Irish in Britain Seminar: London, May-June 2009
Monday, May 11th, 2009The Irish Studies Centre at London Metropolitan University is hosting their annual “Irish in Britain Seminar Series”.The series is is an informal opportunity for any interested in engaging with current issues and research about the Irish in Britain.
- Tuesday 26 May, Prof Bronwen Walter, Anglia Ruskin University
Fictional Irish Presences in English Diaspora Space: a Social Science Exploration - Tuesday 2 June, Dr Ann Rossiter
- “Hidden Histories: The Irish ‘Abortion Trail’ and the Undercover Support Network within the London-Irish Community
- Wednesday 10 June, Dr Nicole McLennan, London Metropolitan University
Irish Connections: London’s County Associations - Tuesday 16 June, Dr Reg Hall
Researching the Irish in Britain: Methodological Approaches
For more information:
Irish in Britain Seminar Series 2009
NY GAA not benefitting from Ireland’s downturn
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009The Irish Times takes a look at the New York GAA scene in the context of Ireland’s falling economy, as Mayo prepares to make the trip to play New York in the opening round of the Connacht championship.
The article notes:
It used to be an economic downturn in Ireland was at least good for something; the GAA in New York. When players here were laid-off or couldn’t find work they typically looked to America, and particularly New York, where the promise of employment and a vibrant GAA scene – along with several other perks – was more than enough to entice them across the Atlantic.
These days things are a little different
The article notes that stricter immigration laws have kept New York’s GAA scene from booming as it might have in tough economic times of the past. There has been talk of an increased numbers of players coming, but “it’s really only dribs and drabs”, according to NY GAA chair Larry McCarthy.
They key to the NY GAA’s future growth? The twelve underage clubs in the New York area, according to McCarthy, which bring players up from under-10s to minor grade. But McCarthy notes that that the dominance of American sport is a challenge in attracting young people, and many young people lose their connection to their GAA clubs when they go away to college.
Related web page:
Irish Times: New York build on underage structures
Recruiters warn of brain drain
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009Brain drain will spread across the economy in the next few years, according to recruitment experts interviewed in the Irish Independent.
A recruiter with Merc Partners claims that caps on banker remuneration may “lead to a brain drain of bank executives. The cap also makes it very difficult to attract talent from outside Ireland.”
A recruiter with CPL notes that “highly skilled graduates . . . will not stay here if there are not good opportunities and a good quality of life”. She added that their healthcare business had seen increased inquiries into emigration to Britain and Australia.
The issue is even more pressing for those in architecture and law, according to a director with Deloitte: “Certainly in the short-term, anyone who has studied architecture and law will have no choice but to emigrate.” Adding that civil engineers and quantity surveyors will also be forced to emigrate, the recruiter said, “This will include experienced and non-experienced people as these sectors have been hit drastically.”
The evidence for such an increase is mixed, however, with many commentators noting that the global nature of the downturn is keeping many at home, despite a rise in media coverage and increased public interest in emigration. It will be difficult to get an accurate picture until the CSO releases its annual Population and Migration Estimates later this year.
Related web pages:
Irish Independent: Ireland faces massive bank brain drain as wages fall
Armenia looks to Ireland as model for diaspora connection
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Ireland has been cited as a major influence in the development of Armenia’s relationship with its diaspora, in an article in the Wall Street Journal.
Armenia is running a number of initiatives aimed at enhancing its relationship with the diaspora. The Wall Street Journal reports, “In October, Armenia set up a Ministry of Diaspora modeled after the Irish government’s diaspora service, among others. About six million ethnic Armenians are estimated by diaspora organizations to live abroad. The country is trying to leverage the wealth and experience of Armenians abroad, says Diaspora Minister Hranush Hakobyan. ”
President Serge Sargsian had three principles in mind with the creation of the Diaspora Ministry, according to Ms Hakobyan, as quoted in the New-York based Armenian Reporter:
(1) Preservation of Armenian identity (hayabahbanum) in all its forms. By preservation of Armenian identity we mean the Armenian family, Armenian culture, faith, and our mother tongue. If these four great pillars remain steadfast and strong, then we will be able to resolve the many issues of our preservation.
“(2) Discovering and tapping into the potential of the diaspora to help empower the homeland and bring about progress. This means that in different countries throughout the world where we have powerful, resourceful, established specialists, scientists, businesspeople, and cultural figures, all their energy and focus must be directed to the empowerment of the homeland.
