An Emigrant Christmas

“Christmas time especially, is the time when the Church will be packed and the pubs will be packed with all the emigrants who have come home. It’s the only time when people get to see their friends, who they never get to see at other times during the year. That makes Christmas; to be able to see people you would be very close to.”

Anne Marie is from Mayo, a county which historically has had an emigration rate more than twice the national average. She’s working in Dublin at the moment, often the first step in the emigrant process for a country person. Her experience of pubs and churches packed with emigrants returned for Christmas, will be repeated in every parish, town and city in Ireland.

If you look in the ash-trays or rural pubs you’ll likely see crumbled boarding passes among the duty-free ashes. There’ll be plenty of laughs, plenty of hugs and kisses, plenty of re-kindled childhood memories, plenty of mother’s airing beds left empty for the rest of the year. Younger brothers and sisters will get to know older brothers and sisters again. Tears will be shed and pints will be spilt as communities become sentimental for the good old days of youth. In rural Ireland, in particular, the place will be ablaze with vitality and life. The lost generations will be back to give their communities a sense of vibrancy and colour. To a stranger it will look like the best of times are being had.

And that will be true. For a few weeks. Then, come the new year, the exodus will begin again. Some will promise to be back for St. Paddy’s Day, some for a summer holiday, some won’t be back until the following Christmas – and some won’t be sure when they’ll be back again. Those left behind will mourn the lost craic, the bustling pubs, the way they could walk down a country lane and hear laughter and young voices. But they’ll get used to the old silence which descends with the January frost. Because that’s the way it has always been, and most likely always will be.

Faithful Departed

It is estimated that between 1800 and the present day, upwards of nine million Irish people have emigrated. During the period 1800-1921, when some eight million left, about 60% went to the United States, 35% to Britain, 10% to Canada and 5% to Australia. Between 1922 and 1970, the majority of emigrants went to Britain.

The Seventies was a time when more came home than left. However, even during that decade of high economic growth, some 176,000 still took the boat and plane. By the time the recessive Eighties began to knock around, mass emigration was very much back on the cultural map. Some 358,000 left, with most of that figure leaving during the latter half of the decade.

With the advent of the Nineties, emigration slowed dramatically as a result of worldwide recessions, until by 1992 slightly more were coming home than leaving. However, all the signs are that the outward flow picked up considerable pace during 1993, and that the only thing holding back a new emigrant flood are the continuing recessions in America, and particularly Britain. Should these recessions lift, it is estimated that we could see an average yearly outflow of up to 30,000 for the rest of this decade.

Marie Keegan, the Information/Education Officer with Emigrant Advice, a Catholic church-sponsored body which gives help to people planning to leave, has had a busy year. “Compared to this time last year we must be up 2-300%,” she states. Many of the queries Emigrant Advice are receiving at the moment relate to Morrison Visas. However, Marie believes that there are many who are simply waiting for signs of recovery in Britain, so that they can pack their bags. “Certainly when there’s any sort of a lift at all in England,” she points out, “even though this lift may be more perceived than real, people get the message and they hop on Slattery’s bus and off they go.”

Until this year Emigrant Advice were receiving £10,000 towards running costs from the Government. (They operate on a £50,000 budget). Now they get nothing. The main reason given for the withdrawal of funds was the substantial reduction in emigration. “We accept that emigration has dropped,” Marie states. “But all the experts predict that emigration is going to rise again, because once there’s a pick-up in the economies outside the country, the flood is going to start again.”

Another reason is that FÁS are now providing an emigrant advice service. “While FÁS would provide information on Britain and Europe,” Marie explains, “we do certainly give a lot of information on the States, and to a lesser degree Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And also we do give the chance to people to sit down and talk things over as long as they like, and come back and so on.”

“While money is given to services abroad, we feel that’s only half the story. Because the agencies over there would be delighted if people came to them with at least some sort of preparation. It’s like two sides of the same coin – pre-emigration work and post-emigration work.”

