Ireland has long been a country of emigrants. For around the past 300 years, the Irish have been leaving their homes to escape whatever it is they want to escape – mostly famine or economic depression, historically – in search of a better life elsewhere.
I recently became one of the Irish diaspora myself, leaving the country – along with many of my friends – because of the severe lack of jobs and very real prospect of the economy remaining in perpetual decline. It's presumably for those exact reasons that, from April of 2012 to April this year, a record high of 89,000 people left Ireland.
Not all of those people were born in Ireland, but the majority – just fewer than 51,000 – were, with most of them packing off to destinations that have been popular with Irish emigrants since the 1800s: the UK, Australia and America.
So while migration is certainly nothing new, is the increasing number of Irish emigrants something to worry about? Why are people so keen to leave what is ostensibly a first-world country, and could the mass emigration signal a full-blown crisis for the country?
"I do think it's a crisis – there has been a really significant increase in the number of people leaving Ireland," said Dr Mary Gilmartin, a senior lecturer at NUI Maynooth in County Kildare. Mary has extensive knowledge on the topic of Irish emigration and was once an Irish emigrant herself, leaving the country in 1994 before returning in 2003. Full story...
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I recently became one of the Irish diaspora myself, leaving the country – along with many of my friends – because of the severe lack of jobs and very real prospect of the economy remaining in perpetual decline. It's presumably for those exact reasons that, from April of 2012 to April this year, a record high of 89,000 people left Ireland.
Not all of those people were born in Ireland, but the majority – just fewer than 51,000 – were, with most of them packing off to destinations that have been popular with Irish emigrants since the 1800s: the UK, Australia and America.
So while migration is certainly nothing new, is the increasing number of Irish emigrants something to worry about? Why are people so keen to leave what is ostensibly a first-world country, and could the mass emigration signal a full-blown crisis for the country?
"I do think it's a crisis – there has been a really significant increase in the number of people leaving Ireland," said Dr Mary Gilmartin, a senior lecturer at NUI Maynooth in County Kildare. Mary has extensive knowledge on the topic of Irish emigration and was once an Irish emigrant herself, leaving the country in 1994 before returning in 2003. Full story...
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