Another perspective on student emigration
Posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 12:10 PM
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I had a very interesting talk with the President of the university I attend this morning, to write an interview for the news website I run in Cork.
We talked about a wide range of topics pertaining to student life, but the one I thought would be of most interest to Irish Central was the whole theme of student emigration; the problem that Irish students are facing into whereby for want of any jobs going in Ireland, they're (once more) turning to emigration in an effort to try to forge a more prosperous future overseas.
Being perhaps not the most organized of persons, I realized as I walked in the door to his office that my trusty voice recorder was nowhere to be found, so for want of any precise verbatim quotes from the interview, I'll offer a general overview of what he said on student emigration, which I found interesting.
Prof. Michael Murphy, the President of UCC and the highest paid university president in Ireland, surprised me in that he said he saw student emigration as a largely positive phenomenon, which is an alternative and scarcely articulated perspective to the common dogma of student emigration being some sort of malignant "plague" of life for young people in Ireland. Irish college students and their student unions think that emigration is the great tragedy of modern Ireland, but maybe they're missing the point.
Yes, the sons and daughters of Éire are literally being forced out of the country by the doom and gloom of our economy, as they have been in previous generations, but student emigration could also, and perhaps as validly, be construed as a positive phenomenon rather than a 'curse'.
I think it all depends on your perspective.
The current batch of Irish émigrés are depressed and bitter because they see themselves as 'emigrants'.
The word itself is laden with meaning and connotation. 'Emigration' implies a state of no return; a severance of ties with friends and family; a change of identity; a change of culture. But maybe that needn't be so. Ireland's economy will eventually rectify itself, or so we hope, and those same emigrants now joining the throngs of people boarding trans-Atlantic flights out of Shannon Airport may one day return back home to find a more prosperous Ireland, a more stable Ireland, and - most importantly for our future - a better governed Ireland.
Not only that, but they'll also (hopefully) return as the beneficiaries of a wealth of experience gained in foreign climes, most often of course America, absorbing and learning how other countries do things, gaining experience in life, which they can then come home and inject into a new revitalized Ireland. The net effect, in other words, would be beneficial rather than detrimental. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but it's an interesting opinion and one worth considering; perhaps a small change of attitude would indeed go a long way.
Perhaps this lesson needn't be limited to student emigration, though. Maybe, strange as it seems, the Irish could learn to take the positives out of the recession, however few they may be, and use that as a springboard to graft change for future generations.
Even those wild geese as far-flung as America must now realize that the Irish are currently being subjected to a seemingly unending inundation of negative news from the press and media; perhaps that's a large part of the problem and if we could only learn to view the whole fiasco as a chance to rectify failed policies, implement new ideas, and change government, maybe we would be better off for it. Wishful, stupid, naive, but it would certainly be worth a try.
It may be wishful, perhaps even naive, but at least it's not pessimism.
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ochshane | Feb 14, 2011, 12:15 PM EST
Perhaps the good Prof.(highest paid U.P. in Ireland!)has shares in the Airlines.
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McNamara31 | Feb 05, 2011, 09:52 PM EST
GeorgeDillon I quess I have to type slowly and spell it out for you. I was responding to KneeJerks prior post regarding Eastern European immigration to Ireland and France.
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GeorgeDillon | Feb 05, 2011, 05:17 PM EST
McNamara: You saw the same people in France as you saw in Ireland? That's really weird. Do you think those Poles were holding down two jobs, one in France, one in Ireland? Now that's what I call bipolar! And what are they doing now? They're back in Poland, they just go back to Ireland once a month to collect their Irish welfare benefits?
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McNamara31 | Feb 04, 2011, 05:23 PM EST
KneeJerk What you say is very true. Even though Irish students get a great education, with writing skills that exceed our student in the U.S., jobs are very scarce as told to me when I speak to my family in Ireland. I agree during my visits to Ireland during the Celtic Tiger I would see many who immigrated during the building boom and I also saw the same groups in France during that time frame. Now that the jobs have evaporated and the developments turned into ghost estates they are no longer needed and heading home.
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McNamara31 | Feb 04, 2011, 05:14 PM EST
Danny, As in the past, the Irish helped each other on each side of the Atlantic. Maybe it would be helpful if IC listed the organizations like the EMERALD ISLE IMMIGRATION CENTER in Queens New York and others that assist new immigrants with training and job placement.
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KneeJerk | Feb 04, 2011, 02:21 PM EST
Michael,
Don't believe any of this. Complete and utter .... Take it from someone who lives there !
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WoundedKnee | Feb 04, 2011, 10:58 AM EST
Michael: If you go to Ireland, get ready for the greatest shock of your life. It'll start at Dublin Airport, where you'll see Chinese, Indians, Africans, Poles etc. But almost no Irish. Then take a cab to Dublin's O'Connell Street. It'll be thronged. You can play a game of Spot The Irish Person. If you wait around for 10 minutes, you'll probably spot four or five Irish among the hundreds that are milling around.
