EMIGRATION IS GOOD FOR YA

And a nation weeps! The three Spanish goals that went in one after the other drooped the heart and mind. The ISEQ Index probably lowered by five points. Travel agents have ulcers where they once had digestive tracts!
At least it had the virtue of being comprehensive, and pretty much free of controversy. Not so for Northern Ireland, who had a perfectly good goal disallowed, a goal which might have taken the sting out of the Republic's defeat.
And a nation weeps!! But not as much as Graham Taylor's tattered (er) legions, as the England team went down, amidst controversy after controversy.
Well, it's hard to argue with Norway and Holland going to the States. They are the two best teams in that Group. The rest of us will have to sweat it out.
Personally I reckon both Irish teams would have preferred to be playing for a draw in two weeks. Now they can't. It's a pity, but that's football.
If the island's plans for a Great Hike Forward to the USA have been shelved for the moment, the same can't be said for those who leave for work. The Exchequer returns in the Republic are ahead of the Budget schedule, and a slight rise in emigration has been mooted as a possible cause.
Not all emigration is a cause of sorrow. Most people would happily spend time working overseas rather than sitting on their arses at home. And that is frequently the choice.
We have been used to thinking of emigration as a tragedy, as a permanent sundering of a young person from their home. It is difficult sometimes to realise that we have now moved into a new era.
This is the time of mobility. People aged between 20 and 40 think nothing of travel. One acquaintance of the Hog's, who has moved to a job in north Wales reports that he can return to Dublin quicker than if he had accepted a placement in Donegal.
Another example of this can be found in the FAS overseas graduate course, which guarantees a job on completion. The two-year course has placed over 400 graduates in Japan, with a further 300 placed in European countries, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and the USA. The participants come from technical areas like engineering, where we have an oversupply, and in which it is usual for graduates to spend some time overseas in any event.
One has ambivalent feelings. On the one hand it is good to see opportunities opening up for young Irish people. On the other hand, one would much prefer to see an economy which could find employment for them at home. The same can be said for another FAS initiative, through which 700 people have been placed in Germany. The Irish have been placed in positions in two areas, Bavaria and the Rhineland, in which there are skill shortages.
I don't doubt that the vast majority would prefer to be working at home. On the other hand, as Norman Tebbit used to say, sometimes you have to get on your bike...
This is all tantamount to an emigration policy. Now that I think of it, exactly such a thing has been suggested on a number of occasions over the last few years by economists and sociologists.
What they said was not noticed at the time. But basically it was this: we have too many people, both skilled and unskilled. Let's formulate a policy which includes the facilitation of emigration, or (to use the EC term) internal migration, which will help alleviate the challenge of providing for all these extra people.
Such a policy will have the added value of giving our people valuable experience abroad which, with luck, they will be able to re-invest in the Irish economy at some time in the future...
Good planning, you might say. On the other hand you could also say it's putting a brave gloss on necessity. Either way, in the end people will tend to choose activity and status and worth over inertia and idleness, so any aids they receive will surely be welcome.
Such sojourns abroad may also contribute to a broadening of perception in other areas as well. A visitor to the sty last week commented on the findings of the Irish Times/MRBI poll on attitudes in the Republic.
This visitor now lives overseas, and he commented on the extraordinary level of support for the introduction of legislation on abortion.
According to the survey, a majority of electors (71%) favour the introduction of legislation on the so-called substantive abortion issue. The same percentage also favours legislation which ensures that women have access to information on abortion.
Similarly "liberal" attitudes are in evidence on subjects like priestly celibacy and the GAA ban on members of the security forces in Northern Ireland.
What do such results tell us?
That the republic is becoming a pluralist society at last? That as the age profile changes, the conservative attitudes prevalent among older voters are giving way to more enlightened views?
So it would certainly appear. We must all await the outcomes of future referenda to be sure, though!
Any claims to pluralism and tolerance must bear in mind the violent occurrences in the Galway village of Glenamaddy last week, when a pub which served travellers was attacked, and travellers were beaten and intimidated.
I am aware that, as one traveller told a radio interviewer, there are blaggards in every group of people, travellers included, and that some of the drinkers got out of hand from time to time. But if, as is alleged, travellers converged on the offending pub because they were served there and nowhere else, is this the fault of the pub or of the hundreds of other pubs where travellers are not served?
Surely the solution is to find ways of including travellers, of making it easy for them to be law-abiding, and to have a quiet drink when and where they wish?
But such is not the favoured option: hurling sticks and clubs, reminiscent of those used in a 19th century faction fight were the order of the day. A sad commentary on a lot of things.
We live, I suppose, on the borders of intolerance all the time. Each social or geographical entity has its own. In Northern Ireland, it is ethnicity in the surface form of religion. We have the constant catalogue of sectarian crimes as evidence. We have hundreds of years to recall.
But now, suddenly there is evidence of the slightest chink of light. It is too early to tell, but it just might be that people have begun to try and see what they have in common, rather than what separates them. They have begun to accentuate the positive!
The primary aim is, as it must be, to exorcise the shadow of the gunman, to demilitarise the area, to create a climate in which people can express their identities without the fear of being ignored, isolated or indeed wasted.
It won't come easy. There are ghosts about, fearful phantasms, screaming in grief for the thousands who have died and the tens of thousands who have been maimed in body or mind. They will not be easy to put to rest, but put to rest they must be.
Who knows, though, we might be on the threshold of the first time in Northern Ireland in which people can be who or what they want, be it British, Irish, or Brownie in the Middle, Catholic, Protestant or Dissenter, a time in which, cathartic as it must be, there is mutual honesty and acceptance and agreement on common ground.
Could it be possible?
Who knows?
Hold your breath. Maybe the darkness is lifting.