#irish emigration

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An EPIC day - Day Fifty Three

An EPIC day – Day Fifty Three

Sunday, 3 June 2018

My passport for the EPIC museum in Dublin.

We had a day in Dublin to do some tourist attractions and we certainly had a great time. We headed to EPIC, the Irish emigration museum. It is so modern and well done. When you enter you are given a passport, and that is everyone, not just kids. The first thing I noticed was a poster about migrating to Australia for single women. Then…

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Getting Irish

New Post has been published on http://stevefey.com/LivefromLV/2018/05/08/getting-irish/

Getting Irish

This is in Kilkenny, which is covered in the next post.

After sleeping on the plane from Lisbon, getting to our hotel, and going to bed at 3 or 3:30, I woke up before Tami and got in a quick shower. Breakfast was, well, let’s describe the hotel first, okay? We stayed at the Castle Hotel, which is in a very convenient location. It isn’t in a castle, but it’s close to one. The hotel consists of nine houses which have been connected to create a hotel, breakfast area, and basement restaurant. As a result of combining all those houses, the elevators (lifts,) while they work perfectly well, don’t exactly get you to the level on which you’ll find your room. You do have the option, in each house I suppose, of taking the stairway, but with loaded baggage at three in the morning, that wasn’t all that attractive. The breakfast area, which also had a door directly onto the street, I suppose should anyone want to drop in and buy some food, was, from our room, down two flights of stairs, 180 degrees to the left, down eight stairs, across a landing, up eight stairs, and across a sort of parlor. There was a buffet with servers behind it, where you could get all sorts of delicious food. And they had toast (hot toast if you can believe it,) a complete Irish selection (as I said, skip the puddings,) sausages, bacon (ham,) and some really tasty little croissants. By about ten, we were ready to head out into Dublin once again.

A week earlier we had walked past the EPIC Irish History Centre. My family history includes one James McDaniel, who, the story goes, came to Tiffin, Ohio from Ireland in 1848. A not unreasonable thing, given conditions in Ireland at that time. But that’s as far as I’ve gotten with that branch of the family, and I wanted to see if I could use this place to get further. As it happens, most of the building is devoted to the Irish Emigration Museum. If that sounds dull, let me assure you that we spent at least three hours going through the various exhibits, and were surprised to learn how long we’d been at it. I learned many things about Irish history, which is mine, to a large extent (I know, I look German.) The relations between England, then Britain, and Ireland were not the Brit’s finest hours, to say the least. The number of people in the world with Irish ancestry is staggering. The extent of Irish influence beyond Ireland is even more so. Take US Presidents. This picture of a plaque from inside the museum tells the story.

There are several things in Ireland named after President Obama.

For another example, consider this guy:

Doctor Guevara? Irish? Who knew?

Some of the exhibits brought tears to my eyes. It’s no wonder Irish people tend to be creative, because life has, in many cases, been pretty difficult for so many of them.

Inside the gift shop (much smaller than the one in Lisbon’s airport) is the Irish Family History Centre. We bought access to their research facilities, and by golly, I did learn something about old James McDaniel. Namely, that he was born in (drum roll) Pennsylvania! I’ve done further research since I got home, but at this time, that’s all I can say. What I really want is to find James’s father. I have half a dozen candidates, gleaned from the 1830 census. I’ll get him, by gosh!

By the time we left the afternoon was moving on, and we hadn’t had lunch. I believe that this is the day that we ate in a place on Temple Bar. Touristy, pricey, and probably obligatory. The Irish duet playing did manage to play some of my favorite Irish tunes. Erin go Bragh! We tried to get tickets to Avengers: Infinity War, but they were all sold out. So much for our plan to see it a day before the North American release. (We saw it the next evening.) The next day was, in fact, a big one. We bought tickets on an actual tour bus to Kilkenny and points South. It made for a great day, and you’ll learn all about it in my next post!

To your health! That is, Sláinte!

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The Streets Of New York – Ryan McMullan And The Wolfe Tones Here are two versions of the famous Irish folk song that tells of a young emigrant who leaves his native land to seek a better life in New York.

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Why are the Irish still leaving the land of their birth?

By Sara Miller Llana, CS Monitor, October 25, 2015

DUBLIN--With the Irish economy expected to grow at 6 percent this year--poised to be Europe’s best performing for two years in a row--Jimmy Deenihan’s job should be an easy one.

As the Minister of State for Diaspora Affairs, Mr. Deenihan is tasked with luring back home thousands of Irish who fled for jobs and better opportunities abroad after the spectacular crash of the Celtic Tiger in 2008.

“It is part of the Irish psyche to travel,” he says. “But what we are trying to do, this government, is give people a choice to stay if they want to.”

