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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Money from immigrants to be a key part of Irish recovery? -- Back to the sad 1950s for Irish economy if this keeps up

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Money from immigrants to be a key part of Irish recovery? -- Back to the sad 1950s for Irish economy if this keeps up

Posted on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 at 08:17 AM

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Photo Credit: DAVID MONAHAN

Is Ireland heading back to the days when money from emigrants abroad was a mainstay of the economy?

A recent report by a leading hedge fund in Britain stated it was highly likely that emigrant remittances would play an increasing role in the Irish economy.

We have all heard tales of the 1940s and 50s when money from emigrants in Britain and America kept many an Irish family going through very hard times.

Former Irish Times writer John Healy wrote very movingly about his aunt in Brooklyn who kept his family in rural Mayo going.

He had always imagined she lived in finery in America, but when he eventually visited her it was in a fourth floor walk up in a dingy building. She had sacrificed everything to keep them all together back in Ireland.

She had never married, had kept down two jobs and scraped and saved to see her relatives in Ireland better off.

That was not an unusual story.

When I lived in England during the mid 70s, the final stops at the weekend were always the same for many in my construction crew.

Read More: Irish economy to become dependent on emigrant funds by 2020, expert warns

There was the pub on Friday night and the post office on Saturday morning to send money home to the folks. Despite the fact that many were living in abject conditions themselves and saving little, the money home was always a sacred duty.

Many a rural town and village depended on those remittances in the form of money orders and it is so strange to see them being talked about again

The emigrant parcel was a lifesaver in many homes, especially from America. As the emigrant trails have started up again there will be many households back home, especially where the breadwinner has left, awaiting those funds again.

They won’t come via post office money order I'm guessing but by wire and bank transfer.

Soon the technology will exist where funds can be transferred by cell phone - thanks to Irish businessman Denis O'Brien who has created just such a system for Haitians for which he was praised in a Time Magazine cover story by Bill Clinton.

Leave it to an Irishman to come up with way for emigrant remittances to be conveyed at speed back to the family back home.

The hedge fund expert in Britain stated: "Having not depended on remittances for many decades, Ireland, like Portugal, will come to rely on these once more.”

Plus ça change, you might say.

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Seanmor | Oct 06, 2012, 11:26 AM EDT

Smyrnian: I fully agree with you. The powers that be in the Irish state are much more inclined to give us the cold shoulder that a warm embrace. They proved that on St. Patrick's Day in NYC in 1983 and 85 by boycotting the great parades on account of their Grand Marshals opposition to the status quo in the North of Ireland. Then in 1911 the President of that state refused to be Grand Marchal, apparently because she disagreed with the exclusion of a certain group from the march.

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ancavker | Oct 05, 2012, 10:40 AM EDT

Curtiba/Smyrnian: The Irish in Ireland asking for our help now? When so many sneered and continue to sneer at us, and laugh and make fun of us, and call us Dumb Yanks or Plastic Paddies? How many Irish-Americans can remember going home every summer with sll sorts of goodies? How many remember on the last day of the trip giving all the new clothes that were bought for the trip to the cousins? Everyone went home with literally the clothes on their back. The huge boxes sent over at Christmas, the monies being wired over, and on and on. Fast forward when the Celtic Tiger was roaring, and no time for the ones from the states or England back home. But of course still expected to take everyone out and pay for it. Of course so many times never reciprocated. Then when the money was flowing off they would go to the states or England, and we were expcted to wine and dine them, and take them shopping. Yes shopping the more the better. Of course many Irish-Americans will tell you that when they go over for a visit, don't expect to be driven or taken any where. And of course when many would come to NY to visit, there were the lectures on how everything in Ireland was better. Now we are supposed to help? There are many in my and my wife's family in Ireland who we would be happy to help if need be and will. But there are some who can simply go scratch, not a dime from us.

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IrelandNorth | Oct 05, 2012, 07:46 AM EDT

If a commercial enterprise were performing badly on the stock exchange, investment wouldn't be long about drying-up, the management being fired for incompetence, and it beign put into receivership. Why should Ireland Incorporated (II) be any different?

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IrelandNorth | Oct 05, 2012, 07:42 AM EDT

Early American colonists told England's King George III and his infamous redcoats: "No taxation without represention!" Contemporary Irish emigrants shoud tell Taoiseach Enda I and his greencoats: "Not emigrants remittances without suchlike representation!" Not too long ago Irish Central reported Irish Census returns of 33,000 millionaire households in Ireland (26 counties of), offspring of which I imagine are at the back of the emigration queues. Then as now, there's no shortage of land or money in Ireland. It's the distriubtion of which is the problem. Sadly, a latent cure hoorism survives!

