The National Youth Council of Ireland has released a study called, “Youth unemployment in Ireland: the forgotten generation”, and the results make for depressing reading. The survey examined the experience of 90 young, active jobseekers aged between 18 and 24. Among other things, it took a look at the effect of unemployment on the young people’s… Continue reading Young unemployed believe government relying on them to emigrate

New York-based Irish journalist Frieda Klotz recently invited me to do a guest post on her blog. Frieda was running a series on what it was like to be watching the Irish economy implode from the inside. Frieda’s blog, “An Irish Girl Abroad – New York life through a European lens” is an insightful and… Continue reading Guest post on IrishGirlAbroad

I’ve had quite a few press inquiries in the last month or two – an indication of the growing media interest in the experience of the Irish abroad, and in particular the voting rights issue. Here’s a roundup, with some excerpts: WSJ.com: Emigration soars as Irish look for a way out “People really, genuinely believed… Continue reading GlobalIrish.ie in the news…

With the election announced today, I just wanted to mention a new website I’ve put up about votes for the Irish abroad. While it contains some of the same information that’s on this website, it looks at the issue of emigrant voting rights in some more focused detail. You can find it at www.globalirishvote.com.

The Irish government has announced that the “Certificate of Irish Heritage” announced early last year, will get underway this month. Fexco, a Kerry-based company that also processes VAT refunds, has won the contract to provide the certificates. The initiative, which originated in the strategic review of US-Irish relations a couple of years ago, is aimed… Continue reading Should we have a “Book of Irish connections”?

A sentence in a recent profile of an Irish poet living in New York left me pondering the subtle ways in which notions of Irishness among emigrants can be contested. Eileen Battersby wrote in the Irish Times about Connie Roberts, who grew up in an orphanage in Westmeath and moved to America 28 years ago.… Continue reading Emigration, accent and ‘oddness’