When people talk about ivy, it's usually English ivy. Poison ivy, Virginia creeper, etc. are not related.
Ivy usually does more harm than good to brickwork. It's roothairs dig into the joints and slowly break the mortar apart. If you ever want to pull the ivy down years later, there's a chance that the whole wall will come with it.
English ivy looks nice but it is a major pest. I have seen so many nice patches of woods - many acres at a time - ruined by english ivy that covers the understory plants and chokes them out, blocking light and preventing native plants from getting any kind of a start. Eventually it grows up large trees and kills them, too. It creates what is known as a 'monoculture.'
Patches of ivy create an ideal environment for rats and mice. The shape of the leaves and shallow cavities formed on the ground by criss-crossing runners retain rainwater long enough to be a haven for breeding mosquitoes. The water does not evaporate quickly due to the shade of the leaves and lack of air circulation close to the ground.
Nothing in the US eats it. Not deer, not insects and probably not goats either. Roundup cannot kill it because of the thick, waxy coating on the leaves. We do not have pests or viruses or funguses that have adapted to its presence and they cannot kill it. It is always the last thing to die in a drought. There is practically no way to get rid of this stuff once you invite it onto your land.
Then it keeps spreading. It has so many runners under and above ground that you can't possibly get them all. Birds will carry the seeds to your neighbors property and into wilderness areas where nobody will even see it until many acres are ruined.
In my last house, I had a neighbor who planted english ivy because it was a cheap, easy groundcover that he didn't have to mow. By the time we moved I was ready to strangle him because I spent about 5 hours a week fighting the invasion of his ivy over my property line. I had a wonderful garden that I spent a lot of time and money on and his alien species just did not stop trying to strangle it.
Run like hell from that stuff. Consider using something like Virginia creeper, which is native to the US and looks very nice going up a wall.