46 Comments

• 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!

• 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!

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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"!

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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... !

• 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!

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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!

• 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.

• 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.

• 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!

• 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?

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

  The new land of opportunity for many.

• 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.

• 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...

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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!

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Nicoletta | Apr 14, 2012, 09:52 AM EDT

  How sad is this, as once again Ireland exports its young. The prospect of returning when things pick up however, is much better now than years ago. And communications being so much better, loved ones don't seem to be so far away as they were in our parents or grandparents generations, thanks be to God.