But half a year since the government unveiled a new plan, called “Global Irish: Ireland’s Diaspora Policy,” his task remains formidable. While net migration from Ireland in the latest figures decreased--to 11,600 this year, down from 21,400 in the same period last year--more continue to leave than return home. And 17.5 percent of those born in Ireland now live abroad, according to new data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the highest rate for all 34 OECD members.

The job to sell Ireland comes naturally to Deenihan. His office in downtown Dublin is a testament to his love of homeland: it’s decorated with portraits of the River Feale in County Kerry, where he was born; of men harvesting peat from the bogs that dot the Irish landscape; and of himself in his younger days, when he played Gaelic football.

Still, he acknowledges how challenging the sale is. He is fighting against a historic pattern of emigration that makes moving abroad a culturally acceptable decision here--unlike in Spain, for example, where the population is more prone to stay home despite tough times.

He is also facing a recovery that looks better on paper than the reality of high housing costs and scant childcare options. And perhaps most important, today’s emigrants are the most educated the country has ever seen: many of them have good jobs in Britain, Canada, and Australia, setting the bar for return even higher.

Emigration has been a feature of life in Ireland for two centuries. During the Great Famine in the 1840s, some 1 million fled, and waves have continued ever since, often in economic down cycles.

It was only during the 1990s and 2000s during boom years that Ireland reversed the trend and saw substantial numbers of immigrants for the first time. Some saw that as a marker of Ireland’s arrival as a modern nation. But the collapse of the Celtic Tiger showed that reversal to be an anomaly more than a new cultural norm.

“There is a certain sense that emigration becomes a self-confirming thing,” says Piaras Mac Einri, an expert on emigration at University College Cork. “It becomes a default option for young people. It is not seen as unusual or abnormal,” which might explain the new OECD analysis.

The question of return was once unconsidered. In fact, in the 20th century the celebration of departure was called the “American wake” as it signaled a final goodbye. The advent of transport and globalization has changed that.

But so too has the profile of today’s emigrant, notably their education levels, says Mr. Mac Einri, who worked on the largest study of its kind of today’s emigrants. According to the Central Statistics Office, 52.8 percent of those emigrating have a university degree, and most had jobs when they left.

This makes them more coveted than ever--but also harder to draw back. Deenihan says their experience abroad is an asset for Ireland, with domestic jobs in IT and pharmaceuticals already in demand. One thing his office is considering is launching a call center to give returnees information on everything from schools to local job prospects.

But many have wanted more concrete measures, like a tax incentive for returning emigrants, which was not announced when the budget was released this month.

“They are saying we want people to come back, but we haven’t seen anything specific that you could put your finger on as a measure as such,” says Marie-Claire McAleer, National Youth Council of Ireland Senior Research and Policy Officer.

And without specific incentives, they are often doing better abroad, even as the Irish economy continues to strengthen. “It is not an equal recovery,” says Mary Gilmartin, author of the new book “Ireland and migration in the twenty-first century.” “Recovery is not what it appears.”

The town of Port Laoise in the Midlands region, west of Dublin, has been one of Ireland’s fastest growing towns, with a 38 percent increase in population from 2006 to 2011. Recovery is evident. At lunch time, The Pantry is bustling with locals eating healthy salad plates and homemade soups. Owner Mark Healy, who took over the place one year ago, also opened up a gift store down the street in May. As the treasurer of the downtown traders’ association, he tallies three restaurants, three pubs, and two stores that have opened up this year alone.

Still, he can count a dozen people he knows who moved abroad in the past five years and plan to stay there. Six of them he considers close friends. “They are doing well,” he says. Some are staying put to save more money to be able to buy homes in Ireland. Others won’t be coming back.

In some ways the emigration story is the same as 200 years ago, especially in rural Ireland, far from the booming capital. Sentiments in the town of Waterville, in rural Kerry on a recent Sunday outside the tourist season, are typical. Waitress and student Sandra O’Shea, whose brother and sister are already in Australia, plans to go herself as soon as she finishes hairdressing school. “Everybody wants to go,” she says. “There is nothing here.”

Mr. Healy says his generation’s view differs from their parents’. They see it as something tragic that separates families, while the emigrants he knows see it as an opportunity.

Many are quick to criticize comments from politicians when they dismiss emigration as a lifestyle choice, masking the policy failure behind many decisions to emigrate, including high housing or healthcare costs.

Still, it is increasingly considered something of a way of life in a globalized world. Ciara Kenny, who curates The Irish Times’ Generation Emigration section and has seen friends and acquaintances go for both reasons--need and desire--says she and her coworkers have discussed whether the term emigrant holds the same connotation as it has in times past. They agree it is changing.

“There are two sides of it,” she says. “These days it is a lot more fluid.”