Emigration from Ireland

Emigration has been the destiny of many young Irish over several generations. It is estimated that about ten million Irish-born people emigrated from the seventeenth century to the start of the third millennium AD, and that the size of the Irish diaspora was then around seventy million. About a quarter million Ulster Presbyterians, descendants of earlier Scottish immigrants as well as some Protestants of English and Welsh lineage, emigrated to colonial America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and most of them settled in the southern Appalachian region. There was also some emigration to Britain after the start of the Industrial Revolution there during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The next big wave of emigration from Ireland took place from the 1820s, chiefly to the United States of America (USA), but also with a significant number going to Britain. There were push and pull factors in operation, a push away from poverty and the attraction of possible opportunities to earn their livelihoods and enjoy better social conditions in other lands. Irish emigration soared during the Great Famine as people fled from hunger and disease, with about 2.1 million leaving between 1845 and 1855. There was also high emigration from 1855 to 1920 when an estimated 4.5 million departed, chiefly from the West of Ireland and the vast majority went to the USA.

A fifth big wave occurred from the 1920s to the 1940s, when the chief destination was Britain. Another large exodus took place from an impoverished country during the 1950s, and by 1954 net emigration was exceeding 40,000 a year. It is estimated that four out of every five children born in Ireland between 1931 and 1941 emigrated during the 1950s. It was customary from the late nineteenth century to organise a going away party for each emigrant going to the USA, known as ‘the American Wake’, a custom that continued until the 1960s. It was in some way an acknowledgement that the departure was in most cases a final parting from family, friends and friends, long before cheap airfares, SKYPE, email and modern communications. The emotions of an ‘American Wake’ were brilliantly described by Liam O’Flaherty in his famous short story, ‘Going into Exile’. The trauma of emigration for families was explored in several Irish plays, with prior agonizing in Philadelphia Here I Come (1964) by Brian Friel, the lure of a new life away in The Country Boy (1960) by John Murphy, and the loss to the country in Many Young Men of Twenty (1961) by John B. Keane.

A seventh wave again during the 1980s, when many went to European countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands. However, the chief destinations for Irish emigrants were Britain and the United States, but there were also large Irish settlements in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Argentina. There was large-scale Irish emigration to the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s when an estimated 200,000 left, but it was different to previous generations in that many emigrants were third-level graduates. Some of them entered the States on student visas and stayed there, with a number later able to secure Donnelly and Morrison visas from 1986 and 1990 respectively to regularize their situation. Some returned to Ireland during the economic boom at the end of the 1990s, but by 2011 there were still about 25,000 illegal Irish in the United States.

There was rapid growth in the Irish economy from 2002 to 2007, generated by a booming construction sector and consumer spending, fuelled by cheap credit, reckless bank lending and ‘light touch regulation’, which resulted in close to full employment. This was exacerbated by excessive Government expenditure, financed by revenue from an unsustainable property market and big consumer spending. In 2008, economic growth came to an abrupt halt following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which led to a global banking and credit crisis as interbank lending dried up, resulting in the crumbling of the Irish housing and personal credit bubbles. This resulted in a swift and deep recession, with negative growth in Ireland, a huge reduction in State revenue, a big increase in unemployment, increased taxation, increased payments in welfare and a large deficit. A new wave of emigration commenced from 2008. With barriers to entry, especially after 9/11, only about 10,000 net went to the USA from 2008 to 2013, while about 80,000 went to Australia and 90,000 to Britain. Some Irish emigrants went to many other countries in Asia and Africa. Now as the Irish economy appears to be coming out of recession, the big economic challenge over the next decade is to end involuntary emigration.

Bernard O'Hara's latest book entitled Killasser: Heritage of a Mayo Parish is now on sale in the USA and UK as a paperback book at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk or Barnes and Noble

It is also available as an eBook from the Apple iBookstore (for reading on iPad and iPhone), from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (Kindle & Kindle Fire) and from Barnesandnoble.com (Nook tablet and eReader).

An earlier publication, a concise biography of Michael Davitt, entitled Davitt by Bernard O’Hara published in 2006 by Mayo County Council , is now available as Davitt: Irish Patriot and Father of the Land League by Bernard O’Hara, which was published in the USA by Tudor Gate Press (www.tudorgatepress.com) and is available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. It can be obtained as an eBook from the Apple iBookstore (for reading on iPad and iPhone), from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (Kindle & Kindle Fire) and from Barnesandnoble.com (Nook tablet and eReader).