As most people know, Ireland has pretty strong ties with the US. It’s undeniable that there is a huge population of Irish Americans and a large number of American tourists in Ireland. With so much back and forth between the two nations, it’s easy to feel like studying abroad in Ireland in sort of cheating. I’m studying abroad overseas, but it has been the case a few times where I’ve felt like I’m just studying in a weird, rural extension of the United States. This has a lot to do with the fact that when I tell Irish people that I’m from the US, many of them will tell me that they have relatives who live there, or that they’ve lived or worked there, and sometimes that they were even born there. Although this makes conversation easy to start, it constantly brings to the surface one of Ireland’s most longstanding issues: emigration. For generations, Ireland has hemorrhaged its population, with tens of thousands still leaving on a yearly basis. Every time someone brings up someone living in the US, Australia, the UK or some other place, it draws attention yet again to the necessity to leave Ireland in order to find work. For visiting students from both the US and other countries, emigration is essentially the elephant in the room.
As most people know, millions of people came from Ireland to the US during the potato famine of the 1840s. The Irish continued to regularly immigrate into the US throughout the early part of the 20th century, however an exceptionally strong wave of emigration cam in the 1950s and then again in the 1970s. During the 1990s, Ireland experienced its first period of economic prosperity that later became known as the Celtic Tiger era. With the nation finally able to retain its population, it appeared that mass emigration was over for Ireland. However, the economic crisis that began in 2009 reignited the exodus of Irish people once more. Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) reports that over 200 emigrate from Ireland every day. With the population only being 4.5 million, this is a really noticeable phenomenon.
Being around so many young Irish people has really put a face on the economic situation for me. With a 17% unemployment rate, Ireland does not offer a great deal of opportunity for them. It’s chilling to hear people who are the same age as me talk about the fact that they may have to go as far away as Australia when they finish college or in the years immediately after. Even though Ireland has been characterized by heavy emigration for a long time, it is commonplace in Ireland for extended families to live within close proximity of each other. This means that when Irish people emigrate, they aren’t just living outside of Ireland for the first time, they are living outside of their original family homes for the first time.
Even though the cultural patchwork that has stemmed from Ireland’s relationship with the US and other places that the Irish have immigrated to allows visiting students to navigate the Irish cultural experience more easily, it puts us in an awkward position as well. Many of the students we meet here may very well end up in our respective countries to seek employment. As much as myself and the other visiting students are enjoying their time in Ireland, I feel like many of us will leave feeling grateful that we are going back to our home countries and that we don’t have to make the same decisions that Irish students our age do.