Is Ireland sinking again? 87,000 emigrate and unemployment still 14.6 percent

Seanmor, I'm no elitist about education. The most important education I've had was on the streets of a working-class urban neighborhood. A person can spend many years in universities and emerge perfectly stupid, with impenetrable layers of ideology smothering the brain. Americans are particularly susceptible to education-as-ideology, and the gaeilgeoiri group I referred to is full of professionals with degrees, most of them, however, from Catholic colleges where censorship of diverse or progressive ideas is standard procedure, replicated in the enforced political conformity of the gaeilgeoiri group. Hence Woundedknee's continuous attempts to silence me and others whose opinions diverge from his. Such behavior is the antithesis of "educated" and relies on bullying tactics. Your politics would fit in perfectly with that group. Would you share their intolerance also? I have no idea. It has nothing to do with the ivy league or any ivory towers. It's entirely a matter of whether the mind has ever been opened by contact with diverse personalities, cultures, ideas, or even reality, or whether it clings desperately to its homogeneous group to insulate itself from the real world.

when the polititions starts leaving like the rats leaving a ship then ireland will recover

I see the bigoted Norman 'holier than thou' attitude flows through your blood then?Or do you just love to spew your ignorance all over random comment sections and generalize an entire populace of people you've never even met?

eiri: You comdemn Woundedk and his Gaelgeoirí pals)for their lack of education education, among other things. It is probably that there is a handful of those Gaeilgeoirí who never earned college degrees. I had nothingf more that a primary school education (agus cúpla focal Gaeilge when I joined the Marine Corp as a 'greenhorn' in NYC. Four months later,I held Gaeilge classes at Camp Lejune, N.C. 2 0r 3 evenings a week, when I wasn't on liberty in Jacksonville, which had different aiting rooms for White and Colored at the bus station. I once spend 15 minutes in the Colored waiting room even tho is was an arrestable offince. But I never supported forced school busing or voted for any politician who favors killing the unborn or same-sex marriage.

Like most bigots, eiriamach, you're an utter fool. You attack me, as is common on this site, not for what I have said but for what you say I said. Specifically, you speak of me bashing Obama. You're a true clown, eiramach, since the only (and very few) references I have made to Obama were to state that as an anti-war progressive I was disappointed with Obama's performance in his first term and specifically his continuation of the Bush approach to foreign policy. As to Mrs Clinton, I don't recall ever writing about her, though as a progressive I never expected much from her. As to my education, eiriamach, you know nothing of me, so I won't waste further time responding to a stupid bigot such as you. Of course your true motive for attacking me is nothing to do with my politics, it's because I have condemned you for your association with Protestant fundamentalist churches, your buddies who gave ideological cover to right-wing death squads in countries such as Guatemala and Chile.

How's your health these days, Woundedknee? I ask because I'm wondering how much longer Irish-descended Americans will have to put up with you. Outside of your tiny, dwindling group of inbred, aging American Obama-bashing, Hillary-bashing Gaeilgeoiri pals, you've failed to find enough fellow racists among your compatriots, so now you're sniping and growling at the Irish visitors to IrishCentral! But Woundedknee, the average Irish person (like the average American liberal) is vastly better educated than you, has seen more of an ever-diverse world, and has a functioning brain unburdened by your ideological fantasy of threatened ethnicity. It would be amusing to watch you fail again and again, if we didn't have to hear the same old dull, monotonous drumbeat of intolerance again and again.

The Irish in Ireland will never change or progress. There is still a primitive tribal mentality at play. A special gift for turning positivity into negativity & then blaming others for their ineptness. Yeats was spot on with his insights on the fantastical irish mind-set.

