An article in yesterday afternoon’s Evening Echo, a local Cork evening paper, captured the phenomenon of graduate emigration in Ireland very well.
The article, part of a series into the jobs crisis by reporters Ronan Bagnall and Kieran Dineen, was published on the day the local university held its annual conferring ceremony and there were lots of photos of happy faces and proud parents.
Yet the four who were interviewed had already taken the emigrant plane and were back just for their graduation. Alas, they were unable to find work in Ireland and were now emigrants abroad.
The fact that the two stories made the news section on the same day shouldn’t seem out of place though: it’s reality. Whether you like it or not, a massive 70,000 people are due to emigrate from Ireland in the year of 2010 (out of a country of a little over 4 million), and a good portion of those, as the pictures clearly told, would be freshly graduated students.
The four smiling friends, who’d returned to Cork for their graduation, told of making the decision to emigrate: to London, Australia and beyond. You couldn’t help but feel that they must have been feeling a little bit frustrated by the fact that the certificates which they’d just received, and which they’d spend years studying towards, were not even good enough to land them a job in the land of their own birth.
Their quotes, in the article, are full of the sort of longing for home which easily overtakes any Irish person, and indeed overtook me this summer. “You may laugh at this,” admits the first student interviewed “but what I miss most is green grass.” Another tells of life down under.
Their speeches, though, each bear a significant whiff of dissatisfaction with the status quo the emigration problem finds itself in, and each admits that he’d rather be in Cork than abroad, despite the allure of greener pastures.
“London is a fantastic city,” adds the same graduate from London, “but I wouldn’t like to raise a family here.”
But who’s to blame, and is there even anger? The answer is no-one knows. As I noted in my last blog post, the Irish student unions are puffing a lot of hot air about this right now, and seem to have singled the Minister for Trade and Innovation as their lynch-man.
Although I can fully understand the Unions’ desire to take their anger and frustration out on someone, it’s probably the banks and developers rather than the government or its Ministers which have the largest share of the blame for why we’re here right now. If there’s someone to blame, it’s probably them.
Now that the pendulum of population movements has fully swung, it’s hard to envision or imagine a time when the same page of the paper as the stories about the students emigrating today, would have been filled with stories of foreigners immigration just a few short years ago. The influx of foreign workers, rather the out-going of our own, seems to have been the concern back then.
The article did a better job at highlighting the issue for me than almost anything else I’d read in the media about this the past few weeks. The site of the four lads, standing on the Quadrange with their robes on, is a sad one, and their story is probably fairly typical. I, and the rest of my peers graduating next year, can only hope that it won’t be our turn in 2011.
13 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.jimmy12003 | Sep 12, 2010, 04:00 PM EDT
first of all paddy, im not racist, to be that, i would have to hate these people, im just telling irish people what they have to do to treated equal in the system here! and as for blaming the foreign workers! no, not true! this country is being run into the ground by a corrupt few people,
yogihugger | Sep 10, 2010, 11:04 AM EDT
SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS......ONE PERSON SAID EVERY SMALL IRISH TOWN HAS IT'S FAIR SHARE OF FOREIGNERS? EXACTLY THE REASON I DON'T WANT TO COME TO IRELAND FOR A 2 WEEK VISIT!!!!THE LAST TIME I WAS IN IRELAND(2002) I SAW ONLY FAIR SKIN. NOW IF THE BLOGGER IS RIGHT I WOULD SEE ALL "SHADES" EVEN DOWN IN FAIR DINGLE? IF SO, I WILL KEEP MY AMERICAN DOLLARS HERE. IF IRELAND WANTS TO TURN AWAY TOURISTS SHE SHOULD CONTINUE DISPERESING THE DARKER SHADES ALL OVER THE 40 SHADES OF GREEN!!!!!
GeorgeDillon | Sep 09, 2010, 02:21 PM EDT
goldenblade--It's simple, even an Irish person should be able to do the math. If you import between a half-million and a million foreign workers, native workers are going to lose their jobs. Result? --UNEMPLOYMENT. Is that so complicated that you don't get it? The solution--stop importing foreign workers. Encourage those foreign workers in Ireland to go home, and those Irish abroad to come home. That's what a genuine irish workers' government would do, but of course the Fianna Fail you guys love so much are corrupt scum.
