Irish emigration – most to go Britain
I’m probably lagging behind on this so apologies if you’re au fait but I’ve just caught up with the Irish( republic) emigrant figures for the last year - 76, 400 to end of April 2011, up 17%, according to the Irish Times report. I decided to search for them as most of the news stories I saw last year highlighted the US and old Commonwealth countries as emigration destinations but barely mentioned Britain. Can that really be true I thought? And indeed it wasn’t, especially taking into account to difference between temporary work visits and longer ones. So I wonder if traces remain of an old reluctance to acknowledge GB, or the thought that making Britain as the destination of choice is somehow less sexy that further afield? Granted that Oz is booming but none of the others is…
Some 16,130 (UK) national insurance numbers were issued to Irish citizens in the 12 months to the end of March, a 56 per cent increase on the previous year.
Australia, the number of temporary Irish residents increased by 6,193 to 20,493 in the first six months of this year. There was a rise of 3,311 in the number of working holidaymakers, aged between 18 and 30, in the six months to the end of June to 12,945.
The number of Irish people employed on sponsored skilled work (long stay) visas increased by 2,877 in the six months to the end of June to 7,421, highlighting that more Irish emigrants are filling posts where skill deficits exist.
Canada issued 3,869 work permits to Irish citizens in the first six months of this year, more than the 3,729 it issued during all of 2010.
The US issued a total of 17,755 non-immigrant visas – covering students’ work programmes, intra-company transfers and other temporary workers – in the 11 months to December, a 22 per cent increase on the previous year.
A total of 306 immigrant visas were issued to Irish people in the 11 months to December, a slight increase on the previous year. Irish immigrant groups in the US also reported an increase in the number of undocumented Irish who remained in the country after their visas expired.
New Zealand’s department of labour said a total of 4,400 Irish people were granted work permits in the year to the end of June, up 10 per cent. Year-long working holiday visas accounted for about 60 per cent of the total
Surprisingly perhaps…
There was also a rise in the number of Irish returning to the State in the same period (up 3,800 to 17,000) but net outward migration among Irish people increased by 60 per cent from 14,400 to 23,100 year on year.
You seem rather hung up about the homosexuality angle Paddy old boy, I merely mentioned it to prove that the groups of people oppressed by the Irish Republic went beyond a few youngsters and the odd frustrated school teacher. If you want to focus on that one group though fair enough.
However I maintain that Catholic ideology written into the constitution, bans on divorce, contraception and any sort of women’s reproductive health, to the point where a Catholic archbishop could remove a government trying to implement modest reforms were quite massive abuses of human and civil rights.
Massive book censorship at the behest of the Vatican is another pretty damn awful piece of repressive legislation.
That and the institutionalized violence and sexual abuse of vulnerable Irish citizens for half a century in state-run institutions, by state officials with state sanction and covered up by the state ranks far, far worse than anything that happened under Stormont.
But hey obsess about the homosexual angle by all means.
In the 80s during the last big recession the majority emigrated to mostly Britain or else America. These days it is Australia and Canada, with emphasis on the former – whole villages of young ones going together, with low air fares; about £700.
The discussion has drifted into an off-point slagging match as to which jurisdiction is the most awful to flee from, but surely of more relevance is the fact a Diaspora exists as the sole safety valve for economic meltdown – the export of young brains/brawn – a form of human trafficking – I’d agree it is thanks to FF and their utter disregard for the nation’s citizens.
I emigrated and disemigrated several times in 1972. I noticed you couldn’t get Oz Magazine in Ireland, or listen to “Give Ireland back to the Irish” in England. Neither were banned outright, but if Eason’s doesn’t stock it and the BBC doesn’t play it, it will disappear from the public consciousness. You can’t buy Kitty Kelley’s ‘The Royals’ in the UK, I had to order it by post from the USA, it was rubbish, mostly copied from Private Eye.
In Saudi you can have 4 wives, in Ireland only one. Neither is right or wrong, they just suit the people of these two respective countries.
In Aberaeron police seized all copies of ‘Parade’ on sale, when it was freely available in nearby Aberystwyth, the big smoke. In the Isle of Lewis you couldn’t get a ferry on a Sunday, or buy a cup of tea, and would probably be well advised not be be seen riding a bicycle or taking a photograph. One islander called the police because he could see lads playing football, a mile away from the village, through his telescope. And they came, too, and stopped the match. In Welsh Wales, children’s slides and swings were chained up on the Sabbath, as they were in your native Dingdongderry, until the gerrymandering was removed. Yes a man came from the council to chain up the swings, all over the Bogside as well as the Waterside, and unlocked them again on Monday: something quite unheard of in England or Liberated Ireland, where children spent Sunday drinking Red lemonade outside pubs.
But all this is by the by. You don’t lay bombs so your weans can use the swings on Sunday, you buy wire clippers. You don’t start a revolution to read censored books: you get them posted to you, disguised as missals. To be perfectly honest, the average Irishman was mostly concerned about opening hours, and indifferent to any kind of reading matter, however salacious. Your criticism of the Irish Constitution, of Irish Censorship, of Irish anti-socialism, of Irish proneness to follow the advice of Archbishops is an attack on the principle of democracy. Ireland was run in a way that suited the Irish of those times: it is now run in a way that suits the current generation. Neither way is right, and neither way is wrong except inasmuch as they suit the taste of the consumers.
Northern Ireland was run to disoblige as many people as possible, and it wasn’t the Bogside swings they were protesting about: it was the monopolisation of state employment and political power by a particular faction which had unilaterally drawn itself into majority status by a line on the map. It was successful or unsuccessful inasmuch as this line adhered to genuine demographic change: the RUC in Donaghadee experienced no problems, in Crossmaglen they lost 56 men. And that’s why NI fell apart in the space of a year, and is a known disaster spot all over the world.
an off-point slagging match as to which jurisdiction is the most awful to flee from
Not quite, wee buns. In any case, some people enjoy a bit of street-fighting. What is at issue is not whether the jurisdiction is awful, which it is or is not depending on your tastes, but whether it constitutes a viable political entity.
Ireland was run to suit a minority of middle class, Catholic men.