|
home l who we are l contact us l research l teaching l publications l links l search |
FROM CLARE TO HERE Piaras Mac Éinrí Irish Emigration - an enduring tradition.The traditional image of the Irish Diaspora in Britain, America and other parts of the English-speaking world, important though it is, does not tell the whole story. The Irish, like all island peoples, have always been migrants. Irish monks established monasteries across Europe in early medieval times, while Irish invaders settled in western Scotland, bringing their language and customs with them. The Irish have served at all levels in virtually every major European army. Irish religious of all denominations have left their mark on the presidents and peoples of countries as diverse as Zimbabwe, Lebanon, the Philippines, Chile and Nigeria. Irish scientists and engineers have designed and built public works in India, Africa and the Middle East. The Irish have been slave-traders in Nantes, wine-merchants in Bordeaux and Cadiz, fishermen in Newfoundland, farmers in Argentina. While Irish people went to Britain and continental Europe for centuries, the development of the American colonies in the eighteenth century saw a gradual change, as increasing numbers of Irish people began to settle there. Initially they were mainly Presbyterian and came in their majority from the north. By the early nineteenth century, well before the Famine, the picture was already a broader one, with an increasing number of Catholics and a more representative spread of geographical origins. It has been estimated that, in the sixty-five years before the Famine, emigration from the island of Ireland was one and three quarter millions. The Famine was and remains the great watershed. It had such a cataclysmic impact on Irish society that its psychological and social effects are still be to be felt. Not only did a million die and a further million flee the country, but it set in train a century-long tradition of departure which bled the country, generation after generation, of so many of its young people that Irish demography for that period constituted a unique case in the world. Between the Famine and the 1950s, more than six million people left Ireland for good. By the 1850s, New York was the third largest Irish city. The number of Irish-born persons living outside Ireland reached a peak in 1881, by which year more than one-third of all Irish-born people alive at the time lived outside the country. This culture of emigration continued from generation to generation. Referring to the 1930s, the Commission on Emigration and Other Population Problems (1948-54) points out that of girls aged ten to fourteen years old in the Twenty-Six Counties in 1936, about 36%, more than one third, would end their lives outside the country. The corresponding percentage for boys was 25%. The Reverend A.A. Luce, in his contribution to the Commission on Emigration, puts it bleakly: ...
The denial of emigrationAlthough born in New York and brought up in Limerick, Eamon De Valera was surely Clare's most famous political representative. His well-known broadcast on Saint Patrick's Day, 1943 began as follows:
De Valera's attitude to emigration, and that of most of his generation, is instructive. As his opening words indicate, a ritual reference to emigrants was customary, in the same way as a ritual cúpla focal served for many decades instead of an effective language policy. Yet the reality was that the ideal Ireland described by De Valera did not exist, that millions left a place which could not offer them a future, and that the athletic youths and comely maidens were more likely to be encountered in Kilburn or New York than back home. In some parts of Ireland, the devastation wrought by emigration was such that houses were closed and shuttered as whole families left. In such cases it was the custom to bring the last burning embers from the hearth to a neighbour's house. Firesides, far from being cosy and serene, fell cold and silent. Rural Ireland became a place of ghosts and derelict buildings. In the days of British rule there was the convenient and largely true explanation that maladministration and deliberate underdevelopment were the root causes of Ireland's chronic emigration. Later, when matters did not improve with independence, explanations were harder to come by. Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that the uncomfortable reality of continuing emigration in Ireland led to various kinds of denial. Emigration was a daily and painful reality experienced by almost every family and community in rural Ireland and by many, especially among the poor, in Ireland's towns and cities. Yet those who governed the country, for the most part, did little to alleviate it. Perhaps the fact that most of them were from backgrounds where emigration took a far lighter toll goes some way to explain this. Perhaps full employment and the end of emigration, like the restoration of the language, national re-unification and eternal salvation, were seen as projects so impossibly remote that ritual evocation, not action, sufficed for the present. On the other hand, it would be easy to rush to judgement about the attitudes of De Valera and many of his contemporaries. It is true that policy at the time was naturally conservative, but we should remember the backdrop of a newly independent country experiencing a level of sheer grinding poverty that few in Ireland can now imagine. It should also be pointed out that there were some who were much more cold-blooded and cynical. For these people, continuing emigration was positively desirable: it removed the dangers of social unrest and guaranteed that the Irish middle classes could continue to live in the state to which they had become accustomed. It could even be presented as a positive good, with the export of so many fervent Catholics to far-off climes. Alexis Fitzgerald, in his contribution to the Commission put it thus:
The effects of long-term emigrationThe long-term effects of emigration on such a scale can only have been negative for the country. The Commission on Emigration notes the separation of children from their parents, of fathers from their families and of husbands from their wives, and the fact that many people, born in this country and whose natural inclination was to remain there, were forced by circumstances to leave it. No less real, but even more difficult to calculate, was the psychological effect of growing up in a country with few opportunities and less hope, where inheriting a farm or getting a permanent job were all-important, and where a prevailing inward-looking ethos, begrudgery and a lack of native capital, ensured early change was not likely. It is probably difficult for the Celtic Tiger generation fully to grasp this picture. Yet, as recently as the 1980s, a new wave of Irish emigrants left a depressed and debt-ridden country. In 1989 alone, 70,600 people left. Many became illegal immigrants in the US, leading to the rather extraordinary spectacle of the Government of Ireland lobbying the US Government in Washington to regularise the status of tens of thousands of Irish citizens for which Ireland itself had no jobs. Meanwhile, in the mid-1980s, the IDA had mounted a prominent if unfortunately timed campaign, designed to attract foreign investment to Ireland by emphasising its young and highly qualified workforce. It featured a final year class of bright-eyed young UCD graduates, under the slogan 'The Young Europeans'. An investigative newspaper report some years afterwards found that the vast majority of those featured in the campaign had themselves emigrated. We were told that we had a 'different class of emigrant' now: better educated and riding the crest of the transnational wave, acquiring valuable skills and experience before returning to Ireland. In the words of Brian Lenihan, in a notorious interview given to Newsweek magazine in October 1987, 'after all, we can't all live on a small island'. This flippant remark from a man of an otherwise sensitive and generous nature sparked an angry debate. After the heady days of 'joining Europe', free education and modernisation, it seemed as if we had jumped right back to the 1950s, a decade which few except the most perverse could wish to revisit. It is true that some well-qualified graduates were emigrating by choice and making good lives and careers in other places. Moreover, many have since returned and have greatly benefited Irish society and the Irish economy. But there were many others who would not have left if there had been greater opportunity at home; they were disproportionately drawn from marginal or poor communities and places. In part it always has been a matter of class. