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Effect of Irish brain drain plague - Heartbroken mother says goodbye to her daughter

Anger of those left behind as Ireland's youth is exported and the Irish Government is flippant about their plight

By
MARY MCCARTHY,
IrishCentral Contributing Writer
Published Thursday, October 11, 2012, 7:24 AM
Updated Friday, October 19, 2012, 10:10 AM

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Heartbreak of an Irish widow who is now losing her only daughter to mass emigration
Heartbreak of an Irish widow who is now losing her only daughter to mass emigration


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My husband died over eleven years ago, and since then it has been me and my daughter. She is 25 years old and in October she is emigrating.

She is a highly educated young woman having completed a BA in English and Politics in UCC and going on to complete a Masters in Journalism in DCU.

However, upon graduating, due to her not being able to find employment, she was forced to take a job in a call centre. Not that she was ungrateful for the job, she was lucky to have one at least, but it did not pay well and it was not what I had paid out all that money for. I invested in her future in the hope that she would be able to stay here .

However, she and four of her friends are now being forced to leave. Her friends are also highly educated – social workers, programme developers, and graphic designers.

What was really disheartening for me – as her mother – was to watch her do a job that she had no passion for. It really did kill me to see her slog away in a job that she could have gotten without any college courses.

Goodbye

She is the only thing I have left and I am utterly heartbroken that she has to leave this country. This month I will wave goodbye to her at the airport and I don’t know when I will see her again – that is what really upsets me. My heart wants her to stay but my head wants her to go – she has her own life to lead and she can’t stay here for her mammy.

The only other emotion I feel apart from heartache is anger – anger that the government don’t seem to live in reality and understand the gravity of the situation.

My blood boiled when I heard Minister Noonan’s words stating that it is a “lifestyle choice” that children are leaving the country. He has some nerve speaking to the children who would love nothing more than to stay here in the country where they were born and raised. And he has some nerve speaking to the many parents who have had to wave their children off at the departure gates. Does he really think that these students want to leave their home not knowing when or if they will ever return again.

Read more news on Irish immigration

Exporting our young

Those flippant remarks he made were degrading to parents across Ireland. They were hurtful remarks with no thought about what families are going through and the tough decisions people are making on a daily basis. We are educating our young and paying a high price to do so, to ensure they are the best in the world and then we are shipping them off. They are our best assets and we are exporting them. These are the people that will make this country what it is meant to be again.

It is all getting very real for me. My daughter handed in her notice, she is getting her travel injections done so it will not be long now until she is gone. I haven’t really said, in such an emotional way, about how I feel about her leaving. It is the right thing for her to do and it is not right for me to weigh in on her decision with such emotions, but it won’t be easy.

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23 Comments

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PatriciaMarya | Oct 18, 2012, 12:59 AM EDT
Just read a sad article regarding the amount of depression and suicide facing the young Irish in New York City. It is the worst of all decisions - to live in between. I feel the pain of immigrants and wish it were not so. If only their countries could let them have the choice to stay put. I have lived all over this country and did so because of work. There was not an ocean of separation; it was just a lot of country. Saddest Christmas of all - entire family in the East and there I was, alone in Los Angeles. So what did I do: I voluteered to vist Nursing homes on that day and felt it was the best of all solutions - I brought a little bit of distraction to people who had no one. I was fortunate to get involved with an organization that brought good people together, we made gifts, which was an enjoyable get-together and then on Christmas Day, we delivered them. We were rewarded with a wonderful dinner. Then the lonliness came back but it was a bit tempered. Reality, what a concept, as Robin Williams put it!

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jacersagain | Oct 12, 2012, 07:07 PM EDT
But get this: something that many emigrating to Australia and Canada etc forget… and, I think, the Irish Govt forgets too... is that while lots of Mary McCarthy-like parents in Ireland grieve for the young ones who leave for places like Oz and Canada, they might also remind themselves that visas only last a year (two yrs for Canada now), so many will be returning home, like another son of mine did from Australia, only to be Jobless again. But for me, it’s great to have him home again!

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jacersagain | Oct 12, 2012, 07:04 PM EDT
Ah give off you people belittling this truly sad story! It’s true to suffer these feelings when your daughter or son leaves for foreign lands, perhaps never to return, as many an American, Canadian, British and Australian mother and father did when their offspring went off to a job in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places. Out of Ireland, one of my sons went off on a ‘round-the-world’ trip during the Irish Celtic Boom yrs, got half-way around, met a wonderful Ozzie woman, married and had family with her. He’s not coming home, now that he has his own family in Oz. I miss him dearly, despite our visits to each other.