“(3) Repatriation. By repatriation we don’t only mean physical return. We mean the return of the mind and heart, which will then bring the physical return with it. In repatriation (hayrenatardzutiun) we must see a return to Armenianness (hayatardzutiun). The more people there are who want to return to their roots, the more it will help to strengthen the homeland.”
The Minister described her work to the Armenian Reporter :
“I want to say three things for your readers to know,” Ms. Hakobyan said. “The Diaspora Ministry is the home of every Armenian. They can come here and they can be assured to receive any assistance that they might need.
“Secondly, I want them to know and understand that the ministry does not govern; it cooperates with them, consults with all the structures and organizations in the diaspora, and adopts decisions which are acceptable to the diaspora.
“Thirdly, we have to have staff at the ministry who are diaspora Armenian. Therefore we are waiting for the best specialists from the diaspora to come and work with us. There is a UN program – I have signed an agreement with the UN office, for them to finance those diaspora Armenians who wish to come at work at the ministry for up to six months. [See http://www.undp.am/?page=Jobs for details.]
“I want to stress for all of us Armenians, our mind, conscience, soul, work, potential, financial resources, professional power must be directed toward the empowerment of the homeland. When Armenia is strong, then every Armenian man and woman decides to remain Armenian. People politely listen to those who weep and cry, and then they walk away. They sit down and talk to the strong. I want all of us to remember that we are no longer the Armenians of the 20th century, beaten, starving, weak. We are the Armenians of the 21st century, strong, energetic, with a view to the future.”
Related web pages:
- Wall Street Journal: Slump hits Armenia Despite Its Isolation
- Armenian Reporter: Hranush Hakobyan: “The Diaspora MInistry is the home of every Armenian” – An interview with the new minister
- ArmenianDiaspora.com: Armenia Diaspora Conference website
Colm Toibin focuses on reluctant exile in “Brooklyn”
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Colm Toibin’s new novel, “Brooklyn”, garnered substantial press over the weekend. The author’s sixth novel is about a reluctant emigrant from Enniscorthy who moves to the New York borough knowing “the rest of her life would be a struggle with the unfamiliar”. The book reflects on the pangs of homesickness and depicts the struggles of the main character, Eilis as she adapts to a new land fraught with its own struggles and eventually falls in love. Just as she begins to settle in, Eilis is called home by a family tragedy and must return to Enniscorthy.
The book is receiving widespread critical acclailm.
Related web pages:
- New York Times Magazine: His Irish Diaspora
- New York Times Book Review: ‘Brooklyn,’ by Colm Toibin: The Reluctant Emigrant
- Irish Independent: No place like Colm
- Irish Independent: Delicate portrait of a soul triumphs in Toibin’s tale
Ringsend native publishes memoir on American life
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Angeline Kearns Blain, a woman raised in 1950s Ringsend who today is an adjunct professor of sociology at Boise State University in Idaho, has published a memoir. “I used to be Irish” is being lauded by critics for its insight into a story too little told: the experience of Irish women emigrants.
Angeline Kearns Blain left Ireland at the age of 18 in 1957 to become the wife of an American soldier she had met at a Dublin bus-stop. The streetwise young woman had been consciously focusing on Americans as romantic targets in order to escape her working-class life as a cinema ice-cream seller. After settling in New England with her conservative, Protestant husband, she eventually settles in Idaho Falls where her husband gets a job at a government nuclear research facility. She would suffer a nervous breakdown and a marital breakup before turning to education and a career in academia.
The Irish Independent says “Her memoir is extraordinary, told with blunt honesty and scathing with. It’s a long way from the flats in Ringsend to being a professor at an American university”.
The Irish Times review notes the subversive nature of Kearns Blain’s story:
I Used To Be Irish exposes both the gender and class fault-lines not traditionally attended to in accounts of emigration: Kearns Blain’s overtures to a fellow Dublin woman emigrant marooned alongside her in a backwater town are spurned when the Loreto College graduate in question discovers that Angeline left school at 14 to scavenge dumps. The memoir upends the popular image of the Irish emigrant, that of the raw country boy pining for rural simplicity in a debauched foreign land: Kearns Blain is a streetwise Dubliner who knows enough about American popular culture to initially act the pure Irish colleen to beguile her GI, a teetotaller Puritan who later winces each time Angeline lets slip some obscene Dublin colloquialism or orders a shot of whiskey.
Angeline Kearns Blain has also written a memoir of her Dublin childhood, called “Stealing Sunlight”.
See related web pages:
- Irish Independent: “A very different American dream”
- Irish Times: “Streetwise Dublin breathes new life into the emigrant’s well-worn tale”