A reminder of the Irish in Barbados
Monday, March 23rd, 2009An Irish Independent article on property investment in Barbados also reminds us of the dark days of the sugar plantations of the seventeenth century.
Many of the Irish arrived there after Oliver Cromwell took them off their land and sold them into slavery or indenture to British planters. Estimates of the numbers of Irish transported in this way range from 12,000 to 60,000, according to a Yale University web page.
The article says:
The historic plantation houses and old churches like St John’s, which holds the graves of some of the many Irish who helped build the sugar trade, offer something very different from the usual sun, sand and sea. . . and a stark reminder of just how far both countries have travelled since the dark days of slavery and colonisation.
Read the whole article: Barbados: Mix history with sun, sea and sand for perfect holiday home
Related web pages and resources:
- “Barbadosed”: Africans and Irish in Barbados
- Irish Echo: Cromwell’s legacy of Irish slavery
- White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh
Of course, there were a smaller number of Irish who benefited from the slave trade in the Caribbean; historian Donald Akenson’s If the Irish Ran the World tells the story of an Irish colony that participated in imperialism.
Working Abroad Expo: Dublin, 21-22 March; Cork, 26-27 March
Friday, March 20th, 2009An event aimed at those considering relocating to work abroad in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Dubai and the UK will be held on 21-22 March in the RDS in Dublin and 26-27 March in the Silver Springs Moran Hotel.
Organisers say the Working Abroad Expo will include immigration officials from Australia, New Zealand and Canada giving visa advice, relocation services, employers and recruitment consultants, and financial advisers. Information on volunteering abroad will also be available.
For more information, see the Working Abroad Expo website.
Related article:
IrishExaminer.com: Destination anywhere
ITLG founder calls for high-level outreach to Irish abroad
Friday, March 20th, 2009A group of high-level Irish representatives should be gathered to reach out to the Irish diaspora to assist in economic development, says an Irish-American founder of the San Francisco-based Irish Technology Leadership Group.
Tom McEnery, a former mayor of San Jose, is quoted in the Sunday Business Post as saying,
It is now time to assemble the best and most significant Irish representatives – like President McAleese, key government and Enterprise Ireland people, U2, Seamus Heaney and the Abbey players as well as certain chief executives – to help Ireland in these tough times.
If these representatves reached out to successful second- and third-generation Irish around the world, then a rich vein of relationships that could achieve real results would be initiated.
McEnry said that the focus of Irish outreach efforts needs to shift from the traditional centres of Irish-American power:
Politicians need to make more visits to Silicon Valley, where there are 700,000 technology workers – and less to Washington, New York and Chicago.
Silicon Valley is successsful because of the Californian government’s investment in universities, the development of a proper transport network via public-private partnerships, and the availability of capital to support enterprise ventures.
Ireland has good universities, but it hasn’t achieved the others to the extent that is needed, and that is where the focus needs to be now. Ireland has come a long way in the last 20 years, and everything that can be done now to sustain that must be done.
Related websites:
Sunday Business Post: Irish diaspora must be tapped for support
Australia cuts visas for builders and manufacturing
Friday, March 20th, 2009is reacting to the global downturn by cutting its intake of migrants for the first time in ten years. The government said this week that it would reduce the number of work permits by about 14%, or 18,500.
The government is removing bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and electricians from the critical shortage list. Hairdressers and cooks had already been removed. Health occupations, engineering and information technology remain on the list.
The visa cuts will affect would-be Irish emigrants. Media reports in recent weeks have detailed problems affective Irish job-seekers in Australia.
Australia’s unemployment rate is currently 5.2%, up from 4.8% last month.
Related websites:
Irish expats in England and Wales face greater alcohol death risk
Friday, March 20th, 2009Irish people living in England and Wales are twice as likely as natives to die from an alcohol-related cause, according to a paper published this month in the Journal of Public Health. Researchers at Edinburgh University used mortality statistics and the 2001 census to determine the likelihood of members of immigrant groups to die from alcohol-related conditions. Those originally from Ireland and Scotland faced the highest risk of death from such causes.
Dr Neeraj Bhala said,
“These groups have a greater culture of drinking than their counterparts in England and Wales. This translates into health-related problems and consequently, to alcohol-related deaths.
Our findings show significant differneces in death rates by country of birth for both alcohol-related deaths and liver cancer. We now need to focus on developing new policy, research and practical action to help address those differences.”
Related websites:
- Journal of Public Health: Alcohol-related and hepatocellular cancer deaths by country of birth in England and Wales: an analysis of mortality and census data
- Mind.org.uk factsheet: The mental health of Irish people in Britain
Irish-American identity over, says US columnist
Friday, March 20th, 2009Irish-Americans will no longer have a powerful impact on American public life, says an opinion writer for U.S. News and World Report. John Aloysius Farrell makes this assertion in a tribute to New York Times journalist Maureen Dowd, saying she “might be the last Irish-American still shaping American public life”. While acknowledging the influence of writers like Alice McDermott and the great Irish-American politician Ted Kennedy, he says,
But that long marvelous strain of Erin’s sons and daughters, running back two centuries, who once ruled the City Halls and statehouses, put out fires and caught crooks, fought wars, ruled the newsrooms and lit up the stages and silver screens, has come to its end. The melting pot did its work. Surely, there are some who will turn the Pogues up loud today (You’re the measure of my dreams…) wear green ties and lift a glass of Knappogue Castle. But the Irish Catholic identity of our younger days, as the children or grandchildren of immigrants, taught by the nuns, singing “Galway Bay,” cursing the Brits and revering Robert Emmet, is gone.
He notes that the late Pat Moynihan had predicted this decline in influence:
He noted back in 1963 how Irish identity was declining amid prosperity and respectability. (A warning to African-Americans there.) Even as the Irish took the top jobs, the base was eroding. On the day that JFK died, “the President of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, the Chairman of the National Committee were all Irish, all Catholic, all Democrats,” Moynihan noted. “It will not come again.”
And it didn’t. There was a chance, I suppose, before Ireland joined Europe and became the (now clawless) Celtic Tiger, that continuing waves of immigration would refresh Irishness in America. It didn’t happen. The Australians, imagine, have a bigger profile in Hollywood today.
It’s a perspective that highlights the importance of the strategic review of Irish-US relations that the Taoiseach launched in the US last week.
See the report:
The Irish American Reign Fades: Maureen Dowd is the Last of a Dying Breed
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