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Journalist tired of “teary goodbyes”

By Noreen Bowden | July 8, 2009

A journalist has written of growing weary of attending emigrant wakes, in an article in which she describes going to three ‘teary goodbyes’.  She has attended the three goodbye parties as two of her friends leave for New Zealand and a third goes off to Australia.

‘Will I fit into your suitcase?” I whisper into the long-suffering ear of my close friend. She, like so many others, has made the decision to leave behind the rotten Irish economy that has failed her, and travel to far-away lands to make her millions. In this case, the far-away land is Australia, and tonight is the night to commemorate her departure with dancing and laughing and beer. Except, this is the third going-away party I have attended in just as many weeks and a person grows weary of teary goodbyes.

Such a night-time celebration, and a feeling of loss by the people who are left behind, is nothing new in Irish history. The ‘goodbye’ party is an echo of the ‘American wake’, to which the generations before us were accustomed.

Read the story:

Another ’emigrant wake’ and I’m weary of teary goodbyes

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