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Wednesday, October 8th, 2008The Mayo News has a lovely column this week paying tribute to the Irish community in Cleveland, highlighting the warmth and support of the community that columnist Denise Horan found on a recent visit.
Ms Horan attended the annual ball of the Mayo society and found a thriving community, heavily populated by the many Achill people who emigrated to the city over the years.
She pays tribute to the community spirit that exists among the Irish abroad:
The sense of community that exists among these people is special. They all left home – or were reared on stories of their parents’ leaving – at an early age, and came to Cleveland to make a future for themselves. When they arrived, people like Steve Mulloy, and others before him, assisted countless Mayo people in getting jobs and accommodation. Though their help was life-saving for many raw youngsters, landing fresh from a secluded Mayo village into the middle of a busy US city, they thought nothing of their offering. It was simply something they did.
She also discusses her impression of the blending of Irish and American cultures that she believes the Mayo people in Ohio have managed:
These people don’t deny their American existence and its influence on their lives; they marry it with their Irish culture and heritage and allow the two to co-exist happily. In many Irish communities abroad, in the UK in particular, you sense a longing in the voices and a loneliness in the eyes of emigrants. Ireland is still where they want to be.
Maybe I missed it in the Irish Clevelanders, but it seemed to me that it simply wasn’t there. There is a contentment rather than a longing; they’re happy to be where they are but ever mindful of their home across the Atlantic.
Read the entire article on the Mayo News website.
Emigration “a rite of passage”, says columnist
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008A columnist has an intriguing perspective on emigration in today’s Irish Times. Quentin Fottrell left Ireland for London after graduation and returned in 1999. He says that “emigration is not something that should be feared”:
“It is the best way of finding out that it’s like in the big bad world and can provide work experience you could only otherwise dream of. For the last big wave of emigrants in the early 1990s, before Ireland evolved into a multicultural society, it was also a chance to see how the other folk live.”
He also says, “Emigration is as much an Irish rite of passage it is a necessary evil”.
Nearly a quarter-million emigrants returned in the ten years up to 2006, Fottrell notes, acknowledging the pull of family and home.
As the perspective of an educated person who emigrated by choice and was able to return home, it’s an interesting read.
See the full article in the Irish Times.
Canadian explains her return home
Monday, October 6th, 2008A letter-writer in the Irish Independent takes a provocative look at her decision to return to Canada after spending two years in Dublin.
She notes several factors in her decision to leave the country, including her own redundancies, Ireland’s economic troubles, the healthcare system, infrastructure problems, and housing costs. She notes that she is not alone in preparing for departure, speaking of “whispers of leaving” in academic halls.
Read the full letter at the Irish Independent website.
Gov awards $1.5 million to US groups
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008The Department of Foreign Affairs has announced its funding for sixteen emigrant service organisations in the US, totalling $1.5 million (1.03 million euro).
Since the establishment of the Irish Abroad Unit in 2004, the Department of Foreign Affairs has allocated more than USD8 million to the Irish Community Centres and Organisations in the United States.
The funding is as follows, divided by consular area.
New York 771,000
– Aisling Irish Centre 126,000
– Emerald Isle Immigration Centre 196,000
– New York Irish Centre 130,000
– Project Irish Outreach 112,000
– Irish Immigration and Pastoral Centre/Immigrant Support Services, Philadelphia 132,000
– Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform 50,000
– Commodore Barry 25,000
Washington DC 166,000
– Ocean City Irish Student Outreach 1,000
– Irish Apostolate 22,000
– Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers 68,000
Boston 372,000
– Irish Immigration Center, Boston 200,00
– Irish Pastoral Centre, Boston 172,000
San Francisco 159,500
– Irish Immigration and Pastoral Centre (IIPC), San Francisco 130,000
– Seattle Irish Immigration Support Group (SIISG) 2,500
– Irish Outreach San Diego 27,000
Chicago 125,000
– Irish Immigrant Support, Chicago 110,00015,000
Total 1,518,500
Visit the Department of Foreign Affair’s Irish Abroad Unit.
Nigerian bishop’s call for return echoes Irish experience
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008Ireland’s experience as an immigrant nation often reflects its own emigrant heritage, and yet another example of this is reported in the Irish Times yesterday.
Echoing the call of Ireland to its own emigrants to return as its economy boomed, a Nigerian bishop visiting Ireland has said his expat compatriots should consider bringing their knowledge back to their home country.
Dr Hyacinth Egbebo, the bishop of Bomadi highlighted the situation in words that are reminiscent of Ireland in the 1980s, when highly educated emigrants departed for better opportunities:
Most of those who leave the shores of Africa, they are the ones who could improve the continent. Now they’re leaving and there is a brain drain. If they don’t stay at home to improve Africa, then this migration will continue and there will be no end to it.
He added,
Every gifted Nigerian wants to leave the country. Generally they feel that the government has failed them. They’re looking for greener pastures out there, because they know that they have something to contribute to life and they cannot be locked away in a place where nothing really works.
It’s very discouraging. People feel they’re better off to relocate and forget about Africa, but that would be a mistake. Africa is a gift to the world, and it is in our hands to make it bloom.
Read the entire article in the Irish Times.
Offer undocumented citizenship, says prominent priest
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008Fr Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame in the United States, is featured in the September 30 edition of Wall Street Journal, reflecting on his life of scholarship and activism. He proposes a very succinct and simple answer to the problem of the undocumented.
When asked the question, “Is there a problem today you’d love to get your hands on?”, Hesburgh answered:
I think we ought to solve the problem of immigration. It’s one of the key problems today. I think I had the answer because, remember, I was chairman of the Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. I had two wonderful guys on the commission: Sen. Teddy Kennedy and Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming. We became very good friends, and they were with me, and we had the solution.
I proposed a simple process: We say to everyone illegal here in America, if you’ve been here five years or more and you’ve had no problem with the law, you’re working steady on a job, and you don’t get any benefits because you have a false Social Security number and you’ll never get the benefits you’re contributing to, all you have to do is show up to the local authorities wherever you live and say, “I would like to be an American citizen.” Then we will immediately put you on the track for citizenship. You’ll have to take the courses required, and you’ll have pass the exams.
I would say that if you put that program in, you can even cut back on the number coming in for a while until you get that problem solved. Once that problem is solved, I think I’d be a little more liberal on the number coming in. But you solve that problem first.
Read the entire interview on the Wall Street Journal website.
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