Please wounded knee, do not lecture me about economics, after all you are the one that created and are now living with that lousy economy. You are angry because of that, but no one other than you and your fellow Irishmen are to blame for this economic mess in your country.You did default wounded knee on a huge loan from the EMF.You continue to ignore this major corrupt scheme employed by you and your corrupt government, by pushing the blame on to some poor foreign nationals from third world countries. The world is not blind ,you defaulted ,you stole, you must accept that.Please do not try and fool us all by telling us that the Irish tax payer is footing the bill for all of Europe,s poor. Ireland joined the EU and stole from it,you are part of the EU now, it is just as legal for foreign nationals to live in Ireland as it is for Irish people to live in Europe.The people of Europe have to pay now for the money you stole,that is not fair.Pay your debts first , then maybe you can lecture me on economics.

Ireland was bought and sold for English gold in the 19th century, and for European gold in the 21st. Same dynamic, different nationalities! Just the same old political caste betraying its own peasantry. The motivation is that foreign nationals make ideal employees, work for less, no holiday pay, sick leave or pension entitlement, ie are eminently exploitable being far from home. Do the maths!

What a load of garbage from the poster misleadingly styled Freeman. Firstly, there is the incoherent nonsense that I should "pay my debts"? Debts owed to who, you clown? Earlier he says "it is ok for you to immigrate". Immigrate where, you idiot, I have never immigrated to anywhere in my life. What an ignoramus you are. But worse, you're a lousy racist. You want Irish nationality and ethnicity to be wiped from the face of the earth. You may prevaricate all you like, but that is what will happen within the lifetime of many who read this. Ireland cannot continue to send its young people abroad while importing vast numbers of Poles, Latvians, Chinese, Burundis, Borneans, Bengalis and any of the 100 nationalities now streaming into Ireland. And you're a garbage economist too, "freeman", because you think it makes sense for Irish workers to pay for the schooling, health care, housing, prison places, welfare etc demanded by these migrants. And you're ignorant too "freeman", because you didn't even know that Ireland pays for these migrants, NOT the EU. The Irish don't "pay the taxes" for these people, you oaf, they PA for them. Why do you hate diversity and difference? Maybe you would justify your disgusting anti-Irish racism (are you English?) by explaining to us what was deficient in the Irish that made them not worthy--in the view of racists like you--to remain among the ethnic and national groups of the world. Will the world be better off when the Irish no longer exist as an ethnic group? I suppose you would say Yes, but then again you are nothing but a racist bigot.

This is not Ireland we are talking about here.This is the Irish Free State,and we Irish are totally ashamed of it.It is not sinking again, it was always sunk, since its inception, it has been and always will be .Maybe it is time to bring these poor people in from the cold.

Anglo - and the people in the US elected a socialist idiot. So what. Everyone is doing it these days.

The Irish in Ireland have no one to blame but themselves at the end of the day. Stupidity & Greed of the Celtic Tiger fantasy. Irish people voting in people who they know to be inept crooks time & time again. The Irish in Ireland live in their own heads that have been fed on fantasy & alcohol induced reasoning. I had hoped that they would take a long hard objective look at themselves after this latest disaster but sadly I was wrong.

Obviously you seem to be anti immigrant wounded knee ,its seems to me it is ok for you to immigrate (87,ooo approx), but it is not ok for immigrants to come in to your country.I am sure those 87,ooo Irish immigrants are putting a burden on someone else,s system, but then that is ok with you as long as it is not hurting your beloved Irish system. Your argument about paying taxes on money borrowed from the EU does not make sense either,your government and people borrowed alright,boy did they borrow, and then defaulted on their debts leaving other European nations to pick up the tab, but that is ok with you too as long as the Irish and their corrupt government prevail.Seems to me you are only paying back to other European immigrants that what was already theirs to begin with.Pay your debts wounded knee, it is the least you can do.

Further to my comment of yesterday about the Irish emigrating here to Australia, today's Sydney Morning Herald (page 5) reports that 52,000 Irish folk came here in the year til October 2012. And...many of the young women became...wait for it, lollipop ladies - or traffic control specialists, if you want to tart it up a bit.One developer is quoted as employing 100 traffic controllers, 85% of them Irish, and mostly females. Many of them have degrees but can't get jobs in Ireland. They earn $27 per hour which is good money, just for standing around with a lollipop sign getting a nice suntan in central Sydney. Might even get a pickup for the evening...*wink.