Generation emigration
WE started in the University of Limerick in 2006 full of hope. Most of our siblings graduated and walked into well paid jobs and we were sure we faced a similar rosy future.
Emigration wasn’t an issue. Sure, some graduates were emigrating, but it was usually a matter of choice.
However, during our second year the bubble began to burst. Instead of walking into jobs, those who left college joined the ranks of the unemployed or left.
As the economy deteriorated further and our graduation loomed, the prospect of emigration had changed from a life choice to a distinct reality.
It’s amazing how quickly things turned around. I can still remember a man who came to the college during our first year. He was recruiting staff and promising a career. He was offering generous money and benefits. ‘How many of us were interested?’ he asked. We all put our hands in the air.
Our biggest concern was whether we would work in the company’s office in Galway or Dublin.
Fast forward four years to our final lecture. Before we wrapped up, the lecturer asked how many of us planned to head abroad after graduation. Virtually every hand in the hall was raised.
Even though he tried to encourage us that there was a future in Ireland, he knew and we knew, without saying a word, that staying wasn’t really an option.
Other lecturers assured us that the journeys we were to undertake were adventures and would provide vital experience while broadening us culturally, but it was all a mere guise.
We knew, despite four years and thousands of euro later, we had two options — the dole or the boat.
After the graduation bash, emigration parties became all the rage. I spent the first few months saying goodbye not just to college friends but to many of those I had grown up with.
I decided to stay, part in denial and part to buy some time. I took the opportunity to further my education and undertook an MA. Even though it was a costly decision, as I didn’t qualify for the grant, it is something I had to do.
When we began college, we always planned to jet off to Bondi beach and live the high life in Manhattan. But by choice, rather than necessity.
Like most of my generation, I’m furious at successive Fianna Fáil governments who brought this country to its knees. But I also despair at the attitude of the present administration.
Although a lot of my emigrant friends are enjoying their experience, they all wish for one thing; that returning home was at least an option.
We are the forgotten generation, totally disconnected from our Government and for too many of us, far away from home.
Everyone comes over to Australia on the cusp of some new beginning, it’s just sad that that same beginning will never happen for us at home.
Life is good now, but the transition half way across the world hasn’t been easy. After leaving college I moved to Galway hoping to get a job or some experience, but opportunities were rare.
There was no incentive to stay, no jobs; all my friends were leaving and the place was filled with an air of depression. I found a job in a cafe and saved hard so I could get out as soon as possible.
But finding the right job in Australia wasn’t as easy as some people assume. They do look for skilled and experienced foreigners, but a lot of places won’t hire you on the working holiday visa as they know you won’t be able to stay on.
Jobs like nursing, engineering and quantity surveying are needed over here so these are much easier to secure employment in. It is all about your connections and timing. It took me about a year to find what I was looking for.
I’m employed as a technical writer for real estate agents. They even mentioned a five year sponsorship to me so all going well, and if I like it, who knows what the future holds?
I’m not too far away from Ireland. I live in St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne where all the Irish live and hang out.
It’s insane the amount of Irish people over here. It’ s starting to get crazy. I went to Sydney first and it was a sea of GAA jerseys. Melbourne also has loads of Irish, but it isn’t overpowering.
I would love to go home to Ireland at some stage, maybe not forever but at least have the option. I know that this will never be a choice for me. I resent the Government and the property developers for this.
It’s embarrassing when speaking about your country to others as it is a disgrace what happened. Emigration is just a buzzword now when you mention home. Everyone just accepts it as the normal thing to do, the next step when finished your education, or your job finishes, or you’re tired of the depression associated with all the negative press and struggling to survive on pittance.
The quality of life is amazing over here, good pay, weather —why would you want to return to something that’s getting worse?
I had initially intended to return home after a year and complete a master, but since the Government cut funding it is no longer feasible.
I am devastated about this. My parents are too. They struggled their whole lives for me to get a good education and the Government turns around and punishes the middle and lower classes for the elite’s greed.
I am not willing to go back doing unskilled jobs. I want a career and for my parents struggle to be repaid. The job I got in Australia is AUS$43,000 a year. It is the land of milk and honey. If you have the right attitude you can make it over here.
Moving to New York wasn’t easy because my mother was diagnosed with cancer just before I left.
She’s doing great now but I wish I had the chance to be around while she was going through her treatment and it makes me miss her more. After I graduated in 2010, I moved home and worked in a local shop to save enough money to buy a visa for New York.