GeorgeDillon | Sep 09, 2010, 02:17 PM EDT
kittykat: What you say is ridiculous. Are you telling us you didn't meet people of all races and colors in ireland? That's inane--the country has the highest rate of immigration in the world. If you took a walk even thru the smallest town you'd have seen countless foreigners. What were you doing. skulking in your house? And how come you didn't understand the simple English of the original proposition--that the Irish deserve all they get? You even provided an example, but were too silly to see it, when you said the Irish were too lazy to do certain jobs. I think that's racist garbage, by the way, but if it's true then why should we have sympathy for them? You really are a crazy mixed-up kid!
kittykat86 | Sep 09, 2010, 01:37 PM EDT
How do the Irish deserve all they get? Fair play to those Irish people who get up and leave Ireland to look for work. It's not easy. Im 23 and been living in London the past 18 months. Im on less pay than I would be in Ireland but at least I'm working and not on the dole. The Irish may complain that there are no jobs in Ireland yet the Government are bringing in foreigners to work - well those foreigners are working in the service sector - doing the jobs like cleaning, etc that the Irish are too lazy to do. I think any one that leaves their home country to get work should be very proud of themselves. I think its the best thing I've done. It's changed me as a person - I'm not so narrow minded like I used to be when I used to live in a small village, I'm more open minded, and enjoy meeting people of all races and colour.
goldenblade | Sep 09, 2010, 04:02 AM EDT
Jimmy sounds really intelligent. The problem is the government wasted all the money and resources that they had. Ireland was awash with money and opportunities. You can blame young black pants-on-the-ground men for the problem - if it makes you happy. But they aren't the ones challenging the young graduates for the "non-existent" jobs. Aim your sights a little higher, Jimmy.
plasticpaddy | Sep 08, 2010, 11:51 PM EDT
Wow Jimmy a little bit of racism there I see!
jimmy12003 | Sep 08, 2010, 06:31 PM EDT
theres one thing they could try! travel over to england, get a pair of pants four times to big for you so that they hang of your ass!paint yourself black, act and look like a complete useless bas-tard! then arrive back to ireland, pretend they dont speak a word of english, but claim to have ten or so kids!, back in africa, and sign up for benifits, housing, food allowance, and chrildrens allowance! and live like a king! but, to keep the act up, you will have to pis-s about and continue to act and look like all the rest of the useless cu-nts!
WoundedKnee | Sep 08, 2010, 12:52 PM EDT
The irish were hoping for aid and support from the European Union, but the head of the EU told them to forget it. Can I rephrase an old headline?;;--EU to Ireland--Drop Dead!
Agusmags | Sep 08, 2010, 12:16 PM EDT
Why is is every time there is an economic down turn the Irish leave? London? just got back from a business trip there, and the economy is bad, with little to no hiring, and the Irish are going there for work? The economic situation in Greeece, Spain, and. Portugal is far worse than in Ireland, and yet you don't see them up and leaving.
Searlit | Sep 08, 2010, 11:57 AM EDT
I hope you won't have to leave Daniel O'carroll.
JamesMurphy | Sep 08, 2010, 09:34 AM EDT
Emigrate to where--China, India. Perhaps jobs exist in these countries. They certainly aren't available in Britain, Australia or North America. Nor are they there for the taking in Europe. Around twenty million people are without work in the United States. I would not urge anyone from Ireland to try their luck here.
WoundedKnee | Sep 08, 2010, 09:25 AM EDT
The crazy irony is that while Irish people are complaining about having no jobs and being forced to emigrate, Irish employers are still bringing in foreigners to work! That's why I can't take the Irish unemployment problem seriously. If there was a real crisis the government would intervene and insist that Irish jobs go to Irish workers. But the policy is Irish jobs for foreign workers. The Irish--they deserve all they get.