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merefalow | Oct 12, 2012, 05:14 PM EDT
i know the feeling,i have a son and daughter out in AUSTRALIA,miss them so bad but want them to have a future,the people who have brought about this situation by greed and exploitation should be held to account.and bringing in imigrents while our children are forced to emigrate is a madness.

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johnshiel | Oct 12, 2012, 11:05 AM EDT
chill already!!!

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Seanmor | Oct 12, 2012, 10:34 AM EDT
Will: By "Ireland" you mean the 'independent' Irish State, not the whole country? Your'r right about "every man for himself". Almost a century also, Sinn Féin was by far the strongest political party in all of Ireland, now there are few Sinn Féiners there, but the place is full of Mé Féiners.

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Will Hamilton | Oct 12, 2012, 08:46 AM EDT
While it's understandable any parent would be upset to see their children leaving there is always another side to it. At least Mrs McCarthy's daughter will no longer be living in the Republic of Botched. With any luck wherever she ends up won't be totally dominated by headless chicken, monkey see, monkey do, Irish gombeen men. People are leaving this country in some cases because they have to and in many cases because they can't wait to get out. In Ireland were it not for family and friends and the familiarity of the place versus the unknowns of others, there is literally no good reason to stay here. That's why Ireland is marked by a kind of every man for himself gang culture. Anyone who can milks the system for all they can. If you're not milking the system then the system is milking you. The only other alternative is to leave as a great deal of talent and intelligence has, with a few exceptions, since 1922.

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IrelandNorth | Oct 12, 2012, 08:01 AM EDT
Letting go of ones children is always painful, since they constitute a large swaith of your own lives. But letting go emotionally is as important as cutting the umbilical cord originally. Birds actually eject their young out of the nest to learn how to fly. Whilst I welcome voluntary [im]migration into Ireland, I resent net voluntary outward [e]migration out of Ireland. Census of Ireland, 2011 reported 15% unemployment and 20% immigration in Ireland (26 counties of) - equalling 5% surplus immigration accoring to my calculations. Regretably, successive Irish governments have convinced their frightened electorates to surrender their sovereignty to a fe[d]eral Europe, because the Irish middle classes have more in common with a European middle claass than they do with their Irish working class. (Or in this context, their Irish not-working class).

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WoundedKnee | Oct 12, 2012, 04:04 AM EDT
EphraimKibbey--"Ireland, cradle to the WORLD!" Well said, given the huge numbers of foreign babies that are born every day in Ireland.

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WoundedKnee | Oct 12, 2012, 04:02 AM EDT
Irishcoffeekid: I have complained to Irish Cntral about your threat. Abuse and intimidation do not constitute an acceptable part of any discourse or dialog.

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irishcoffeekid | Oct 11, 2012, 10:42 PM EDT
woundedknee you need a smack on the back of the head. you might not give a crap about what some parents are going through but show some respect for those who dont think its a great thing - idiots like you should do us a favor and dont bother comment if you dont have anything useful to say - your post is rubbish!

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EphraimKibbey | Oct 11, 2012, 07:25 PM EDT
Ireland, cradle to the WORLD!

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Seanmor | Oct 11, 2012, 04:07 PM EDT
Wnen I left Ireland, I left all of that country,including it's NE region, at the same time. Three years later - while still a citizen of the whole Irish nation- I was in the Marine Corops and assigned to a U.S. military base in the Philippines. When I left the U.S. I left all of that country at one time. Then in 2009 my wife and I visited Ireland, including Co. Down - no need to to make separate trips from the U.S. to different parts of Ireland. But Murph46 seems to have left diffferent parts of that country on separate occasions. Wharever the experiences of other emigrants who left Ireland, the separation of Mrs McCarthy from her bright young daughter is very sad, indeed!

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cillowen | Oct 11, 2012, 03:46 PM EDT
that's what one gets for looking out the window at the rain instead of marching on the sharks that hit on high places.

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Smyrnian | Oct 11, 2012, 03:28 PM EDT
I can only speak for myself of course but it devastated my parents when I left, as well as my younger brother and I had a very hard time adjusting abroad for many years. It was really hard on everyone. This is devastating to many families and those who make light of this should not...it's very sad.

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