1980s REVISITED:EMIGRATION: This piece by Sylvia Thompsonwas first published in 1988 in Italian in Il Broncho, the student magazine of Milan State University, where she was an English language assistant. Teaching English abroad was a popular route to employment for young Irish emigrants.
THE SAME LENGTH of time it takes a native Tuscan to return home for Christmas by car from the metropolis of Milan, it took our plane to sweep down into the cheery festive spirit of Dublin airport, where thousands more were to arrive in the next few days before Christmas.
An estimated 250,000 Irish people made their way home this Christmas and Dublin airport displayed what many felt in the great WELCOME HOME sign in lights to be seen from all planes touching down and again as reunited families and friends made their way out of the airport into Dublin city and beyond.
The shopping streets of the capital were thronged with musicians, carol singers and street artists who added to the splendour of the Christmas trees, lights and decorated shop windows. One of the most striking contrasts with the Milanese streets was the number of people collecting money for charities helping those in famine-torn Sudan and the homeless on Dublin's own city streets.
Young itinerant children were busy doing chalk paintings or playing the mouth organ or tin whistle with a McDonald's cup held out for the pennies. The poverty of Ireland wasn't hidden. It was visible on Dublin's most popular shopping street and people were giving generously even to the little children who dared to ask.
The pubs of Dublin were brimful as old friends and new shared in the cheerfulness of Christmas. The uncharacteristic mild weather (Ireland's mildest on record with an average of 10 degrees each day) allowed the pub-goers to take their pints onto the streets, so even more old friends bumped into each other. The beauty of Dublin lies in its small city centre which means that chance meetings with old friends are commonplace, and for the eavesdropper, a conversation about life in London, New York, Paris or in my case, Milan, is never out of earshot.
The shopkeepers claimed that the shoppers weren't breaking any records on spending up to Christmas, keeping essential purchases for the after-Christmas sales. One man even sacrificed his Christmas dinner to be first in the queue for one of these sales: his prize was a television reduced from £700 to £100.
Come December 31st, the young emigrants are bidding their farewells and having their last pint on Irish soil as they return to their jobs and new lifestyles in foreign parts, with the nostalgia and idealised view of a Christmas back home tucked away in their minds.
With 30,000 people leaving every year, Ireland has become a country where the rising tide of emigration is the major topic of conversation. An unemployment level of 18 per cent (the second highest in Europe, after Spain) and one third of the population living below the EEC poverty levels, it's not surprising that more and more young Irish people are emigrating.
Cuts in public services and a high tax burden (35 per cent is the minimum income tax band) contribute to the reasons why people leave. Our high national debt (135 per cent of Gross National Product) costs the exchequer five per cent of its annual budget simply to service and we're often told that the nation has to suffer because of an earlier period of bad budgeting and overspending.
London draws the largest numbers of emigrants. This new wave of Irish immigrants are considerably better educated that those who emigrated in the 1950s and word on the street is that many of them are often more willing to take risks that may help their job prospects.
The United States is another traditional haven for the Irish emigrant, although recent tightening up of visa requirements has jeopardised many illegals who are now afraid to come back to Ireland on holidays for fear of not getting back into the US. This group of illegal immigrants live outside the system and in fear of getting into trouble with the authorities.
Australia shows a more recent upsurge of Irish immigrants and operates an open-door policy to the Irish. However, others, like me, opt to live in another European country, teaching English to the natives while we learn their language and cultural mores in return.
One hopes that in the 1990s, the Irish economy will improve and offer incentives to some of these young emigrants to return with their experience from abroad and give this little country on the periphery of Europe a more positive international recognition.
PSIn 1989, I returned to Ireland to do a post-graduate course in journalism at Dublin City University. A mature students' grant from the European Social Fund paid my fees and I did part-time freelance work as an interpreter - using French and Italian - to pay for living expenses during the year-long course. I had found a new career to pursue.
Initially, it was strange to be back when many of my friends were still working abroad. The mood of the country only really began to lift in the early 1990s as many more emigrants returned home. There was a well-worn saying that if you stayed abroad for more than five years, you were less likely to return. I met and married artist and illustrator Des Fox, who returned from London in 1990, after five years living abroad.
Now, almost 20 years later, these early adult experiences of working in a foreign country are a pleasure to remember. I immersed myself fully in Italian life and made life-long friends while there. However, as the media becomes saturated with stories about the global economic downturn and the new recession, one has to remind oneself that Ireland is in a different place now. Our young people are confident, stylish and part of a globalised world. We have people from every continent living and working on this island that only 20 years ago was still teetering on the periphery of Europe with living standards way below the European average.