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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Australia replaces real estate as the main topic of Irish conversation -- Land Down Under beckons for a new generation as economy fails

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Australia replaces real estate as the main topic of Irish conversation -- Land Down Under beckons for a new generation as economy fails

Posted on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 08:22 AM

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Sydney Opera House went green for St. Patrick's Day.

Dublin - If you came to Ireland a few years back the topic of conversation inevitably turned to real estate, no matter whom you talked with.

Now that topic is Australia.

Nothing signifies the shift in Ireland’s fortunes more than the new reality that emigration to Australia in particular is on the minds of millions of Irish.

Everyone seems to know someone who has a family member who has emigrated there or is about too.

In a restaurant in Meath on Friday an overheard conversation went like this.

“Not gone yet Down Under?” addressed to a mid-twenties young man.
“No off next week, thanks be to God.”

And so it goes.

The mining boom in Western Australia in particular has meant that the geography of cities like Perth are discussed as intimately as Cork or Dublin.

A few years back the topic was the number of houses someone owned, how much they had escalated in value, and the latest overseas hot place to buy a second home.

The place to be seen was the latest housing expo featuring properties in Spain, Turkey, or pick your spot in America, especially Florida.

Now tens of thousands line up for hours waiting to enter job fairs for Australia and Canada, which finishes a strong second.

Some of the stories emerging from those fairs are tough to read with families splitting up, people re-emigrating, and especially older intending migrants, their lives in ruins after the bust in Ireland, getting out.

In a local paper here, a vox pop asked a dozen people what they would do if they won the lottery. Three said they would visit Australia to reunite with their sons and daughters who had moved there.

When my nephew Rory recently passed away he was prayed for in Sydney and Melbourne at masses there because of extended family connections there.

It is all part of the new reality or should that be the old reality?

I have often written that emigration waves from Ireland come every thirty years, the 1920s, 1950s, 1980s, and now again.

What I never predicted was that Australia would be the fulcrum of the new exodus.

Neither Britain nor America seems the focus this time. The British economy is only marginally better than Irelands and visa laws make it difficult to access the US.

Australia and Canada, because of restrictive banking laws, are also the only two major industrialized countries that avoided the worst of the banking and real estate boom and bust. Both countries also have massive natural resources.

China’s demands for natural resources and raw materials has fueled the mining boom in Australia and the Irish in search of work have gladly settled there.

Centuries ago the worst fate was to be deported from Ireland to Van Diemen’s Land and forced to work at penal labor. Read Robert Hughes’ classic account ‘The Fatal Shore’ to see just how awful conditions were for the Irish who were sent there.

Now they are leaving on jetliners by the planeload. Sometimes plus ca change.

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Barry | Apr 28, 2012, 05:13 PM EDT

In response to eastdigiwank and GeorgeDillon: You talk about the Irish people as if they're some sort of unique race of people completely different from all others. That's not really the case. And people need to get over this paranoia about immigration into Ireland. If someone could explain to me why it has been OK for the Irish to emigrate to other countries over the years but not for people from other countries to come here, I'd love to hear it. Let go of the double standards please!

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esatdigiwank | Apr 23, 2012, 02:03 AM EDT

GDillon: "Ireland, the only homeland of the Irish people that has ever existed or will ever exist, should follow policies that preserve that status,". Darn right. Do we want the island to turn into a 2nd Mauritius - a hotch-potch of different communities with no uniformity of Values. >>Please clarify and answer me this, thanks. Just what peoples did H*tler invite in to Ger to be guest-workers? Did that not happen with the Turks by the post-War govt on th e contrary? >> Its true, I have yet to read of you exalting one ethnic group over another in Ireland. Some people here never heard of the term ethnicity - incredible!! The term ' ethnicity' is one the Irish student discovers in University! Its not in the high sch curriculum at all!

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esatdigiwank | Apr 23, 2012, 01:53 AM EDT

Thanks be to G^d and Be-fcking-Gorrah. That a young Irish male will speak like this is... oh, I'm lost for words. So would any Australian Sheila he chats up. Praying is the same as doing Zilch! Aus. the main topic of conversation? Always bored me to tears. Australia is only good as long as the Chinese are digging rare earths out of their ground! Rant over.

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seanomelb | Apr 17, 2012, 07:41 PM EDT

Visit Melbourne next time Jacer,we are more refined down here. No offense taken to your "gentle" slanging. I'm sure you understand that a news item is not a definitive researched piece of info.

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jacersagain | Apr 17, 2012, 03:32 PM EDT

Ah now seano you should know I’m only giving ya a gentle slanging. Of course there are nice employers like you. But I don’t hafta stick up for the facts given by the Australian press. If you have an issue with them, take it up with their editors and tell them that their reports contain puerile fairy floss facts. @ Curitiba, my son has been living and working in Sydney for several years and is settled there with family. I’ve been to visit several times and know about the expected work ethic. He works very long hours almost daily and is well paid for it; he says this is the norm in Oz, so I would believe you giving your pound of flesh. Good for weight loss too.

