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« Previous Entries Next Entries »Fulbright scholar for UCC’s Diaspora studies MA
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008A noted historian who has done important work on the Irish diaspora has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar and will lecture in spring 2009 at University College, Cork.
William H. Mulligan, Jr. is professor of history at Murray State University. He will work with UCC to develop and promote their new master’s degree programme in Irish Diaspora Studies. He developed and taught one of the first university-level courses on the Irish Daspora in the US. His research has focused on the nature of Irish identity in the diaspora, and more specifically, migration from copper-mining areas in Ireland to the Michigan Copper Country from the mid-19th century.
The Fullbright programme is America’s flagship international exchange programme, operating in more than 150 countries worldwide.
Related links:
- Willam H. Mulligan’s website at Murray State University
- Irish Diaspora Discussion link
- MA in Contemporary Migration and Diaspora Studies at UCC
- Press release: Mulligan selected as Fulbright Scholar
FIS publishes guide to elders’ lunch clubs
Friday, September 12th, 2008The Federation of Irish Societies in Britain has published the “FIS Guide to Setting Up an Elders’ Lunch Club”. It looks like a great resource for groups interested in enhancing the lives of elders. The handbook notes the benefits of a lunch club are extensive:
A lunch club, not only allows organisations to improve their relations with elders but also provides an excellent social networking opportunity (for some elders, isolation is a stark reality within their lives) as well as offering an access point for various community services, i.e. Health, Benefits, etc.
It’s a really comprehensive guide, covering organisational issues, finding premises, training volunteers and staff, nutrition and menus, promotion, record keeping, finances, and suggested meals.
See the Guide on the FIS website.
Canadian emigrants’ tales told in new book
Monday, August 11th, 2008The publication of the oral histories of emigrants is a great little trend of late, with many community publications achieving prominence in their localities. “A Story To Be Told”, the stories of emigrants to Toronto in Canada, looks likely to bring the genre to new prominence.
The book collects the stories of 130 emigrants who arrived from 1940 to 1999. The stories were collected by Eleanor McGrath and William Smith, who have both worked in the Toronto Irish community for many years. Ms McGrath is the former Executive Director of the Ireland Fund of Canada. Mr Smith is a professional photographer who reports for the Toronto Irish News, among other outlets.
The project will be launched this autumn at several events in Dublin, Belfast and Canada. The book is published by Liffey Press in Dublin and distributed in the US by Dufour Editions.
Learn more on the project at the publication’s website.
TV service for emigrants named RTE International
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008RTE’s new television service aimed at the Irish in Britain will be named RTE International, not Diaspora TV as previously announced. RTE is currently recruiting for the new service, which may launch before its previously announced target date of St Patrick’s Day. The new channel will feature programmes from RTE One, RTE Two, and TG4, with some news bulletins carried live. The channel will be broadcast free-to-air on digital satellite.
Galway book features tales of returnees and newcomers
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008A book published in Galway features the stories of returned emigrants and newcomers to the city. “Galway – City of Strangers” has been edited by Poet-in-Residence Michael O’Loughlin. The book was developed out of a series of workshops by O’Loughlin, and features individuals who returned to Galway years after emigrating, as well as people from such places as the US, France, Poland, Hungary, Nigeria, and Russia.
See a Galway Advertiser article about the book.
World Bank publishes latest Migration and Remittances Factbook
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008The World Bank has published the “Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008”. It gives a host of statistics on international migration and remittances for 194 countries.
In 2007, recorded remittance flows worldwide were estimated at $318 million, of which $240 million went to developing countries; including informal remittances would significantly enlarge the volume.
The Factbook reports that in 2005, Ireland had nearly 600,000 immigrants, who made up 14.1% of the population of 4 million, with the top source countries being the UK, the US, Nigeria, Germany, France, South Africa, Australia, Romania, China and Spain. (More recent figures would presumably reflect the increase in Eastern European immigrants since accession in 2004.)
It says that there were 928,000 emigrants living outside of Ireland in 2005, amounting to 22.4% of the population. The top destination countries were the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, New Zealand, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
Some more interesting facts:
- The top immigration countries, relative to population are Qatar (78 percent), the United Arab Emirates (71 percent), Kuwait (62 percent), Singapore (43 percent), Israel (40 percent), and Jordan (39 percent). The average share of immigrants in population is under 10 percent in high-income OECD countries.
- The Mexico–United States corridor is the largest migration corridor in the world, accounting for 10.4 million migrants by 2005. Migration corridors in the Former Soviet Union— Russia–Ukraine and Ukraine–Russia —are the next largest, followed by Bangladesh–India. In these corridors, natives became migrants without moving when new international boundaries were drawn.
- The volume of South–South migration is almost as large as that of South–North migration, which accounts for 47 percent of the total emigration from developing countries. South–South migration is larger than South–North migration in Sub-Saharan Africa (72 percent), Europe and Central Asia (64 percent), and South Asia (54 percent).
- Smaller countries tend to have higher rates of skilled emigration. Almost all the physicians trained in Grenada and Dominica have emigrated abroad. St. Lucia, Cape Verde, Fiji, São Tomé and Principe, and Liberia are also among the countries with the highest emigration rates of physicians.
- In 2007, the top recipient countries of recorded remittances were India, China, Mexico, the Philippines, and France. As a share of GDP, however, smaller countries such as Tajikistan (36 percent), Moldova (36 percent), Tonga (32 percent), the Kyrgyz Republic (27 percent), and Honduras (26 percent) were the largest recipients in 2006.
- Rich countries are the main source of remittances. The United States is by far the largest, with $42 billion in recorded outward flows in 2006. Saudi Arabia ranks as the second largest, followed by Switzerland and Germany.
Go straight to Ireland’s page.
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