Au revoir to fair Ireland?

Emigration has been a dominant factor in Irish society over the past four centuries for many reasons including famine, job opportunity and more recently for the experience.

It was seen as a chance to earn money and make a living but the current economic climate has left Ireland in a situation like before. The Celtic Tiger saw the generation of wealth but things have slowed down drastically.

Construction has ground to a halt and jobs are thin on the ground. Could this result in a replay of history and will we see people leaving Ireland for better opportunities?

The recession is global and will the United States, England and Australia, which were considered hotspots before, still be as appealing?

In 1891, emigration to America peaked at 1.8 million. England soon took priority and by 1951, there were four times as many there as in America. Today 75% of Irish people living abroad reside in Britain and 10% of Americans claim Irish ancestry. Australia has the third largest Irish born population in the world outside of Ireland.

Up to the 1950s, the ‘American Wake’, which mourned the loss of someone to emigration, was commonplace in Ireland . It was given this name as many people who left before this time were never seen again in this country and never were expected to return.

From the 1950s up to the early 1990s, there was what could only be described as a mass exodus from the country. While the famine was the primary reason in the 1800s, the search for work was on the mind of those leaving fifty years ago.

In 1971, Joseph McGovern from Mayo left for Cleveland as an unskilled man. He, like many others, went to join his brother and sister who had gone before him. McGovern didn’t stay long in the States as Ireland’s entrance into the European Union promised a better life at home.

“Over the next while, prospects for graduates in Ireland are not as bright as they were ten years ago but the days of getting by on an apprenticeship are long gone,” he said.

McGovern certainly had foresight as he saw what the EU had to offer to the country. In 1973, the average industrial wage was 62% of the European average - qualifying Ireland as a priority black spot for funding.

Despite the new EU initiatives, Ireland was known as the ‘sick man of Europe’ in the 1980s. It was seen as one of the darkest times in Irish history. By 1988, unemployment in Ireland stood at 16.3% while Margaret Thatcher’s Britain stood at 6%. New York saw unemployment as low as 4% and the Australian figure stood at 6.5%.

Brian Lenihan, minister for Foreign Affairs, gave his two cents regarding the mass emigration in an interview to Newsweek in October 1987 by saying: “We can’t all live on a small island.”

The 1990s saw an improvement to the country with a new golden calf economy. Unemployment fell and emigration decreased.

People were no longer leaving Ireland in search of jobs but instead looking for adventure and new experiences. Joseph Ryan left for New York in 2002 for this reason and has never looked back.

Working in the construction industry in Manhattan, Ryan joined his peers in The Bronx as an illegal immigrant and has seen the recession hit hard. Despite not being able to hold a driving licence and more importantly having travel restricted, he cannot see himself leaving any time soon.

Life experience is what matters most to him and sees this as his chance to meet people from all over the world. Working beside people from all different backgrounds has given him an insight into cultures that he feels he would never have got in Ireland.

America has felt the pinch of the recession and people seem to have stopped arriving but no one is going home either. Ryan commented that while he has no desire to return home for the moment, Australia is in the same economic situation and does not see the appeal.

One man who does see the appeal of Australia is Wexford man, Kilian Cavanagh who recently lost his job as a cabinet maker. Since the beginning of 2008, he has seen his work become more and more scarce and feels his only option is to leave to find employment.

He is not the only one from his family that has thought about emigrating because of the situation. His brother left for Dubai as an engineer earlier this year.

When asked what the appeal of Australia was, Cavanagh said: “There is work out there, here there is diddly squat.”

The reasoning for emigrating has changed over the years with Joseph McGovern leaving for work and Joseph Ryan leaving in search of adventure. However, Cavanagh says that now people are leaving for work and for the independence of living away from Ireland.

The recession has affected us all in some way or another and nowhere is safe from it. You may choose to stay at home or travel overseas, either way you cannot escape.