Malcolm Clancy, who met his Irish doctor wife in Australia, says Irish and Australians ‘take themselves lightly’Malcolm Clancy: His Irish wife is 'one of many Irish doctors that takes the rite of passage to go to Australia'. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Hosanna BoulterTue Jul 21 2026 - 06:00 • 4 MIN READMalcolm Clancy (32), who moved to Ireland from Western Australia in 2022, believes Irish and Australian people are similar as they don’t take life too seriously. “There’s a beautiful saying that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. I think that’s true of Irish and Australian people,” Clancy says. Clancy was living in Perth in 2020 when he met his now wife Aoife on a dating app. Aoife, from Sligo originally, had moved to Australia after qualifying as a doctor.“She’s one of many Irish doctors that takes the rite of passage to go to Australia for a few years’ work and eventually return to Ireland.”From the beginning of their relationship they did not shy away from difficult discussions about how they would make their relationship work, Clancy says. “Having lived overseas before, I was never uncomfortable about the idea of moving to Ireland.” Though he had gone to university in Western Australia, Clancy spent a year of his course studying in Wisconsin, in the United States. He moved back to Australia following graduation. After what he described as a rough break-up in 2017, he uprooted his life and moved to the remote Banff mountain range in western Canada. “I loved it, but it turns out the problems still follow you when you leave.”[ ‘We had to learn that Irish people refuse tea three times when they come to your house’Opens in new window ]Though Clancy has spent abundant time in North America, he never enjoyed the way of life there enough to stay. For him, the biggest problem was people’s attitudes towards work. He believes that in Ireland and Australia people view work as a way of facilitating your life, with your actual life being time with friends and family. However, he thinks people in North America believe work is your life. Despite the initial challenges, Malcolm Clancy says he loves living in Ireland. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times The couple moved to Stoneybatter in Dublin in 2022. Clancy had been to Ireland only once before, on holiday. Four years later he feels settled in his life here, but he admits the move was challenging. Right after they moved to Dublin, Aoife took up a job in an emergency department. While she was working long and challenging shifts, Clancy was trying to find his place in a new country where he knew few people. He says that going back to working in Dublin hospitals took a toll on his wife and made life difficult for a time. “But to the absolute credit of my wife, she is so incredibly strong and managed that. But it was not a light experience.”There were other adjustments that Clancy had to make after moving to Ireland, such as the relative lack of public transport and how challenging accessing public services can be. “In Australia, almost every public service is digital. So you have a digital account to everything.” [ ‘In Australia, my Irish wife was bitten by a python on our wedding day’Opens in new window ]He recalls that setting up an Irish bank account was a nightmare, as to get one he needed a utility bill, but he couldn’t set up an account with an electricity provider without having a bank account, and for a while he found himself stuck in this Kafkaesque doom loop.One of the things Malcolm Clancy loves about living in Ireland is how accessible travel to other countries is. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times Despite the initial challenges, Clancy says he loves living in Ireland and has never doubted his decision to move, even for a moment. One of the things that Clancy loves about Ireland is how accessible travel to other countries is. “My absolute goal in life outside of family is to travel.”Since moving, the couple have really taken advantage of how easy and relatively inexpensive it is to travel from Ireland, especially compared with Australia. “The opportunity to go on a holiday to anywhere for the weekend is so wonderful to me.”An essential part of Clancy’s assimilation has been the community of friends who have embraced him since his move and made life so comfortable and positive, he says. He knew some of Aoife’s colleagues back in Australia because she moved over to Perth with between 80 and 100 members of her year at medical school. Though he describes the welcome from the vast majority of people as very warm, he has had a few xenophobic encounters. Most often it has been in situations where people have asked him where his accent is from and then told him he should go back to Australia. “I am very aware that I am a 6ft 3in white Australian and that there are people who live here and receive disgusting hate on a much more regular basis than I ever have.”When the couple married last year, he decided to take Aoife’s last name, Clancy, because her name is so integral to her career as a doctor, and he was keen for their future family to all have the same name. “I’m now Malcolm Clancy, so I’m very much Irish in that way.”Despite missing his family, who he says are incredibly supportive of all his moves, Clancy sees himself staying in Ireland long term. He dreams of moving out to the west coast, where the lifestyle that revolves around the sea reminds him of home. For now, he enjoys his work as the head of sales for the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and his charity work as a member of the board for Cardiac Risk in the Young. 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