The Irish Times has been running a crowd-sourced blog called “Generation Emigration” since October 2011. The aim is to collect first-hand experiences of those choosing to emigrate abroad, some just hopping over the water to England and some taking a leap to Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
The stories of these emigrants offer many differing insights into their reasons for leaving, the courage it takes to make such a life-changing decision and the challenges they face once they arrive in their new home away from home.
You have to admire the courage of people who take such a bold step and shake your head in disbelief at how bad the economy here at home has gotten to drive people to such lengths. But there’s precious little mention about the ones left behind.
Sometimes the ones who decided to stay are the ones who are asking you if you’d like slimline tonic with your gin, like Carlynn McCarthy, a graduate working in a bar who stayed in Ireland to “...get a good job, find a nice apartment, meet up with family and friends whenever I felt like it...” (http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/generationemigration/2013/03/07/is-there-any-hope-for-young-people-who-want-to-stay/) It’s easy for people to say that you should just head off for the horizon but some people simply don’t want to do that in order to find a career. “Why should I travel thousands of kilometres to a foreign country that may or may not resent my presence there?” says Carlynn.
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Don’t get me wrong. The last thing I want to do is talk people out of asking themselves the question “what if?” We all have a sense of adventure and I occasionally look at my friends who’ve moved abroad with a degree of envy. Social networking has progressed so much so quickly that keeping in touch with people on the other side of the world has never been easier, with tools like Skype and the iPhone’s FaceTime capability.
But things in Ireland aren’t getting any easier and putting forward the case for staying isn’t all that convincing. Headstrong, a charity striving to increase the social discourse on youth mental health, also run a blog on their site. Tony Bates (founding director of Headstrong) writes about the experience of those young people leaving full-time education now looking for work:
“...many young people emerging at the other end of these courses are looking at life with a sense of helplessness and frustration.” (http://headstrong.ie/content/graduating-bleak-landscape)
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That sums up the general feeling quite accurately. By most accounts it’s pretty grim for young graduates out there. But there’s a faint whisper of a silver lining on the horizon. Back in February, Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton announced an EU-wide €6 billion youth employment drive aimed at tackling the rampant unemployment amongst under-25s across many EU states. It aims to guarantee a job, training or education for anyone under-25 if they are out of work for more than four months. If that doesn’t work, here’s hoping there’s another Celtic Tiger knocking around here somewhere... Maybe it’s hiding in one of those ghost estates.
If you’ve read this article and would like to seek out advice, there are a number of organisations who can help:
- Headstrong – www.headstrong.ie
- Reach Out Ireland – ie.reachout.com/
- SpunOut – www.spunout.ie
