Berkley Center

According to a somewhat arbitrary figure that’s often tossed around by academics here, including my own professors, about 75 million of us thinks it’s ours. That’s what you get when you add the 4.7 million people who live in Ireland (not including the North) to the 70 million who self-identify as part of the “Diaspora.” The descendants of Irish emigrants who left the island for the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere en masse now make up a population greater than California, Texas, and Massachusetts combined. All that from a country with a modern population and landmass roughly comparable to South Carolina.

The Irish appreciate the emotional ties that those of us who belong to the Diaspora have to their nation. Article 2 of the Bunreacht Na hÉireann—the Constitution of Ireland—clarifies Irish citizenship, and makes a special provision for those who are legally excluded: “Furthermore, the Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage.” There is talk of revising the Constitution, namely the language that reflects the importance of Catholic social teaching at the time the document was drawn up in 1937, but there is never mention of removing this specific part of it. Seventy-five years later, Irish Americans/Australians/Canadians/English can rest assured that their place here is secure.

The Irish emigration story is hardly unique and was part of a much broader context of European, and truly global, pattern of turn of the twentieth century migration. What distinguishes the Irish narrative from those of other nations is not why they left. The trend began in the depths of economic despair during the famine years, and leaving the island was seen as the only means of attaining a better life, no different from the motivations of most other peoples. What makes Ireland different is who left, and who continues to leave today. Whereas most emigrants from other nations were whole families, or fathers and/or sons who departed first with the eventual aim of bringing their relatives to join them, the majority of Irish emigrants were single. There was an approximate 50/50 gender balance, most of whom settled in major cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago despite their predominantly agrarian roots.

Why does nineteenth and early twentieth century history have a place in a 2012 blog post? It’s because this story isn’t history at all. That clause in the Irish Constitution is just as important as ever, and not just for people like me, whose closest Irish connection are my great-grandparents. Rather, it’s for those children who will become thoroughly American/Australian/Canadian/English because their parents left Ireland for the same reason that my ancestors did. Ireland in 2012 is a fully developed nation, and a wealthy one by global standards. To an outsider looking in, there seems to be little reason for anyone to want to leave this place, except maybe the dreary weather. But when my Irish history professor recently asked our class how many students were planning on emigrating in the next five years, numerous hands were raised.

It may be perception more than anything that’s shifting the tide in Irish emigration yet again. During the Celtic tiger days of the early 2000s, Ireland became a net importer of people for the first time since the 1970s. Now that the economy is struggling to recover from the global recession and its own real estate crash, opportunity has declined. The Irish Times reported youth (15-24) unemployment at 14.8 percent, as of this July. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate among American 16-24 year-olds at the same time was 17.1 percent. Comparatively speaking, it would seem that Irish youth actually have it a little better than we do. Perhaps that’s why Canada, and not the United States, is now the primary destination for Irish emigrants.

Ireland’s history has been dominated by emigration since the onset of the famine in 1847. The mass migration of those years became part of the Irish cultural mindset. As my professor recently stated, their first inclination is to leave Ireland whenever an economic crisis hits. This is still true in 2012, when numerous multinational corporations have set up major operations in Ireland because of its young, educated workforce. There is a new diaspora, one that will inevitably spike the 70 million of us who consider Ireland a distant home.