Some of us never make it home
My uncle who lives in New York recently spent a few days before Christmas back in Ireland. He returned because a relative of his had died in Luton and was being brought home for burial.
When this man died he had a few close friends but no family members, so someone from Ireland went over to England to claim the body. My uncle waited, meanwhile, in Longford while everything was arranged and the man could be bought back one last time to his native county.
It was as if for those few days they all enacted a little tableau of emigration. In modern Ireland it is as if that sort of life and death has been relegated to the stages of the theatre. In the land of the new, quite fittingly, that kind of Irish experience has no home.
Of course, it is not theatre. And these are not actors. They are real people living lives that in modern Irish terms are truly lived in the land that time forgot. It is still astonishing to think that in Ireland a mere 50 years ago roughly 50,000 people a year were leaving. That’s somewhere near half a million in a decade. Half a million people, remember, not statistics.
They may well have not existed at all for all that Ireland cared for them then, and they may well not exist now for all that Ireland cares for them now. Of course, Ireland was poorer then and leaving was the only option. But some stayed and did well, didn’t they? And their ancestors in power are hardly likely to show concern all these years on.
Recently, the Irish abroad hit the headlines here on the back of an RTÉ documentary about the plight of some of those cut adrift in their latter years. For a while it was an issue. But I can’t help feeling that this will just be a flash in the pan. Despite so many Irish families being affected by emigration in some way Irish consciousness does not really seem to register the true existence of an Ireland abroad.
As for the political will to address the plight of those overseas, well, it just does not exist. The government appointed a task force on policy regarding emigrants in 2001 and one of its recommendations was funding for emigrant services to the tune of E18million. In the recent budget this was put at E1million with the recent economic slowdown cited for the reduction.
Curiously, this did not effect the exemptions that were granted to that struggling class of people, thoroughbred racehorse breeders. Clearly not enough fellas from Digbeth, Kilburn, or Levenshulme found their way into the big business tent at the Galway races.
My mother has said to me that the money sent back to Ireland by those who had left was such that on a Friday evening or Saturday morning the telegram boys were flying all over the place. It is actually estimated that around £2.5 billion was sent back during the ‘50s and ‘60s, and many individuals and families back here in Ireland relied heavily on that money coming through the door.
As people have said before, they may just have kept the country afloat during those lean times. And what did they get for it? For a long time not even a recognition that they existed. Now some mumbling lip service is paid to the lives of those who left — but political mumbling is cheap.
Those who left in droves during the ‘50s are now an ageing population and they have no voting rights in Ireland. Our Irish communities in Britain are changing due to the simple passage of time. Those who founded Ireland abroad, at least in recent times, are fading away. So in the cold eyes of the Leinster House politician they’re not exactly a force to be reckoned with.
Dr Jerry Crowley of Safe Home, which has sought to aid the bringing home of those who wish to return, has stated that “for the government to use the excuse of an economic downturn as a failure to pay this moral debt to our emigrants is totally unforgivable”.
Unfortunately, that is the crux of the matter. The financial issues aside, this is a moral debt and such debts have little weight in political life. If you wanted the ultimate example of those without a voice then those not even resident in the state would have to be it. Any American President with the weakest of links to this country is going to be more fêted than the thousands in British cities. That is what happens when you have a mature political state run by modern politicians. They don’t wear those suits to look moral; they wear them to look important.
My mother was dearly hoping that her brother would make it down to Cork before he went back but the release of the body was delayed. As you can imagine, living in Birmingham and New York they weren’t exactly able to pop in to each other over the years. Still, they are not the kind to complain, these emigrants.
Ireland has just commenced its term as President of the EU. How wonderful it would be, with immigration an issue across the continent, if Ireland were to recognise its own nature and make migration and the treatment of immigrants a key issue. If it turned its face to others and in doing so really acknowledged all those who left in the ‘50s exodus and may now be socially insecure after a lifetime in manual jobs that did not provide for their old age.
Don’t hold your breath.
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