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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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Curitiba | Apr 15, 2012, 02:11 PM EDT

Not really, Ciara, since the area they moved to was majority Irish at that time, so they couldn't enrich an already enriched area. Perhaps if they were English, they might have enriched it, since they would have taken part in changing an Irish area into an English one.

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ciaradexy | Apr 15, 2012, 01:31 PM EDT

Curitiba, did your family culturally enrich the area they moved to? My mates parents ended up in Knightsbridge from Carlow and Tipp. Not quite the working class area youre talking about.

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ciaradexy | Apr 15, 2012, 01:29 PM EDT

George, 'DC is full of Americans''? Really? I was there in 2008 and all I saw were white, yellow and black faces. I didnt see any natives. Those poor native Americans must have that IFS too. Oh Im probably wrong as so many of them were murdered in their own country by invading migrants unlike here. I wonder how they feel about being The minority in thier own country. I bet you havent asked them. Curitiba, the outcome is not the same. If Irish cant get jobs abroad, they will come home unlike years ago when they stayed and ended up on the streets. Years ago when people emigrated they knew they were never going to come home. Now, people are back from Australia twice a year, the UK once a month and the US every 3 months! Its not the big deal that it once was.

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Curitiba | Apr 15, 2012, 01:09 PM EDT

Maybe I should amend St Kilda to Kaliningrad, in that case, George. Funny how the rich areas never benefit from this cultural enrichment, it's just the working-class areas that benefit from all this wonderful diversity!

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GeorgeDillon | Apr 15, 2012, 10:17 AM EDT

I mentioned that there are more Irish on the South side of the Liffey. Guess what? These areas--Grafton Street, Dawson St etc. are traditionally the areas that the Irish rich like to hang around. You'll find this phenomenon also in the case of whole neighborhoods. A place like Foxrock (like Westchester in NY) has very few foreign migrants, except for filipino maids and Polish gardeners. A place like Tallaght (like Newark NJ?) is full of foreigners. Notice that the worthless Irish ruling class, the class that inflicted Mass Immigration on the rest of the people, takes damn good care not to inflict it on themselves.

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GeorgeDillon | Apr 15, 2012, 10:11 AM EDT

"Will Ireland end up abandoned just like St Kilda?" Curitiba, looks like you haven't been in Ireland. The place is full of people. Downtown Dublin is thronged.The only difference is that the streets of the capital are not full of the citizens of the country, as you would find in normal countries e.g Buenos Aires is full of Argentines, Moscow is full of Russians, DC is full of Americans etc. On the streets of Dublin you'll find that foreigners outnumber Irish people by a factor of maybe five to one. This is especially so on the north side of the Liffey. South of the Liffey there's a lot more Irish There are so many foreigners on the streets, in the bars, stores, buses etc. that my cousin tells me that she and her friends joke that they are suffering from IFS. That's Immigrant Fatigue Syndrome, and it expresses the irritation and alienation you feel when you have become a minority in your own city.

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Curitiba | Apr 15, 2012, 09:27 AM EDT

Yes Ciara, the circumstances are different, but the outcome is the same. They can come back, transport is cheaper, but if there are no jobs to be had, they're not going to stay. Also, if there is a large number of Irish people in the Aussie locality where they live, they're not going to feel as homesick, especially if there are Irish pubs, social clubs, St Paddy's day events, sports clubs, etc. The numbers that are emigrating make the establishment of these facilites and more worthwhile. Ireland can be anywhere. If you are surrounded by irish people and things in your new country, and you have consistent work and have a house there, isn't that Ireland as well?

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ciaradexy | Apr 15, 2012, 08:06 AM EDT

Angry, no they arent. I meet a mix of people from all over the world. Many of the Aussies I know are here 4 or 5 years and plan on staying. Curitiba,I know many irish in Oz who dont want to come back. Many are there 10-12 years. they dont want to come back. I have a mate there since 1999, she met her husband there as hes from Sydney, they have a 2 year old and she wants to come home. She got 3 job offers here and her husband got 1. Not everyone is crying into their VB lamenting for Ireland. The 50s and 60s were very different as people couldnt get home and contacting family was difficult. Times are very different now. I have yet to hear any of my mates wanting to come home who cant.

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Curitiba | Apr 15, 2012, 05:05 AM EDT

Of course, people were excited about going to Camden Town too in the 1950's and 60's Ciara. It was when they realised that they couldn't go back as easily as they left that the problems started.

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ciaradexy | Apr 14, 2012, 08:03 PM EDT

There are plenty of Aussies working here and I have yet to meet or hear of an irish person in Australia who doesnt want to be there.

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ciaradexy | Apr 14, 2012, 07:40 PM EDT

Niall, you used the term "restrictive" to describe the banking laws of Australia and Canada. I believe you meant "prudent." Precisely because of these prudent laws and regulations Australia and Canada did not suffer the real estate and banking meltdown that we have seen in the U.S. and Ireland.

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Curitiba | Apr 14, 2012, 05:43 PM EDT

As many will leave as Australia will take, what will become of the country that these best and brightest will leave behind? At least in the old days, Ireland was mainly an agricultural economy with a poorly-educated workforce, but now people have degrees coming out of thier ears and they STILL can't make a living in Ireland, and neither can those in charge provide the enviroment for them to do so. Will Ireland end up abandoned just like St Kilda? Does it have a viable future? What is the answer to this crisis?

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Curitiba | Apr 14, 2012, 05:38 PM EDT

The maps of the world are being redrawn-not by war or conquest-but by economic necessity and commercial aeroplane flights. It might be peaceful in Ireland, there is no threat of war, or famine, so why are people pouring out, as if they were refugees being pushed out of their homelands in Europe at the end of WW2? Simple. Economic recession and unemployment are as as fearsome an enemy to a nation as an invading army in terms of displacing people. Sure, they may be leaving for a job offer, and being driven to the airport with their Sansomite luggage, rather than being forced from their home town at the point of a gun, but just like those sort of refugees, they will never live in their homeland again.

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merefalow | Apr 14, 2012, 04:08 PM EDT

you said it, Aussie and Canada because of restrictive banking laws,for that read sensible controlled legislation, escaped the financial meltdown caused by unbridled unrestricted reckless fraudulent banking practices which have ruined so many people and countries,and NO ONE, not one stinking banker or politition have been held to account.

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Curitiba | Apr 14, 2012, 03:33 PM EDT

I'm surprised that this article has attracted so few comments. I myself worked in Australia for a number of years, like everywhere else, there are good and bad things about it.

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