oh, and a final final thought:
i know the "germanic" and the "english" PhD systems a bit, but i don't know if that helps to compare ireland and norway. but do consider: in england, you get your studentship, and it is not a lot of money, but a) it's untaxed and b) you are expected to do your PhD and nothing else (there are advantages and disadvantages to that). in germany on the other hand, you get your wage, which is taxed, and you are expected to work for your professor who has employed you. in some cases, this turns out really well. in other cases it basically means that you spend all your working days on projects for your prof and try to squeeze in some work on your PhD in the evenings and weekends. it is thus not unusual that paid PhDs in the germanic system take significantly longer than in England.

one last thought that occured to me: if the extra money is indeed an important factor, did you do the sums re taxes and living costs carefully? in most places, studentships/stipends are untaxed, whereas wages are taxed. i imagine that norway has quite high taxes. added to the high living costs, it might mean that you actually don't earn as much more as you are thinking.
i just know from experience that Germans who come to Switzerland often just see the higher wages. and they are indeed significantly higher, and lower taxes, too! BUT the living costs gobble up most of the difference. many Germans who go to Switzerland accept relatively low wages because it is still a lot of money to them, and then find they struggle to make ends meet. so what i'm saying is really just, do the calculations carefully if you are going to base your decision on how much you'll be earning.

hey argonk - you read me wrong there - i started my PhD at age 30. i went for the project, because i felt i knew exactly what i wanted to do - because i had the experience and maturity. i could afford being unfunded because i had savings from earlier income. i have supported myself financially since i started at university when i was 20 and because of that i know that i can make things work, and that money is not what makes me happy. oh, i tried very hard to deal with the prof who offered me a very well paid PhD - if he would have left the project just the slightest bit open, i could have wrenched some interest out of it. and i would have gone for that. but a project which just gives me prospects of boredom, it would be pure "work" - i can earn lots more by doing work in a different sector. so instead i didn't take a slightly more interesting project, but rather: i googled where my favourite researcher is currently, and applied there and no-where else. she is now my supervisor.

i too started my PhD at age 30. i found that i wasn't the oldest, by far. actually i'm probably just over average. (that doesn't change the fact that sometimes we PhD students are treated as if we were all 23 years old or such, which is sometimes hard to deal with)

as to how to convince people that you really want this: well, as a mature person who has had a good income for many years, people will expect of you that you have considered carefully what it means in terms of finances. and being mature and all, people expect you to have chosen this course specifically and consciously, rather than just wanting to do a PhD because it is the "natural" thing to do after an MSc. so actually, you can use that to your advantage. "look how much i want this. i'm even ready to half my salary for this opportunty!"

yes, pamw, that could have been me who wrote that. i find that currently the biggest problem with my PhD is that i have so little time i can spend on it. there are always other things that are urgent. between teaching, going to conferences, trying to write papers, having to write stuff for the upgrade which will be useless for the PhD, writing funding applications - but also project groups, reading group, helping out friends etc, i.e. things i choose to do rather than am made to do - the PhD time dwindles until it hardly feels like i'm doing a PhD anymore.

i find that sometimes it helps to say NO categorically to everything. or to define a day per week which is uniquely reserved for the PhD. also, some of the "other" things sometimes surprisingly come back to benefit the PhD.

tomFinland, again it's a question if it's about funding or just the study place. not every professor you send your CV to, even if they like your proposal, has the means to offer you a "job" or funding.

if you are flexible enough: go with the inspiration and work today. but take tomorrow off instead. (or the day after, or whenever the inspiration runs out)

if, however, you feel that you cannot possibly take a mid-week day off, then you should try to stick to your weekend-day off. you need a break every now and then. best to take it before your body makes you take it by being sick or something. so, just jot down your brilliant idea, and go and enjoy the rest of the day, safely knowing that the idea will be waiting for you when you get back to work tomorrow morning.

so you are worried that you are losing out on the big money which you could get with the less-interesting project? well i'd think if you're doing the PhD for the money, it will turn out harder than you expect. if it's the money you're concerned about, consider this: you can make even more money than in the Norway-PhD if you simply get a good job outside of academia. and it might even be more interesting than that PhD which doesn't really catch your enthusiasm. so, if the money factors highly in your considerations, opt for no PhD at all.

and finally, location: things to consider would be... how much of your time will you actually (have to) spend there? what's it like socially, do you have friends there? and the weather: there's no such thing as bad weather. there is just inappropriate clothing. cycling around in a rainy but beautiful irish landscape - sounds amazing to me!

argonk, from my point of view, i'd go with the most interesting project. i'm saying that from the perspective of my own experience. i turned down a well-paid project in my home town, accepted an unpaid place in a different country 9 months later. although it hasn't been easy and there were times when i could have hit myself for not "taking the money and running", overall, i don't regret it. if i would have taken the well-paid PhD, i would have needed all the money to keep myself happy through "retail therapy" - senseless consumerism. because the project, and mostly, the colleagues who all find that sort of thing soooo interesting, would have made me miserable. i admit that having no income at all and having to pay high fees on top of that, has been tough. but still, better that than being saddled with a project you don't like. but that's not your situation. you can get the best project AND it's paid. that's a no-brainer for me.

the good news is: after just about 18 months (during which i self-funded) i did finally manage to get funding. my successful proposal is not very interdisciplinary at all. but that doesn't stop me from doing what i want to do anyway so there is hope...

it sounds like you are trying to work at the intersections between sciences and social sciences. that's where i'm at, too. i found that no matter what i did, sciency funding agencies didn't like my proposals - even if their stated purpose was "to fund projects that bridge the gap between the sciences and the social sciences". i was never sciency enough. social science agencies, on the other hand, didn't see the value of looking at science stuff from social science perspectives. i had to dumb down my proposals to make them "pure" social science (or even, to keep anthropology aspects out when applying to more sociology like places and vice versa).
what i'm saying is: although everybody is calling for more inter- and transdisciplinarity, effectively it is very hard to get funding for such projects. funding-wise, you need to be firmly rooted in a discipline. it's dissappointing and frustrating, but there are only very few exceptions.

hey hattie,
are we talking funded PhDs only, or do you mean you aren't being accepted even for unfunded PhD places?
the funding issue is hard to deal with. it depends on so much more than ability and grades. much of it is just luck. i'd say if you are talking about funding here, then it might be that you were simply unlucky. if there is indeed a "flaw" in your proposal, it's possible that it isn't "sell-able" enough, rather than not of high enough academic quality.

hairui, at my uni we had a PhD student group across all disciplines with students dealing with issues of translation and language in research, this last academic year. this was very insightful and helpful. we are now planning a public event on the topic, however it probably won't happen before January 09. but if you'd be interested, let me know how i can get in touch with you so that i can send you information once dates etc. are set.
in my own research there are issues such as dealing with swiss german interviews. swiss german is a spoken language only, it isn't written. thus, even the transcribing already involves translation (into high german). what does that do to the validity???

my supervisor:
"there are about six, maybe seven books which are relevant to your topic. that's all you really need to read."

but if you are going off-campus, compare costs carefully.
usually on-campus accomodation includes all bills such as council tax, electricity, gas, water, internet, phone line (but not TV licence). also, you save on commuting costs. if your younger child goes to the uni nursery, living on-campus might not just be more practical, but also save transport costs. just do the sums carefully - it would be a shame to live away from uni in order to save money and end up paying more!