Emigration always a lifestyle choice
Emigration is a lifestyle choice. So is internal migration, from Cork, Donegal, Mayo or Tipperary, (as I did) or elsewhere to Dublin, and vice versa.
Emigrants and migrants — including those with third-level qualifications financed by taxpayers — think their lifestyles will be better than if they stayed in their places of birth. That is true of famine and political refugees.
That has been so for centuries in Ireland — half of every Irish generation has emigrated — and elsewhere. In 1959, a 24-year-old Irish writer made the Noonan point elaborately: “The Irish people, generally, would appear to be mainly concerned with the fact that our degree of economic development makes it difficult for many to enjoy the full, active lifestyle to which they think they are entitled. Those familiar with the ambitions of young people, especially, will be aware of that fact.
“With a frankness that can be quite disconcerting, many young people quickly make up their minds in this matter; and, if they find it difficult to get what they want here, they move abroad with little hesitation [as I did to London in 1956 without waiting for my MA (economics) conferral. Family ties and patriotic considerations influence them little.
“Their attitude would appear to be: ‘if Ireland cannot provide us with opportunities for decent living [ie lifestyles], then we’ll forget about Ireland — the world is a much bigger place than this small island’.
“The significance of that attitude towards our poor rate of economic development is all-important.
“The rising generation — those who usually act as ‘troublemakers’ to move their elders into action — are not militant in Ireland; generally, they are content to abandon the country to those already in possession, if they cannot easily find scope for full living [i.e, lifestyle], with little thought for the national consequences left in their trail.
“To the usual, psychological approach to the effect that hard, skilful work is needed, they reply: ‘We don’t mind working hard. But — what returns do we get?’ They are primarily concerned with having scope for full, joyous living [ie lifestyle].
“Whether we like it or not, therefore, we must relate our thinking about Irish economic development to the scope for full, satisfying living [ie lifestyle], which will be available in Ireland as we exploit our natural resources to the limit. That is why Mr Whitaker’s contention would seem to be of fundamental importance.”
I was the 24-year-old.
The Whitaker contention (based partly on exchanges I had with him as he composed the document), in his 1958 Economic Development report, was: “No plan could, in any circumstances, guarantee full employment at whatever standard of living [i.e., for whatever lifestyles] the employees choose to name”.
Incidentally, I think that about 75% of the current generation of young Irish people will have to emigrate to have the lifestyles that, following the example of their EU-straitjacketed leaders, they desire. But that’s another story.
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