Leaving home again

[hereward]

As Ireland is left reeling from the revelation of its financial woes, the Emerald Isle is seeing a stream of its people heading for brighter shores.
It was a proud moment when, five years ago, Martina Fitzpatrick stood in arrivals at Shannon airport in Ireland awaiting the return of her two oldest sons. Even as children, James and Andrew had been fascinated by America, constantly clamouring for family holidays with their aunts and uncles who had emigrated decades before.So when, in their early twenties, the brothers themselves emigrated, their mother stoically accepted their decision, waved them off and kept the ache of losing her firstborn and his younger sibling to herself.
''You can imagine then how I felt that day, in 2005, standing in the airport, waiting to welcome them home to Ireland for good,'' she said.
The Fitzpatrick brothers, newly in awe of their homeland where the roar of the burgeoning Celtic Tiger economy was reverberating across the world, had returned to make their fortune. Today they bitterly regret that decision.
Both bought into the property boom, becoming developers. They bought 22 run-down flats in the prestigious Ballsbridge area of Dublin, refurbished them into luxurious apartments and launched them onto a market where young professionals, flush from the soaring economy, were queuing up to buy.
''We were riding high,'' says James ruefully. ''Banks were dishing out loans. By the market peak in 2006 the average first-time buyer mortgage was up to eight times average earnings and a new house cost ten times average earnings. A year later half the property developers in the country were in trouble and our unsold houses were piling up. Bank share prices were collapsing and the whole thing blew apart in the autumn of 2008.''

More at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...its-claws.html

Canada and Australia are the top destinations. If this had been any other period in time, up until the early 90's, the large urban areas of England would be exhibiting mass Irish immigration. Change indeed!

[Murphy]

Ireland was never destined for economic greatness. England's saw to that (not necessarily negative, just life). Ireland's state was never going to be a big player..

But her people.. well Ireland's true beauty is in her people. Her sons and daughters. We're a nation of immigrants. Simple as. Our destiny is beyond our borders. Whether it's the work of Catholic Irish missionaries in England or Germany or laying train-tracks down in the continental U.S.

But that wee Emerald Isle still calls.

[hereward]

She should be wealthy; she has a small population relative to a fertile land, has a very good education system and has strong trade contacts throughout the Anglo-sphere. On top of this she had massive investment from other European nations, which transformed her infrastructure; she should not be in such a dire situation.
Both the government debt and personal debt are staggering for a nation of her size; sheer madness.