seen this movie and I know how it ends.<\/p>\n
The other side of losing that battle to resist<\/p>\n
What gives me hope is that people here aren\u2019t numb to it yet. There\u2019s still a real fight in how people talk about it and you believe that pressure on leadership can move the needle in the right direction. I want that! I\u2019ve seen the other side of losing that battle, a country where profit finds its way into everything. Not just housing but the food on your plate and the ground it\u2019s grown in.<\/p>\n
Ireland just approved a new data centre. More wealth concentrated for a few at the cost of jobs, resources, and the communities living around it. I hope Ireland finds a way to hold onto that fight before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n
But for everything I see here that\u2019s straining, my time in Ireland has also shown me what this culture gets quietly and remarkably right. It\u2019s healed something in my own nervous system, too.<\/p>\n
When I first arrived I felt such anxiety and stress while eating at a restaurant because I have been trained to eat quickly and clear the table so the server can get to their next guests and make money. But here, there is no rush.<\/p>\n
It was hard to just be at first. I was stressing, looking for the waiters, wondering how they\u2019re not trying to get me out of there. It took me weeks to understand that the table is yours for a while. No one is circling. No one needs you to leave to turn over the table. Servers aren\u2019t working on tips combined with speed and you can feel that in every part of the meal.<\/p>\n
Nothing is rushed because it doesn\u2019t have to be.<\/p>\n
This last weekend, I met up with friends in the city centre and we ended up at Pichet on Trinity Street and I noticed a serenity in myself that wasn\u2019t previously there. We sat for hours eating, drinking, talking, and laughing. What a gift. To just be present and enjoy good food, good company, and a beautiful dining experience. Dublin really does ambiance so well! I\u2019ve come to deeply enjoy mood lighting, beautiful table scapes, and the rhythm of the meal because it\u2019s built around staying, not turnover. I don\u2019t want to eat any other way again.<\/p>\n
![\"dublinireland-15thjanuary2025-peopledineoutside\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787636777_927_.jpeg\")
\n Taking time over a dining table in Dublin. Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Shutterstock\n<\/p>\n
That unhurried spirit isn\u2019t just at the table, but also it shows up in how this country treats its artists.<\/p>\n
One thing I find wonderful and unusual here: creativity is valued before it\u2019s profitable. So many countries treat art as something you monetise or abandon.<\/p>\n
But here, art is active and alive, seen as essential rather than a hobby to apologise for.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s woven into community life in a way I haven\u2019t experienced before.<\/p>\n
Just recently I wandered into a studio and found an artist mid charcoal portrait of a jazz band. A man mid-note on the saxophone, drawn in seemingly effortless strokes. His hands were smudged black, but his button-down stayed crisp under his apron. Around him, the walls held finished pieces, some in colour, lit like a small gallery.<\/p>\n
Art exists without having to prove its worth<\/p>\n
I stood there longer than I meant to. I\u2019ve stopped being surprised by moments like that because it\u2019s not rare here, but just a Sunday. I love that art exists without having to prove its worth first. I\u2019ve always felt that way, but after being here, seeing it, feeling it, I will never doubt it.<\/p>\n
Six months ago I landed here with a hope, a dream, and a housing plan that had already fallen through. I didn\u2019t know yet how much this country would teach me. About slowing down at a table, about taking creativity seriously, about what it looks like when people still believe their fight can change something.<\/p>\n
Ireland isn\u2019t perfect, and it knows it better than anyone. But it protects the right things more than it gets credit for. And something tells me this island and I aren\u2019t finished working together yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sasha Piton As she leaves her adopted home of Dublin behind for a new adventure, Irish-French-American Sasha Piton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[245772,42,1629,60,255977,43,245774,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-603851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an-american-in-ireland","tag-headlines","tag-immigration","tag-ireland","tag-irish-artists","tag-news","tag-sasha-piton","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}