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michaelidaho | Feb 02, 2011, 09:40 PM EST
Really...Ireland has changed this much. The last time I visited Ireland was in 1996. I attended a wedding for my cousin in Mayo. I do not remember seeing or meeting a single person of non-Irish descent in Shannon, Galway or Mayo. (Except a few Americans and 1-2 English). If Ireland has changed this much in 15 years, I think I am in for some real cultural shock the next time I return. Hotels staffed by foreigners...Mongolian workers...Really?!
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GeorgeDillon | Feb 02, 2011, 03:34 PM EST
kneejerk: You may be able to fool some Americans, but you won't fool me. I know more about Ireland than a liar like you does. I don't claim to know much about An Daingean, except to point out that the foreigners living there are so bigoted that they objected to classes being taught thru Irish at the local school, even though the leprechaun Irish such as knee jerk claim that Dingle is an Irish-speaking town! That's the hypocrisy of the leprechaun Irish, in this case they want to get the extra government grants for living in an Irish-speaking area, but of course they don't speak Irish! I have no time for bigots like kneejerk and his hypocritical and lying friends. As to your utterly stupid claim that most of the Eastern Europeans have left Ireland, that's lying garbage. Only a complete fool or a liar could claim that. You may be both, kneejerk. You have no way of backing that claim up, because it's an out and out lie. Why do you lie? Are you ashamed of Ireland for continuing to import foreign workers when the young Irish claim they can't find work? Why don't your grandsons do the jobs the Poles, Indians etc. are doing? Are they too lazy? Even the hotels in Kerry are staffed by foreigners--the Irish are either too stupid or too lazy to work at the Reception Desk. Get your ass up to O'Connell Street in Dublin some time, jerk, and count the vast throngs of Russians, Arabs, Poles, Roma etc. that are milling around the GPO. You're an obnoxious lying bigot, kneejerk, but I'll challenge you every time you try to spread your lies.
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Searlit | Feb 02, 2011, 03:19 PM EST
You're right Danny Boy, first you have to think something is possible before you can make it happen.
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Helen Ferone | Feb 02, 2011, 09:34 AM EST
The country of Ireland is beautiful as well as the people, but its true there is a lot of mixed culture in Galway and especially Dublin, but in the outlying areas everything is the same which to me is so appealing about Ireland. The problem with going to the states is we have the same problem you have with people out of work, and no jobs especially for the college graduates so there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in the states, and you're chasing a dream that might never happen. Be happy with your country and a more simple life.
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KneeJerk | Feb 02, 2011, 06:40 AM EST
GeorgeDillon,
Are you serious? You sound like a bigot. We had an influx of Eastern Europeans here when times were good, but in case you hadn't realized (I don't know where you're living, but I'm in Dingle), most of them have left. I'm a retired dentist myself, but I can tell you that two of my grandsons have just graduated with degrees in science and law from UCC and UCD and neither of them can find work. They're not faking it, nor is 'Danny Boy'. It annoys me to hear such ignorance. If you don't realize that people in Ireland are out of work then you obviously know absolutely nothing about the country!
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GeorgeDillon | Feb 02, 2011, 03:03 AM EST
nygalwaygirl: Looks like you've spent a long time in NY, and not much in Galway. When were you in Ireland last? 1992? I was there just recently, the place is full of foreign migrants. It's amazing. If you stand outside Dublin's GPO for a few minutes and people watch, you'll see that as many of 80% of the people around you are non-Irish. It's like the United Nations. Indian women in saris, Paki men in their traditional dress, Arabs, some of them veiled women, Poles and Russians, slightly thuggish-looking with their shaven heads, Roma beggars in their long skirts etc. etc. It's pathological. It's not healthy or normal. No other country opens itself to foreign settlement like Ireland does. They even bring in workers from places like Mongolia. Now use your head, why does Ireland need to import workers from Mongolia in order to work in convenience stores? Even if you go shop in Carrolls, the joint that sells cheap souvenirs, you'll find all the sales assistants are foreigners! Why? Is there no young Irish guy or gal that can sell me a Claddagh Ring or a Celtic Cross? Instead of repeating lies about a "trickle" of immigrants, GalwayGirl, why don't you check out immigration statistics on the Irish Central Statistics Office web site (and even they are notorious for underestimating). The long-term effect, and it's not even very long-term any more, is that within two or three decades the Irish will be an ethnic minority in their own ancestral homeland. It's called ethnosuicide. A very rare pathology, but Ireland is dying of it.
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nygalwaygirl | Feb 01, 2011, 06:50 PM EST
George, seriously, give it up. There's 14% unemployment here, and inward migration is now a trickle.
Anyway, Murphy's view is a realistic one, and one that was widely articulated during Celtic Tiger era. Emigration is great for some people. It's particularly good for those who stay in Ireland. Why do you think our policy-makers are doing so little to stop it?
As for the returning home bit, we really shouldn't be counting on it: we'll need a labour shortage before we get large-scale rates of return, and that's not looking likely in the short to mid-term future.
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