Although it was good to be at home with my family, life was very quiet because most of my friends were emigrating too.
It took me some time to find the job I wanted and when I got to New York I began working in a restaurant. I spent a few months there but finally found a job which suited my degree and the visa requirements.
There isn’t much of a future for anyone graduating in the next few years; jobs are too hard to come by without any experience and companies aren’t hiring.
I hope to spend a few years in the US building up a career. That would be impossible to do in Ireland. If I go back anytime soon I’ll be back to working in something that doesn’t even require a degree and that will have made the effort of getting educated pointless.
Emigration is the only option facing many graduates. I don’t know what the Government can do about it at this stage. The damage has been done and we are paying the price. Most of my friends are in New Zealand and Australia because it’s easier to stay there than in the US.
When I began looking for jobs after graduating I soon realised that staying in Ireland was not an option.
I come from a close family and was very fond of my life in Kerry, so it was a difficult decision to leave. But then I heard about a programme in the Middle East where teaching jobs are set up for you before you leave.
I took the job initially assuming that after a year or two I could return to Ireland, but I no longer know if that’s feasible.
But then again coming home and going on the dole is not something I’m willing to do.
I want to contribute to Ireland. The majority of emigrants are well educated, highly skilled people but we are being forced out.
I don’t know what the future will bring but I’m looking into finishing my second year in Doha and then emigrating to either America or Australia. My hopes of living in Ireland and getting a job that I am qualified for aren’t realistic. People say that we are lucky to get the adventure of leaving for a few years, but it seems more and more likely that a lot of our generation will never be able to return.
After graduation, I took a year out and worked in a local supermarket for the year in order to save money to emigrate. It was depressing I couldn’t find a job in my sector and all my friends seemed to drift to other parts of the world. Every day all people talked about was the recession. I have not heard that word once since emigrating.
I decided to move to Vancouver as it was a lot easier to access a visa for than the US.
I have been working in a baby store here to keep me going while I look for a job I qualified in. I am getting sick of doing run of the mill jobs and would like to settle soon on a profession.
I was considering doing returning home to do a masters but since the post-grad grants have been cut it is no longer feasible.
There are universities in Europe where fees are one fifth of the cost. Maybe if further education was less expensive more people would stick around.
I would like a future in Ireland. But I don’t see that happening in the next 10 years. I will probably go back to Ireland for a short time and then head off somewhere else.
Even if I return to Ireland about 70-80% of my friends have left to start lives elsewhere. It’s no longer the same country I grew up in.
I stayed in Ireland for a year after graduating before packing my bags and joining my friends in Australia. There were no prospects in Ireland so I scraped savings together until September 2011 and then shipped out to Melbourne.
I tried to brave the storm but there is only so far determination and focus can take you when you’re up against such a crippled economy. It’s not so much that people are choosing to emigrate so much as they’re been forced out to carve a livelihood elsewhere.
I see a very bleak future in Ireland for people our age and don’t think it will turn around for 10-20 years easily.
The Government has totally lost touch with my generation and too many of us are falling unnoticed through the cracks.
I don’t think they could combat emigration even if they wanted to ... and even if they tried, they would be decorating a very grim outlook, as real opportunities are rare in Ireland these days.
The exit sign has started to shine pretty brightly.
Even though I’m working full-time in Cork, I’m in a discipline completely unrelated to what I studied.
I am very grateful for the job and it’s a nice environment to work in, but it’s definitely making me consider the bigger picture. I’ve started looking into visas for the US and Canada.
I’m sure the country will bounce back eventually. But regardless of whether we were riding the tide or rolling in the doldrums economically and socially, I have always wanted to live in the States for some portion of my life, although the recession has certainly incentivised getting the hell out.
I don’t think the Government is doing enough but I don’t think they ever did or ever will.
A lot of my friends have already left and in the next 18 months most of my immediate circle will also be gone.
And really, once they’re gone... what’s left to stay for?
I graduated with a degree in engineering and after sticking it out for a year I packed my bags and jet-setted off to the land of the Oz.
I soon found my feet and was one of the lucky ones that also found my ideal job, coupled with a salary higher than I would have ever imagined possible in Ireland.
But that wasn’t all, I was also offered a five-year sponsorship which I didn’t hesitate in accepting.
