Aisling Center’s book a sell-out hit
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007New York’s Aisling Irish Community Center’s collection of memoirs written by Irish immigrants who arrived between 1927 and 1964 has become a hit. One local paper calls “While Mem’ry Brings Us Back Again” the “‘it’ gift” of the holiday season.
The Journal News reports that the first edition of 1,500 copies has already sold out, with orders coming from as far away as Massachusetts, Florida, California and Ireland. A second printing is due in January.
The paper quotes Aisling Board of Directors member John Mooney, who says little had generation, and they’ve laid the groundwork of first- and second-generation immigrants to become so successful,” he said.been written about this generation of immigrants. “This was sort of the silent
On a personal note, your correspondent ordered the book as a gift for her father, a Kilkennyman who left for New York in 1963 – only to find he had not only already read the book but had also bought three copies to give to friends.
Read the Journal News article.
Read the original post on the project.
Order the book from the Aisling Irish Community Center.
Australian groups awarded grants
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern has announced over €100,000 in grants to several groups in Australia. The money is going to three Irish welfare centres and to Melbourne Comhaltas Ceoltóirà Éireann.
The Minister said:
The Welfare Centres in Sydney and Melbourne are now taking on staff to develop their services. I am delighted to increase funding to these groups that do such invaluable work to support our communities in Australia. The centre in Woolongong, for instance, is engaged in community care to older Irish people who travelled to Australia some 50 years ago to work in the mines and factories of this industrialised area which has since experienced significant economic decline.
While the focus of our efforts is inevitably in support of our vulnerable citizens in Britain, and also in the US, we must never ever forget that there are older and vulnerable Irish people elsewhere in the world who need our help, including as the present grants show in Australia.
RTE programmes focus on emigrants
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007RTE has a few interesting productions coming up.
Tonight, it will screen “Duffy’s Cut�, the story of 57 Irish labourers who arrived in Pennsylvania in June, 1832 to construct a railroad. The men, who were mainly from Donegal, Derry and Tyrone, were all dead within six weeks; they were buried in a mass grave. While cholera claimed many, others were apparently murdered by neighbours fearing the plague.
An archaeological project by Immaculata University has been unearthing items which may have belonged to the men, including clay pipes, buttons and coins. The project is hoping to identify the exact location of the burial grounds on the one-acre site known as Duffy’s Cut. They are hoping that they will be able to investigate whether the men were victims of violence, and plan to rebury the men in a nearby church graveyard.
The network will also screen a new series focusing on Irish families who have moved abroad. “The Great Escapeâ€? producers say the programme is “about people making radical moves and changes in their lives by relocating to another country in search of a better life. The first programme will follow a family who left Swords in 2004 to move to France; it airs on January 8.
Christmas homecomings changing with Ireland
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007The Irish Emigrant newsletter highlights the fact that the familiar stories of emigrants arriving home at Christmas has taken new twists now that there are so many immigrants in Ireland.
As recently as ten years ago the arrival of emigrants, returning home for Christmas, was the top story on most news bulletins in the days prior to Christmas. It still makes news but alongside a new phenomenon, that of immigrants going home to places such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia to be with their families at Christmas. We also have significant numbers of parents of immigrants arriving in Dublin from eastern Europe to spend Christmas in Ireland in the company of their sons and daughters.
The newsletter also reported that President Mary McAleese sent a Christmas greeting to the Irish troops serving overseas with the UN via a live video link.
Visit the Irish Emigrant website.
Department of Foreign Affairs announces additional funding
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007Minister for Foreign Affairs announced on December 28 that the Government would give an additional €2 million to help emigrants. Of that funding, €1.6 million will go to nine Irish organisations in Britain to develop facilities for local communities.
Mr Ahern said, “My particular priority has been to ensure that this additional support is targeted to services for our older and most vulnerable community in Britainâ€?. He added, “We have a clear responsibility to this section of our community at all times, but especially so at this Christmas season.”
Report highlights emigration from NI and Britain
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007More than 2,300 people emigrated from Northern Ireland last year, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research in the UK, as reported in the Belfast Telegraph. The report, ‘Brits Abroad: Mapping the scale and nature of British emigration’, found that 5.5 million people born in the UK are living abroad.
The most popular destinations and their corresponding number of resident UK natives are as follows:
Australia – 1,300,000
Spain – 761,000
United States – 678,000
Canada – 603,000
Republic of Ireland – 291,000
New Zealand – 215,000
South Africa – 212,000
France – 200,000
Interestingly, the report found that the number of UK citizens moving abroad permanently doubled between 2001 and 2005, from 53,000 to 107,000.
The newspaper report quoted Dr Patrick Fitzgerald, lecturer at the Centre for Migration Studies, Omagh, on the continuing phenomenon of emigration:
Our focus on inward migration has overshadowed continued emigration.
We are getting ‘lifestyle’ migration with people moving in significant levels for warmer weather, cheaper fuel and property, particularly in the Costas of Spain.
‘Brain Drain’ is a major issue. Students are still reliant on universities in Britain and the Republic of Ireland. Internal migration can lead to onward migration and a loss of skills to the Northern Ireland economy. People still need to leave Northern Ireland for educational economic and employment reasons, though perhaps not to the extent they did in the seventies and eighties.
The newspaper queried Queens University students on their feelings about whether they would like to emigrate; many replied that they would consider emigration, with several citing the fact that Northern Ireland is a small place and there would be more job opportunities elsewhere.
The Institute for Public Policy Research is calling for greater engagement with UK citizens abroad. In the Report’s Executive Summary, it concludes:
Given the importance of emigration from the UK, this report suggests that UK policymakers should pay more attention to the issue. The UK government should follow the lead of several other countries and engage more with its diaspora. Such engagement would allow the UK to harness the potential of Britons living abroad to promote trade and investment links, develop overseas knowledge networks, and act as cultural ambassadors. More should also be done to promote the political participation of Britons living abroad and to make the most of returning Britons.
Read the Belfast Telegraph Article.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2074006.ece
The Belfast Telegraph has a fascinating in-depth look at the issue in its “Brits Abroad� section.
Order “Brits Abroad: Mapping the scale and nature of British emigration� from the Institute for Public Policy Research. You may also download the Executive Summary from there.
« Previous Entries Next Entries »