Fumbling In The Greasy Till

There is no question but that our massive levels of emigration over the last two centuries is a direct result of British imperialism. Imperialism has a simple agenda. It seeks to colonise a country and then make that country dependent on the motherland. During colonial rule, Irish industry, whenever it in any way competed with its British counterparts, was crippled with criminal tariffs. While Irish people starved during various famines in the 19th century, our food was exported for a pittance to feed the British population and army. At the same time, the Irish market was used as a ready receptacle for British goods.

If there had been no emigration from Ireland our present-day population would be some 12-16 million, which would still give us a substantially lower area-density than that of, say, Holland. As the 1991 National Economic And Social Council’s (NESC) The Economic And Social Implications Of Emigration report pointed out: “While the populations of most European countries have increased substantially since the middle of the last century, because of emigration Ireland has been unique in recording a population decline for most of this period.”

Colonisation is the root cause for our history of massive emigration. However, with proper effort and imagination, roots can be pulled out of a system. As far as effort and particularly imagination goes, the Irish political system has been desperately lacking. Historically, Government economic policy, which embodied the tight-minded shopkeeper mentality, greatly contributed to the fact that our industrial growth was consistently weak, while the rest of Europe was investing in infrastructure and entrepreneurial activities and reaping the resultant rewards.

James Connolly once famously predicted that it was not enough to get rid of the British army, that if structural economic change did not occur, then Ireland would still be ruled by British and foreign bankers. Whether Connolly’s proposed socialist solution would have ever risen above grand theory is a debatable point. However, there is little doubt that Irish fiscal and economic policy, particularly up until the 1960’s could be summarised in Yeats’ lines from 1913: “What need you being come to sense/But fumble in a greasy till/And add the half pence to the pence/And prayer to shivering prayer until/You’ve dried the marrow from the bone.”

Old Ireland Is Dying

In the townland of Ballinulty, Dring, in County Longford, where I come from, there was only one other child of my age around when I was growing up. Those older – over the age of eighteen – had all emigrated bar one. In twenty years, if things keep going the way they are, there won’t be one person left alive. Because all there is is a rake of ageing bachelors and widows and old-age pensioners. Even a new house that was built at the bottom of the road was built for two pensioners coming back from England.

The booming Seventies was a false dawn for rural Ireland, as Anne Marie points out. “When I was seven or eight, a big factory – Asahi – decided to put a plant in Kilalla. And if you like, that was considered a God-send – this was seen as our lifeline. The thing I remember most was an influx of parents in their thirties returning. And those people settled down with their young families who they had, if you like, taken out of America and England.

“Asahi, as the pipe-dream, did employ a certain number of people but that number hasn’t risen. I can think of two families of people who came back from America at the time. One family upped and moved as soon as the children were eighteen/nineteen, because there were no prospects for them. And the other family, their kids had Green Cards and they’re all gone and the parents are left. So, if you like, the decision that those families made to come back with their kids and settle down and to find jobs and a life at home, backfired on them.”

Mass emigration de-populates and de-energises an area. It breaks the chain between the generations, thus weakening the link of understanding between the old and the young and vice versa. Because it removes the young adult population it also allows the attitudes of the older generations to stay in the ascendant, thus ensuring a more conservative society. “I think younger people and older people are going to become polarised,” Anne Marie states. “Because you won’t have young families there; people in their late twenties/thirties to bridge that gap and to help in the interaction and exchange of views. I think that’s very unhealthy for an area.

“And I also think it’s a lie and a myth as well to say to kids at home that if you work well and if you do your study, and if you get your Leaving, and if you go to College, you’ll get a job. You’re lying to those people. You’re giving them a myth that isn’t going to be part of their reality at all.”

