No place to call home for Irish students in New York this summer

A summer of work sun and fun has turned into a nightmare for visiting Irish students

“Sure if we knew that it would be this hard to get a job we wouldn’t have gone out as much,” added Dolan.

For now the future remains dim for the Cork boys. They have applied for several jobs and have been told there is no work available.

 “Three or four places all right told us they would give us a call, but we haven’t heard anything yet,” added Blennerhassett.

In the meantime the lads plan to continue buying a subway card every day, boarding the trains bound for Manhattan and continuing on their path to employment.

“We’ll get something,” said Quillinan positively to his friends.

Dolan and Blennerhassett laugh nervously.

Although Brian Walkins, Sandra Nolan and Michael Dwane, all from Co. Offaly, are not students, they are in the same predicament as the J-1 students. The trio are planning on spending the summer in New York working and having fun.

Both Walkins and Dwane are here to play hurling for the New York Offaly team. Nolan, who is Dwane’s girlfriend, lost her office job in Ireland a few months ago so she decided to join her boyfriend, a welder who also lost his job in Ireland.

Walkins, when he spoke with the Irish Voice, was just off a plane from Australia, where he spent six months traveling around. On Thursday he was expecting his Irish girlfriend to join him for the summer.

But on Wednesday the friends were walking the streets of Woodlawn and McLean Avenue looking at notice boards for jobs and accommodation.

 Meanwhile, trailing through websites at the Aisling Irish Community Center in Yonkers were another three young men, Sean Condron, 20, Fergal Lawlor, 22, and James Hook, 22.

The three young lads hail from Co. Clare and have the opposite problem to the Cork boys. They have jobs, but their accommodation issue is causing them great distress.

Condron, a civil engineer student at Limerick Institute of Technology, and his friends have been in New York since May 24. After spending a few nights lodging at an aunt’s house they found a floor to sleep on with some Mayo friends.

However, the apartment where they put their head down at night is on 120th Street in Harlem. 

“This is just something temporary but we want out of there straight away,” Condron tells the Irish Voice.

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Nster.com