‘My youngest child will probably be bearded before the national children’s hospital opens’

A lot has happened – and hasn’t happened – since Michelle Gallen and her husband moved from London to Dublin a decade agoWork on the national children's hospital (pictured here in March 2025) has yet to finish, with nearly 20 completion deadlines missed so far. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd/The Irish Times Just over 10 years ago, the UK voted to leave the EU while my husband and I decided to quit London. After weighing up Paris’s culture, cuisine and wine cellars against its traffic, pollution and property prices, we chose to move to Dublin so our kids would have beaches and mountains on their doorstep, family a few hours away and access to a world-class education. We’d already moved five times during our five years in London using my French husband’s foolproof method for finding a great place to live. He’d begin by sampling the wares at highly rated bakeries, before searching for a flat within a 10-minute walk of the best baguette. Unfortunately for our move to Dublin, we had to put schools and creches before croissants and chocolate eclairs because, in 2016, every school in the Republic had its own admission policy. Prospective pupils were placed on a list ranked according to criteria such as “date of application” (newborns could be registered), “religion” (in some cases I could not even complete an application because the school website required me to upload my son’s non-existent baptismal certificate in order to activate the “Submit” button). Other factors included things such as “familial connections” (applicants scored points for having siblings in the preferred school or parents who were alumni and/or rich) and “distance from school” (our location 600km from Dublin did not bump us up any admissions list). After applying to 36 institutions, we finally secured a junior-infants place in April 2016, freeing us up to find a place to live.We wanted to rent a four-bedroom home with garden within a 10-minute walk of the school, so we could host friends and family and grow our own veg. In Dublin 8. Despite quickly adjusting our criteria to “a room with a bed big enough for four anywhere in Dublin”, we found nothing. Days before leaving London, we were facing homelessness. As we packed up I considered living with our furniture and possessions in the storage facility that cost more per month than my brother’s mortgage in Belfast. But at the last minute a friend pleaded with a first-time landlord and landed us an apartment. With relief, we loaded the car with our four-year-old, 18-month old and a large inflatable donkey for a two-day road trip from lovely leafy Greenwich to Dublin’s fair city. READ MOREOur new home was beside a homeless shelter and a methadone clinic and every window looked on to a brick wall, but the school, creche, Lidl and Dublin’s oldest pub were nearby, and both boys soon made new friends. We were just settling in when our toddler went from “tired” to “floppy and non-responsive” in a matter of hours. I slept on the floor beside his cot in Crumlin children’s hospital as an incredible team of nurses and doctors treated him for pneumonia in an ageing building studded with glitchy equipment. They told me they couldn’t wait for the new national children’s Hospital to open in 2020, with state-of-the-art operating suites and equipment, cafes and gardens, and beds for kids and parents. I hoped we’d never need it. Michelle Gallen After the toddler recovered, we started on a quest that eclipsed every previous hunt – buying a house. I will gloss over the horror of watching property prices rise faster than the damp in the houses we viewed, of dealing with dodgy estate agents, warring siblings in probate sales, and entering bidding wars against other parents from our kids’ school who ended up being our neighbours. A year after arriving in Dublin, we got the keys to a redbrick wreck in “original Victorian condition” located beside a huge hole in the ground that was still trying to become a children’s hospital. [ What about us Irish who are stuck abroad because we can’t afford anywhere to live at home?Opens in new window ]We soon realised that “original Victorian condition” didn’t just cover the ornate ceiling roses we’d fallen in love with – it also described the dodgy surface-mounted wiring, the temperamental drains and the outdoor lavatory that the kids christened “the spider toilet”. [ How an Irish couple transformed a Dublin period house after moving home from LondonOpens in new window ]During the emergency remedial work done before moving in, we discovered that every workman in Ireland was working on the new children’s hospital. “That’s okay,” we told each other. “It’ll be open soon enough. They’ll be on final fixes and snag lists before long. Then we’ll pick up the highly experienced recently unemployed workmen to renovate our house.” I drew up big plans on a tiny budget, telling myself that should the kids be horribly injured in our dangerously Victorian home, I’d soon be able to run with them in my arms to the new hospital next door. [ ‘Wholly and entirely insufficient’: BAM parent firm criticised over delivery of new children’s hospitalOpens in new window ]Then Covid happened. Renovation prices soared and we lived like Victorians for six years before we enticed a team of Nordies down to fix up our house. My wee four-year-old now stands more than 6ft tall and could run to A&E with me in his arms while my toddler is a soprano boy chorister, but will probably be bearded before the hospital opens. IN THIS SECTION