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Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Emigration is Irish government's savior once again --- Same old story in a different era as thousands leave

Posted on Thursday, February 07, 2013 at 06:53 AM

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Group await a departing flight at Dublin Airport

Are emigrants abandoning Ireland, or is Ireland abandoning them? This was the headline in a recent face-off debate in The Irish Times.

The debate was spurred by a new Facebook page called “Ireland Abandoners” which attacked young people for leaving Ireland in the lurch and taking off for better climes.

The page created a minor sensation, with thousands batting forth the question before Facebook took it down at the instigation of a group of Australian emigrants.

Pity really, because it would have exposed the continuing fault line which appears to happen in every generation between those who go and those who stay.

Emigration is so fused into the brain of the Irish as a natural phenomenon that the idea of leaving family, friends and a land you grew up loving seems a normal rather than an utterly abnormal experience.

In fact there are few more transformative events in any one’s life than leaving their native land.

It causes massive problems if people are unprepared. Ask any of the Irish outreach centers in the U.S., Britain or Australia.

Read more: Immigration reform time - now is the time to make Irish and American history for the thousands living in limbo

This is why, given the option of staying, the vast majority would not “abandon” Ireland at all. The self-evident truth is lost on so many left behind however.

Those left behind by definition are usually more prosperous and able to ride out the waves of a difficult recession that washes over and swamps those less well off or less educated.

In every generation of Irish since the Free State was founded in 1922 there has been massive emigration.
In the 1920s it was Civil War veterans who took the wrong side who fled. Thirty years later it was the dispossessed rural sons and daughters of Ireland unable to make livings from poor family farms.

In the 1980s it was the newly educated class who found themselves heading to Boston and Berlin.

Now 30 years later, it appears to be everybody and not drawn from any specific class -- 87,000 for the year ending April 2012 according to the latest statistics.

The underlying reality in the 1920s, ‘50s, ‘80s and 2010 is the same. The failure of successive Irish governments to find enough employment and opportunity for their people speaks to a massive collective failure of the Irish nation.

The major difference between emigration in good times and in bad times is whether it is voluntary or involuntary. In good times obviously it is the former. Nowadays, however, I meet many of this new crop of emigrants who miss the fields of home as earnestly and obviously as their grandparents did in the 1950s.

This is no hi-tech movement of happily displaced upwardly mobile groups, though I’m sure under the term “voluntary emigration” you would find many of them clutching that banner.

Read more: Brain drain continues as Irish snap up 6,350 Canadian work visas over four days

This feels like the 1980s again, even a tinge of the 1950s, with folks who have no business emigrating either because of lack of skills or sheer inability to handle the massive emotional and physical disconnect making the trek. That is a failure that can be squarely laid at the feet of successive governments which once again have failed the basic challenge keeping their people employed.

Ironically, it is those leaving who are keeping the powers-that-be in power. If they stayed unemployment would rocket and social unrest would likely occur.

But as long as there is Aer Lingus EI 105 for New York or Ryanair to London to take them away, the crisis will never truly hit. See more: Irish government , Irish in New York , Irish immigration , Irish News

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Smyrnian | Feb 14, 2013, 02:19 PM EST

Mostly social welfare payments.

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WoundedKnee | Feb 11, 2013, 04:34 PM EST

Interesting statistic I see from ireland that the Irish media have all but buried, surprise surprise. Seems Nigerians last year sent back some 600 million euros to Nigeria from Ireland. That's not far from a billion bucks. Question is--where did they get that money?

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Joe Glackin | Feb 09, 2013, 10:27 PM EST

Changing times again with this seemingly new exodus of Ireland,s talent. When I left n early 80,s London or New York were the places.I went to both and elsewhere over 15 years. Its hard to see this all again. Then it was like bred into you, but I feel todays young were not expecting this. Interesting about 1920 republicans escaping out. I did a bit of research on the civil war some time ago. It was strange the amount of Anti treaty Volunteers not accounted for and simple mysterious happenings. Some were killed and buried ,others emigrated .Those that didnt contact home for fear of family safety through reprisals are among the disappeared. Theres was still that hope, years after, theyd walk down the lane .

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Smyrnian | Feb 09, 2013, 02:58 PM EST

Anglophile - your statement is beyond ridiculous and bordering on the insane. PS I am way too old to be your son, thankfully.

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Seanmor | Feb 08, 2013, 03:25 PM EST

It is estimated that 100,000 emigrated from all of Ireland in 1959. I personally know quite a few of these who regularly sent home lots of money while they were still single, and that helped the economy of the Irish state as well as the families of the emigrants. As far as many of us were concerned, it was a case of Ireland, or at least the governent of the Irish stat,e abandoning us, not vice versa.

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ancavker | Feb 08, 2013, 02:00 PM EST

STEVENSTAR: O'Dowd is right. There are lots of Irish still coming to the U.S. I see it all the time. WOodlawn and Yonkers is filling up again with a new wave. It may not be as many as the 1980's but it is a lot more than you care to acknowledge. And from talking to many of them more will be coming. The U.K. too is not in very good shape, and has huge systemic problems that are not getting better.

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ancavker | Feb 08, 2013, 02:00 PM EST

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ancavker | Feb 08, 2013, 02:00 PM EST

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ancavker | Feb 08, 2013, 02:00 PM EST

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ancavker | Feb 08, 2013, 01:56 PM EST

Wounded: You are exactly right! And many of those who fled were the best and the brighest; the ones who could in my opinion have built a better Ireland, not still dominated by England and the Church. As it happened though, it was really the old home rulers and remnants of the old Irish Nationalist Party who took over ofter the English left the 26 counties. Nothing od substnace was eve going to be accomplished. And went De Valera took over after them it was more of the same.

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Ron | Feb 08, 2013, 05:26 AM EST

So long as we're getting our share of the Irish downunder in Australia! 52,000 have emigrated here this past calendar year. Let's do it all again for 2013~

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Ron | Feb 08, 2013, 05:26 AM EST

So long as we're getting our share of Irish downunder in Australia! 52,000 have emigrated here this past calendar year. Let's do it all again for 2013~

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Ron | Feb 08, 2013, 05:26 AM EST

So long as we're getting our share of Irish downunder in Australia! 52,000 have emigrated here this past calendar year. Let's do it all again for 2013~

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WoundedKnee | Feb 08, 2013, 05:19 AM EST

"In the 1920s it was Civil War veterans who took the wrong side who fled." Couple of things wrong with this. It's not the case that these men "fled". They were harassed and persecuted, as I know well from my own family lore. They couldn't get jobs, they were harassed by secret police, abused by priests etc etc. The priests and police even often contacted people who were employing these men, or thinking of giving them a job, and warned them not to hire them. And they hadn't taken "the wrong side". They had supported the Republic proclaimed by Pearse and Connolly, and resisted those who sought to dismantle it. I have often thought that the forced emigration of republican veterans in the 1920s is a topic which merits a lot further study, but it is ignored by the conservative academics in Ireland.

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anglo-norman | Feb 07, 2013, 06:35 PM EST

kinvara7- Dream on son...

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