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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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jacersagain | Apr 16, 2012, 04:06 PM EDT

I would certainly encourage young people to travel and work abroad and Oz is agreat place to do it, in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth especially, where large Irish communities live. Irish employers (the few that are left!) like to see a gap year in a CV because it means the person has gained some knowledge of the world and a broad range of inter-action with a broad range of people from different countries instead of remining cocooned in a non-adventurous environment like Ireland's can be.

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jacersagain | Apr 16, 2012, 03:58 PM EDT

Hey you seanomelb! This jacers most definitely isn’t “full of it”! My post truthfully said what was in the Oz news story; check it out for yourself: google ““We fly in, we fly out... we quit” for the full story of one in three workers quitting. The Oz unions are also kicking up over the working conditions and the Govt of Western Australia is taking the issue seriously enough for parliament to launch an investigation. One would have to ask you seano - Is this the kind of brutal slavery that you as an employer made your retirement money from in Oz?? No wonder you think it shouldn’t be a problem to work under such conditions. Geroff with yerself now... !

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Curitiba | Apr 16, 2012, 03:12 PM EDT

Ah, lucky you. Think of me freezing in London when you are enjoying your cocktail at the Coogee Bay Hotel!

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ciaradexy | Apr 16, 2012, 03:01 PM EDT

Curitiba, Sydney is much nicer than London! Its my favourite city in the world. Cant wait to get back there for Christmas.

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Curitiba | Apr 16, 2012, 01:44 PM EDT

I like Sydney. It's like a more glamourous version of London, only on the beach and 10 degrees hotter all year round.

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ciaradexy | Apr 16, 2012, 12:37 PM EDT

IrelandNorth, you said you left Ireland in the early 80s and are back once a year. So when youre back do you spend all your time in Heuston Station AND libraries? How do you manage to be in 2 places at once? Your trips back must be really boring if thats what you do when youre here.

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IrelandNorth | Apr 16, 2012, 08:58 AM EDT

Try sitting for any length of time in Heuston Railway Station in west central Dublin and you'll find yourself being surveilled by former eastern-bloc security workers contracted by CIE/Irish Rail. The civil liberties of Irish citizens have now been subordinated by the law of contract to foreign workers who are non-nationals who, originating from neo-totalitarian states, do not appreciate the finer subtletites of living and workign in a liberal democracy. And your transport company's use of Irish taxpayers money to subcontract to such firms. Try getting access to the 'free' WiFi you spent your life paying taxes for in your local library, only to be jostled in a stampede by foreign language students competing for access to the resources you payed for but can't use. Does this mean I'm a racist? No! I just resent being positively discriminated against by successive petit-bourgeois Irish Government obsessed about pandering to their European overlords.

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brian22 | Apr 16, 2012, 01:45 AM EDT

Sadly Ireland is suffering and losing their young educated, productive people to Australia and Canada, but of all the Irish I know in Sydney, there still burns a massive love for their home country. Australian's are just happy they have chosen to settle here as they are welcome, and almost always successful in their endeavours. Ireland is only 24 hours away and all this immigration is only going to strengthen Australia's strong Irish heritage. I work with two recently arrived Irish girls and they are great to have around and it seems their greatest fear is that a spider or snake will get them. And by the way, nowhere near all the jobs are mine related, I don't think I have ever seen one in Sydney!

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seanomelb | Apr 15, 2012, 10:48 PM EDT

I dunno!! left town for a few days and the village idiot Georgy boy is ranting again.Jacer is full of it, twelve hour shifts 3 weeks on 1 week off contract is plain and simple to read.Reward up to $150,000 P.A. beats working for the U.S. $7 P.H. slave labour rates. U.S citizen are more likely to overstay their Visa than any other group in Australia (other than Asians).They know a good country with good workers rights and it isn't the good old U.S of A.

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ciaradexy | Apr 15, 2012, 07:15 PM EDT

Im sure they dont have a Rolls as one of them is dead and the other has moved to Oxfordshire! But yeah they were very wealthy! Obviously! George, you sound like that Norweigan Anders Brievik, you know the anti-immigration racist who killed a load of people last summer because he didnt like the fact that they were tolerant of other cultures. Infact, hes in prison now and has internet access, is that you Anders? If George is your real name, maybe you should move your family out of the US. Look at how your family have ruined the culture of the natives there.

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jacersagain | Apr 15, 2012, 05:48 PM EDT

Prospective Irish emigrants to Australia should perhaps be wary of the promise of “gold in the streets” of Australia. Most of the well-paid jobs in Australia are derived from activities in the Mining Industry. I read today on Australia's newsdotcomdotau of workers who took positions in these jobs in the last year saying... “We fly in, we fly out... we quit”. Over 30% of the workers leave before their contract period is up because of “long brutal hours, drugs, family pressures, a “Prison camp" culture and rosters that have no regard for work/life balance". The numbers quitting so quickly is so high and bad that the Government is sitting up and taking note because they really need these workers to deliver the mining products for sale to China. Maybe our young Irish emigrants to Australia should check out facts on working conditions before committing to these six-figure salaried jobs!

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Curitiba | Apr 15, 2012, 03:23 PM EDT

Let me ask you something, George. Do you think there should be no work and residence visa requirements between the following countries: USA, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ and Ireland. I am very much of the opinion there shouldn't be, since you could say there is a common ancestry and culture between all of these countries. What do you think?

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McNamara31 | Apr 15, 2012, 02:54 PM EDT

The new land of opportunity for many.

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GeorgeDillon | Apr 15, 2012, 02:47 PM EDT

It's good that DopeyDexie admits that Mass Immigration is a bad thing. Whether it is done with the gun or with the work permit, it leads in either case to the death of a culture, a thing that is irreplaceable. Took us a month to get that out of her. She's such a stooge for globalization and monochrome international capitalism. I'd say you're a real boring person, dexter. But say, just what was deficient in the Irish people up to 2000 that made it a good idea to replace them with migrant settlers drawn from a hundred disparate countries? You want to recreate the US? But E Pluribus Unum has been done already, you're such copy cats in Ireland, you haven't had an original idea in generations.

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Curitiba | Apr 15, 2012, 02:17 PM EDT

I think your mate's parents might have drenched me as they drove through a puddle in their green, white 'n' gold Rolls, while I was walking past harrod's in Knightsbridge. Ironically, I was just on my way to the passport office across the road to pick up my Irish passport...

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