Latest Ean newsletter published
Monday, February 4th, 2008In the latest edition of the Ean newsletter, we focus on returning gay emigrants and the potential impact of civil partnerships in enabling them to return. We also take a look at the implications of the upcoming shut-down of RTE’s medium-wave services. Plus there’s the usual roundup of news and events – and as always, we’d love to hear any feedback on any issues affecting emigrants.
Irishman’s death related to his undocumented status?
Friday, February 1st, 2008A Boston journalist has written a moving tribute to an undocumented immigrant who died in the US city at the age of 33.
Kevin Cullen says, “Eddie Treacy lived in the shadows and died in his bed, the covers pulled up, his lungs full of fluid.” The Athenry native had arrived in Dorchester eight years ago. He was a talented carpenter who loved hurling and would spend after-work time at the Eire Pub.
Cullen writes:
We will never know if it was stubborn pride or a fear of being deported that kept him from going to a hospital to treat the pneumonia that killed him. Maybe he just didn’t realize how sick he was.
After the funeral, he says,
about 200 people posed on the front steps of the church for a photo to send back to Eddie’s mother, Ann, so she would know that Eddie mattered here.
Cullen concludes:
On Monday night, as President Bush told the nation that we need to find “a sensible and humane way to deal with people here illegally,” Eddie Treacy’s body was in the cargo hold of Aer Lingus Flight 132, somewhere over the Atlantic, heading home.
The article was also published in the Irish Times.
Read the entire article on the Boston Globe website.
New influx into US, say centres
Thursday, January 31st, 2008Irish immigration centres in the US are reporting that there has been an increase in new arrivals from Ireland, according to a report in last week’s Irish Voice newspaper. The paper interviewed Irish centres in Boston, New York, and San Francisco, and all have reported a rise in the number of recently arrived people seeking their services.
Orla Kelleher of the Aisling Centre called the increase in numbers “a huge turnaround”. The new arrivals tend to be in their early to mid-twenties, and men and women are coming in equal numbers. Most of them are from the north, northwest and west of Ireland. Most of them are arriving with at least one friend, and sometimes in groups.
Kelleher says most of the women have degrees and are looking for work in hospitality, and most of the men are in trades and looking for construction work. She notes, worryingly, that few are worried about the consequences of overstaying their three-month legal stay.
Children and migration: Cork, April 2008
Monday, January 28th, 2008The Marie Curie Migrant Children Research team at the Department of Geography, University College Cork will host “Children and Migration: identities, mobilities, and belonging(s)” from April 9 to 11, 2008.
Organisers are aiming to provide an integrated and interdisciplinary forum for discussion of recent research and policy developments from a wide range of perspectives, with a common focus on children’s own experiences of and perspectives on migration, diaspora and transnationalism.
More than 80 papers will be presented by researchers from over 20 countries across a variety of disciplines. Papers, lectures, panel discussions and posters will include topics such as transnational childhoods, children and the asylum system, second generation youth, diversity and education, multilingualism, and children’s rights. The event is funded by a Marie Curie Excellence Grant.
Keynote speakers will be Katy Gardner of the University of Sussex on “Diasporic childhood: transglobal children in east London”, and Jill Rutter of the UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research on “Changing patterns of child international migration in Europe: challenges for research, public policy and practice”.
Irish immigrant in NY fights extradition
Monday, January 28th, 2008A County Louth native is fighting extradition from the US. Joe Byrne, a resident of Pearl River, New York, is facing an extradition warrant filed by the Director of Public Prosecution in Ireland. Authorities there allege he was involved in two robberies over ten years ago. Mr Byrne was questioned by gardai in 1997 over the case, in which £8,200 was stolen from a pub; at that time, he was released without charge. Shortly after, he moved to the US, met his wife, Eileen, and received a green card; on the application, he admitted that he had been questioned in the case and provided a reference from the gardai in Dundalk.
In July 2006, however, he was arrested by FBI agents on the warrant from the Irish authorities. Last fall, a court in New York decided against him.
His extradition was originally scheduled to take place before 29th of January, but the Department of State has agreed to put off the extradition until at least next month.
Mr Byrne’s wife, Eileen, told the Irish Emigrant that she fears for his life were he to be extradited, saying the main person involved in the robbery was a known member of the INLA.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians is supporting a petition campaign to stop the extradition.
Read the full story in the Irish Emigrant.
View the petition to stop the extradition.
New Zealand: Nations, Diasporas, Identities. March 2008
Monday, January 28th, 2008Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand will host a conference called “Nations, Diasporas, Identities” from March 27 to 30, 2008.
The conference will look at the notion of diaspora and identity as set against the backdrop of political and economic events in Scotland and Ireland, as well as increasing assertion of Irish and Scottish identities abroad. In examining the relationships between these issues, organisers ask:
Do these diasporic identities, however, have any continuing relationship with the identities of the nations to which they are attached? Or are national identities themselves being transformed by feedback from their diaporas? Or are alternative ‘national’ identities developing which may claim to express the same national past but in fact envisage it in very different ways? Should the notion of the ‘nation’ be extended to encompass its diasporas or should it be narrowed down so that it does not exclude those who are themselves immigrants within its boundaries? What is a national history or a national culture in this world of mobile populations?
For more information, visit the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies.
« Previous Entries Next Entries »