I didn’t think twice about accepting it, I would not have got the same opportunities had I not taken the plunge and left Ireland.
Although I thought I would return in a year, it doesn’t look like I will even return after five years. I can’t see a future in Ireland anymore and if I have to choose between working for low wages in a country all my friends are deserting and staying in a well paid job in Australia, Oz wins hands down.
I don’t know when or if I’ll return and that feeling is very common among the Irish emigrants over here.
Listening to the news from Ireland reinforces my decision. It’s always bad news, always. Nothing progressive is happening.
The Government is becoming completely disconnected from our generation. It’s like, because we aren’t there, we’re not a problem. There is a lot of truth in the statement ‘the forgotten generation’.
I was lucky to have settled in easily and to have found a good job in my sector, but there are hundreds that are pining to go home and have a future in their country.
After spending large amounts of time living in other countries and travelling around I still love returning to the Emerald Isle.
After I graduated in August 2010, I completed a TEFL course and went to Korea where I taught English in an academy for 12 months.
I lived there for a year and loved it. I got the opportunity of visiting China and Japan while there and visited many of the hundreds of Korean islands.
After I completed the 12-month contract I was offered another 12 months, but decided to leave and return to Europe.
I came back to Ireland in October last year but nothing much was happening. I got another job in Spain teaching English in an Irish-run company 200km south of Madrid. I’m still there.
I personally don’t think the Government is doing enough to combat the gross emigration because they are cutting funding to people who want to further their education. We all know that for the future, a skilled workforce is crucial to getting out of the current economical crisis and by cutting grants and funding they are in fact choking the one guarantee of a brighter future. There is also a wealth of tourist potential on the island of Ireland, another sector we are not fully tapping.
The Government needs to support local people in businesses. It is only then that the well educated people that live in other countries will begin to return.
Ireland is the finest country in the world and I am confident that the people have the drive and will to quickly get out of this current crisis. If the Government concentrates on employment, further education and stability, the roar of the Celtic Tiger won’t lie far down the road.
I moved to London after graduating and although I didn’t get the job I wanted, I started working as a walking tour guide, which has been working out very well.
When I went home for Christmas and met my friends they were all doing okay but there was a general air of pessimism, mainly from the media.
I have integrated well into the new culture. It was not a conscious decision, it’s just that I don’t meet many Irish and there’s not many in the area I live, and so most of my friends are English or other nationalities.
I don’t know if the Government is really trying to combat emigration. The economy has not prevented me from returning, I just have no intention of doing so. I’m happy with my life in London.
After graduation, I decided the most viable move was to get out. I didn’t want a social-welfare-dependent existence, so I moved to Dubai.
I am lucky as I adapted really well to being away. I love the lifestyle, job and weather and the most important thing is, it’s still close enough to visit home sometimes, not like if I had gone to Australia. I’m now in my second year working as a primary school teacher in Dubai. Although I don’t see it happening anytime soon, I hope I can one day return.
I would definitely like to move back some day, but not anytime soon; things seem to be getting worse. Anyone our age that stayed in Ireland seem to be really struggling. So it will be a good while before I return.
I really don’t think the Government is doing enough. It’s a very bad situation that only seems to be deteriorating.
It will take over 10 years, but I will remain positive that I will return home because Ireland is where my heart is.
I moved home to Tullamore after graduation and got a job for a year in a pharmacy where I worked part-time during college. After working in the chemist for a year I became very unsettled and realised I needed to broaden my career aspects because working as a counter hand is not what I spent four years in college for.
I applied to the SABIS teaching programme for a job in the Middle East. I got a position in Muscat, Oman. So last August I hopped on a plane. I’ve been here for almost five months now and have met some wonderful people.
I am getting the experience of a lifetime and furthering my future career by teaching with the International School of Choueifat.
My thoughts on Ireland’s future are grime. That is why I had to emigrate because I couldn’t get a position teaching in Ireland to gain experience. It will take almost 10 years, in my opinion, to come back from the complete low that the country is suffering at the moment.
The Government has done very little to combat emigration. It’s ridiculous that there are not more strategic plans in place to help keep the educated and qualified in the country.
The Government gives them absolutely no hope and no way to help themselves to remain in the country, so the youth have no other option but to emigrate and find a better life abroad.
My friends are scattered all over the world. They are in Australia, Canada, China, Spain and I am in Oman. I don’t know when or if we’ll ever be reunited.