From The Top To The Bottom

Before Independence, emigration was seen as a national catastrophe, with the blame lying squarely at the feet of British imperialism. Since Independence, although publicly emigration was seen as a major problem, privately it was seen as a solution to potential civil unrest and criminal activity. For example, it was common for people who were up before the courts to have their sentence suspended if they promised to emigrate.

The attitude that emigration is a necessary and even a ‘good’ thing gained a public voice during the Eighties, with politicians such as Brian Lenihan stating that “we can’t all live on a small island”, and that emigrants were highly ‘literate’ and travelling abroad to widen their experience. Our present Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, when making speeches about emigration, has given the impression that emigration is natural and something Irish people like to do.

It is true that during the Eighties the emigrant profile changed, with roughly one third of those emigrating having some sort of Third Level qualification. As the NESC report points out: “8.4% of 1980 graduates had emigrated by the following spring, and the corresponding figure for 1988 graduates was 29.4%” (Figures were much higher in certain disciplines. In 1988, 48% of engineering, 43% of Arts & Social Science and 42% of Architecture graduates emigrated).

However, just because so many of our graduates were emigrating did not mean that the age-old problem of emigration among the most disadvantaged sections of Irish society had decreased. The NESC report also points out, “In the year 1987/88 it is estimated by the consultants that about 15% of Irish emigrants to the UK comprise unemployed, impoverished, vulnerable young persons who emigrate to London.” Such emigrants arrive in London with maybe £30, maybe nothing, and unless they’re very lucky, end up sleeping rough.

Such emigrants are the ‘bottom of the barrel’, so to speak, the most impoverished and desperate. Many people who leave Ireland fall on hard times. And it is a statistical fact that even for those with education, that particularly in Britain, they will not achieve employment status commensurate with their qualifications.

It all adds up to a pretty sad picture for the majority of Irish in Britain, anyhow. As the NESC report goes points out, Irish emigrants “have the highest standardised mortality ratios of all first generation immigrants in the UK and they experience above average levels of psychiatric morbidity, homelessness and other social problems.” (With regards to homelessness, statistics show that the Irish make up between 25% and 33% of all homeless people in Britain.)

The major emigrant reports from the Seventies and Eighties found that the primary reason for emigrating was economic. A NESC survey of some 500 people who emigrated in 1987 found that 86% had left to get work. 1992 statistics from Emigrant Advice found that of the 1,085 emigrants giving reasons for leaving, 693 (64%) left for work reasons, with 80 (7%) leaving for the ‘Excitement’.

Mick is from Athy. He left school without doing his Inter, as did most of his friends. His and his mates’ emigrants story is one most politicians would prefer not to hear.

“I left and I’m sure any of my friends who left, left for the same reasons,” he states. “I think they emigrated when they really felt that everything else was exhausted. Because at that point they’d picked up part-time work here and there. The only work we got was on ANCO courses. Everyone felt the ANCO courses we did, they weren’t actually courses anyway. What they really were was cheap labour. You kinda do two/three of those courses and you really begin to get sick of them. You know, you figure, well what the hell are you going to do? Just stick around and do these fuckin’ courses every six months? Do these for the rest of your life?”

The Brain Drain

The fact that so many of our most talented graduates are leaving for jobs abroad has some very serious implications. With the economy being stripped of youthful energy, innovation and initiative, it’s ability to create indigenous employment is greatly reduced. Ireland needs entrepreneurs more than it ever did. While being a graduate is not the same as being an entrepreneur, it is their ability to translate entrepreneurial ideas – through research and development and innovation – into quality, competitive products which is essential.

A legitimate argument can be made that by going abroad better experience can be gained, and that the returning emigrant will be thus more equipped for entrepreneurial activity. However, certain factors militate against the return of a highly skilled immigrant. The more skilled the person is the better the wage they will be getting abroad. On returning to Ireland, they would have to achieve a substantially higher wage level – because of the severe Irish tax system – to leave themselves with a similar standard of living as they had abroad.

