Ireland’s youth on a wave of emigration

There was much about the bubble years of illusory excess that grated on the eye and ear... But at least no more were our people forced to take the boat, exported across the water like cattle.

At least, for a few years, we could pretend that Ireland was a grown-up country, capable of providing for all its citizens.

FOR a few years there, it was looking like the oldest scourge had been tackled, beaten and ultimately banished from these shores. Through the years of the Celtic bubble, and even for up to a decade prior to that, emigration was no longer a major feature of Irish life. For anybody over 40, this was an achievement of serious magnitude.