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Barry | Apr 17, 2012, 02:58 PM EDT

Question for GeorgeDillon: are you an Irish American? If so, it's a bit hypocritical to be giving out about immigrants in Ireland when your own family emigrated to a foreign shore too. I've seen some of your other comments here before and they're more than a little racist. You've some nerve to make a complaint about some other user's comment after you refer to Pakistanis as "Pakis"!

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Curitiba | Apr 17, 2012, 02:32 AM EDT

seanomelb-I can confirm what you say. Having worked in Australia for a number of years in the construction sector, I can confirm that I had to work much harder than anywhere else in the world I have worked. The Aussies expect and Olympic Gold-medal winning performance every day at work and God help you if you fall below that standard. They certainly got their pound of flesh out of me, I can tell you.

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GeorgeDillon | Apr 17, 2012, 01:36 AM EDT

ciaradexy--You truly are a stupid fool. Or maybe just an incorrigible liar. Your slur that I believe some ethnicities to be inferior is typical of the logorrhea that flows from you. For the benefit of any readers who haven't read every post I made here, I have never stated, nor do I believe, that one ethnicity is better than another. Nor do I blame foreign settlers in Ireland who take advantage of that country's mad Mass Immigration policies. I do certainly maintain that Ireland, the only homeland of the Irish people that has ever existed or will ever exist, should follow policies that preserve that status, while admitting a prudent number of migrants who can be integrated and make a contribution. That certainly is not what is going on today. I blame the Irish ruling class, the class that has brought their country to ruin. The same people who gave Ireland Mass Immigration are now giving it Mass Emigration, and Hitlerite racists and idiots like ciaradexy support this policy.

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seanomelb | Apr 16, 2012, 08:02 PM EDT

Now Jacer your making many assumptions here and your fairy floss facts are puerile. I was a very good employer and proud of it. Some mine workers are abused by some contractors as not all bosses are as nice as me. Some workers are home sick and want to break their contract to return home and most stick it out and make mega bucks.Working in open cut mines is no holiday and the gutsy get going and earn heaps of dough doing it.Still better than working for "Asian style" wages in the good old USA or walking the streets of Dublin broke and looking for work(which I have done on many an occasion) sadly the reason for emigrating.

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Curitiba | Apr 16, 2012, 05:45 PM EDT

Well, Ciara, if you need a hand carrying your shopping bags, I'll be passing through town at the weekend.

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ciaradexy | Apr 16, 2012, 05:22 PM EDT

Georgie, like you, Hitler thought some ethnicities were inferior and needed to be wiped off the earth. Will fools like you ever learn? So you reported my comment? Did you run tell your mammy too?

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ciaradexy | Apr 16, 2012, 04:27 PM EDT

Curitiba, Christmas day in Melbourne visiting my cousin, bro is flying over from NZ, NYE in Sydney visiting mates, up to Brisbane for a bit, then heading to NZ to hang out with the bro. I cannot wait. London this weekend though, hope the weather is better than here at the mo.

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ciaradexy | Apr 16, 2012, 04:24 PM EDT

George, youre right, thank God you wont be around much longer by the sounds of you! I hear Anders Breivik is looking for a penpal. Maybe you should compare notes?

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GeorgeDillon | Apr 16, 2012, 04:24 PM EDT

I have made a complaint about ciaradexy's disgusting post, in which she compared people who support a prudent and moderate immigration policy for Ireland to a mass murderer. I can't say I'm too surprised, as the same ciaradexy just a few days past wrote that all Americans are "animals". The woman is clearly a psycho. But if we think about it, ciaradexy and fellow mad Mass Immigrationists can best be compared to Adolf Hitler. Hitler, like these loonies, believed in importing vast numbers of cheap workers into Germany, just like the Irish capitalist class has done in Ireland. And Hitler also believed in clearing whole populations in order to settle their homeland with new and "superior" stock. Exactly what the mad Mass Immigrationists (ciaradopey included) are trying to do in Ireland, where they tell us that the "newcomers" (I call them foreigners) are smarter, healthier, better-looking, better at learning languages, more hard-working, more honest, cleaner, better lovers etc. than the Irish. And another point of comparison--Ciaradexy, like Hitler, is a racist imbecile.

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GeorgeDillon | Apr 16, 2012, 04:16 PM EDT

IrelandNorth, you're right. I notice in Ireland that the security industry is dominated by Polish and Lithuanian thugs, who look like they've done a stint as concentration camp guards. What you won't see is Irish security guards. I think the Irish are just sheep in the way they allow themselves to be spied on by foreigners in their own country. I wouldn't take it for a minute. If the Irish had just the backbone of my kitten they could quickly reclaim their country. But I won't hold my breath--it took them 800 years to get rid of the English (partially) so I expect there'll be Poles, Turks, Pakis etc in Ireland way past 2800. Thank God I won't be around to see it.

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