Such highly paid jobs are simply not available here. Thus, while the emigrant might initially intend to return having gained experience, it is likely that their probable drop in living standards, should they return, will make many of them reconsider their initial plans.

Paddy and Biddy Abroad

During the 1992 Seanad debate on emigrant voting rights, Senator John A. Murphy made the following comment. “As long as we talk about promising or half-promising emigrants the vote, they will be left in a semi-permanent state of schizophrenia about where they belong. Are they ever going to be British? If Britain gives them a living they should consider themselves British and participate fully in British elections.”

Britain may give many Irish a living but its culture is something most have passed up on. People like Willie, who comes from Finglas and left for London in 1988. “I cling to the culture for a sense of identity,” he states. “Because basically, especially somewhere like England, you have no identity. You only identify with what you grew up with. So how can you identify in a foreign land? You have your little ghettos like Kilburn, Camden. But really, you’re in a place where you don’t belong, and you never will feel like you belong. It’s not your roots.

“Like Bren said to me once when we used to come back that when he walked down the streets he felt like they were his streets. Like he belonged here. Like this was his land. He had a right to walk the streets. You don’t feel that way in England.”

Before Willie left he played rock ‘n’ roll guitar. When he arrived in London he got into trad and now, with his mate Stevo, entertains the underground commuters with jigs and reels. Ironically, it was going abroad which awakened him to his culture. “Well, basically everyone is incredibly Irish in London, you know,” he recounts. “You go into their flat, and like look at their book-shelves – they’re full of Irish writers. They go to Irish pubs. They get involved in Irish sessions. They’re always talking about Ireland. I wouldn’t let anyone abroad say a word against Ireland. I get incredibly sentimental about the place. I keep getting books out of the library, you know. I reckon I know far more about Ireland from leaving, than if I had to have stayed here all me life.”

One Emigrant One Vote

In 1992 Croatia held its first independent Presidential and Legislative elections. Up to one million emigrant Croats voted in polling stations set up in twelve countries. (Of Croatia’s 5.5 million voters, 2 million are abroad.) The same story holds true for elections in the Ukraine and Poland. 40% of the registered Portuguese vote is abroad. Other countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Spain allow their emigrants to vote.

So why not Ireland? Because, basically, the Irish Government sees no benefit to itself in giving votes to emigrants. The thinking is that an emigrant vote would be difficult to canvas and unpredictable. Some within the political establishment believe that emigrants might register some sort of protest vote. Politicians rarely air these fears in public.

However, occasionally, more forthright establishment figures such as historian and senator John A. Murphy make such fears clear. In a 1992 Seanad debate he described emigrant voting rights as, “a nonsense,” and went on to state: “If one enfranchises emigrants in South Boston, who is going to tell me it will not be mobilised and organised by forces possibly anti-democratic and subversive of the interests of this State.”

Every time the Government is asked why it has taken seventy years to deal with the emigrant voting rights issue, it cries “complexity” and “Constitution.” Certainly, there are unique complexities involved. However, that didn’t stop Croatia and Poland and the Ukraine, having systems up and running for their very first elections.

And what of the Constitution which seems to be increasingly used to deny citizens rights, rather than expand or uphold them? The Attorney General has stated that for emigrants, “It would not appear that extending the franchise to them could be contemplated under Article 16 of the Constitution.”

However Article 16 does not state that emigrants should not be given the right to vote; it merely does not envisage it. However, in September 1990, President Mary Robinson, then one of Ireland’s leading constitutional lawyers stated that, “There is no impediment in the Constitution to extending Voting Rights to emigrants.”

Emigrants may yet get the right to vote. However, you can be certain that the Government will attempt to frame such legislation in a way which gives the minimum number possible that right. Which is ironic, really, considering that Irish politicians regularly go abroad, particularly to America, looking for investments from our emigrants who have made in big – and indeed looking for funding for their political parties. I know what I’d tell them.