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Curitiba | Oct 04, 2012, 01:11 PM EDT

I should add "scrounging alcoholic in-laws" as well as "scrounging alcoholic younger brothers"

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Curitiba | Oct 04, 2012, 01:02 PM EDT

Yes, but that was then and this is now. Previous generations were culturally obliged to send back half their wages to the folks back home.Most did, only to find that ungrateful relatives were living high on the hog on all this free money. In addition, emigrants were expected provide family members jobs and accommodation in the new country. Many found that, despite sending thousands home, they were not welcome and asked by scrounging stay-at-home relatives "So when will you be going back to England again" the day after they arrived home for a visit. They generally only stopped sending money after getting married and being threatened with the frying pan by the wife if they sent another penny home to alcoholic younger brothers who grabbed all the land in their absence. Consequently, many fell out with their families once the cashflow stopped. Today's emigrants will not be so foolish, I hope. Better to peace your own money up the wall in Camden Town, than send it home and have some sponger do it for you!

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EamonnDublin | Oct 04, 2012, 10:37 AM EDT

What's all this about "money from abroad"? Having been assaulted in the 80's in Dublin, my family and I went through a very difficult time. I was out of work, we had to sell our home, my wife saved the day (the years, indeed). NOBODY else gave a fiddler's curse - we were left to our own devices. The great thing about this scenario is that when we finally got back on our feet after clinging on by our fingernails, we were not beholden to anybody. No thanks to give, except to God. My wife and I, plus our son and daughter, are now the happiest, most contented people on the planet. Thank you, God! Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.

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Smyrnian | Oct 04, 2012, 10:05 AM EDT

Ancavker - you are quite correct in what you say....and very well said too. For reasons everyone will argue about the Irish will never embrace their diaspora. They even strongly dislike and resent the closest part of their diaspora - their very own emigrants. Too bad but that's the way it is. (Yes, I know there are exceptions, but the rule still holds).

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ancavker | Oct 04, 2012, 09:01 AM EDT

Ironically a friend of mine who is Greek, tells me that there are all sort of fundraisers and relief/aid efforts being conducted by the Greek- American community in the NY metro area to aid Greece. The difference is the Greeks in Greece do not despise their diaspora like so many Irish in Irleand do.

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Smyrnian | Oct 03, 2012, 09:15 PM EDT

The Irish will never embrace their diaspora; its not in their genetic makeup. Would be great if they did. They have no clue how much this would help Ireland. Hippo - I am from the 1950's generation and I have no fat pension, mortgage free house or the 'wealth' you are talking about. I know many Irish of the same and older generations who never made it. Please do not make sweeping generalisations like that; it's just not factual.

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Happyhippo | Oct 03, 2012, 04:49 PM EDT

Don't believe everything you read,aside from the younger generation where jobs are scarce, there is still a lot of wealth in the country which is in the hands of the generation born in the 50s 60s,this group made big bucks at the height of the tiger and are the owners of pension funds that amount to nearly 100 billion euro,this group is also debt free,and mortgage free,and negative equity don't exist,there are still nearly 2 million employed in the country a lot of them very well paid, so lets get the facts before we lose the run of ourselves.

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Seanmor | Oct 03, 2012, 04:08 PM EDT

There were countless thousand emigrats like the kind aunt of John Healy, who often endured disconfort in order to help their less fortunate family members in Ireland. The issue of Miles Registrar that mentioned the Choctaw's contribution to Irish Famine relief in the late 1840s anso has an article about an immigrant girl named Bridget in N.Y.C. Bridget was a housemaid and one morning before her boss left for work, he read aloud about the terrible conditions the Famine had wrought in her home county. When he had finished, a tearful Bridget approached he employer, reminded him that he owed her 4 months wages and requested an advance on 2 more months payment, which he did. Then this generous, kindheearted, compassionate young lady sent home to her family 6 months of her megear wages. The last sentence in the wartice asks, "Should not this daughter be remembered?".

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ReturnedYank | Oct 03, 2012, 03:16 PM EDT

@butlerreport & ancavker I agree. The Irish resented emigrants for providing help. No vote, no money.

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greensod | Oct 03, 2012, 12:53 PM EDT

butlerreport:You are 100% correct.No vote,No money.

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butlerreport | Oct 03, 2012, 12:19 PM EDT

Ireland has done nothing to embrace emigrants who left because there was nothing here for them. Living abroad, they can't even vote even as Irish citizens. Ireland can sink or swim on its own thank you. We are a nation of beggars.

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