Living two hours from a bus stop!
Through Immigrant Eyes
This is a series of columns by Viktoriia Kantseva, a Ukrainian mother and immigrant living in Cavan. She is a certified psychologist and content creator with over 23,000 followers on TikTok alone...
Viktoriia Kanseva
Before moving to Ireland, I thought a driving licence was a useful thing to have. Now I see it more as a survival skill. Or, at the very least, a very effective way of avoiding a two-hour walk to the nearest bus stop. One of the biggest surprises about living in rural Ireland is that sometimes the hardest part of a journey is getting to the bus stop.
We live in a beautiful area surrounded by fields and farms. The views are exactly what people imagine when they think of the Irish countryside. Green fields, quiet roads, sheep appearing where you least expect them. It is exactly the kind of place people dream about living in.
The only catch is that the nearest bus stop is about an hour and a half to two hours away on foot. And this is not the kind of walk where you put on headphones and enjoy a pleasant stroll. Much of the route follows narrow roads designed for cars, not pedestrians. Walking there with a child would make me nervous, especially during the darker months of the year.
One thing I have learned is that Ukrainians and Irish people sometimes have very different definitions of what counts as “nearby". In Ukraine, if someone told me something was nearby, I expected a 10-minute walk. In rural Ireland, “just down the road” can sometimes require comfortable shoes, a jacket and the level of commitment usually associated with a hiking trip.
1. Sheep and cows are part of the traffic system: Sometimes your journey is delayed by roadworks; sometimes by a flock of sheep; occasionally by a few cows who have absolutely no interest in your schedule.
2. Tractors have their own sense of urgency: If a tractor is moving at 25 km/h, then today you are moving at 25 km/h too. Everyone seems to accept this reality much more calmly than I do.
3. Roads that somehow fit two cars: Even after several years in Ireland, I still look at some country roads and wonder how two vehicles are supposed to pass each other. Somehow, they always do.
4. Four seasons can happen during one journey: You leave home in sunshine, drive through rain, meet a strong wind halfway and arrive under blue skies again. Sometimes all within twenty minutes.
5. You end up waving at the same people every day: At first it feels unusual. Then one day you realise you’ve waved at the same neighbour three times before lunch and it feels completely normal.
For a long time, our family operated around one driver. My husband brought me to work and then continued on to his own job. School runs had to be carefully planned. Work schedules had to fit around each other. If one person finished late, the entire plan had to be rearranged. Every day felt a little bit like a logistical puzzle.
Back in Ukraine, we lived very differently. Even without a car, getting around was rarely a problem. There were buses, trolleybuses, trams, taxis and, in larger cities, the metro. Stops were usually within walking distance and public transport was simply part of everyday life. You didn’t spend much time thinking about how to get somewhere because there was almost always a way.
Ireland made me realise how much freedom is hidden inside something as ordinary as transport. To be fair, this depends entirely on where you live. Dublin and the larger towns are generally much better connected. Living in a rural area, however, gives you a very different perspective on transport. You notice it everywhere. Parents spend years acting as unofficial taxi drivers, teenagers count the days until they can start learning to drive, and simple things like getting to football training, attending an appointment or meeting a friend often depend on whether someone is available to give you a lift.
At some point, I realised that getting an Irish driving licence was no longer something I wanted to do. It was something I needed to do. The challenge, of course, is that obtaining a licence in Ireland is not a quick process. First comes the theory test. Then lessons. Then practice. Then the waiting list for a driving test, which can feel surprisingly long when your daily routine depends on it. By the time my test date finally arrived, it felt less like an exam and more like the final stage of a long term project.
I know many Ukrainians who have gone through exactly the same process. Learning to drive here is often about much more than driving. It is about independence. Living in rural Ireland has changed the way I think about that word. We often talk about independence as something big: financial security, a successful career, owning a home. Sometimes it is much simpler. Sometimes independence means being able to get into your car at seven o’clock in the morning and knowing you don’t need to ask anyone for a lift.
I still remember how much easier life became once I could drive myself. Suddenly, I didn’t have to co-ordinate every journey with somebody else’s schedule. I could get to work on my own, bring my daughter where she needed to go and make plans without first checking whether another driver was available. The difference sounds small until you experience it. Then it changes everything.
Looking back, one of the biggest cultural differences between my life in Ukraine and my life in Ireland is not the weather, the food or even the language. It is transport. In Ukraine, living without a car never felt particularly limiting. Living in rural Ireland showed me how much freedom a car can provide. Before moving here, I never imagined that passing a driving test would feel life changing.
But then again, before moving here, I had never lived two hours from a bus stop.
The content was produced with support from the News Reporting Scheme, administered by Coimisiún na Meán.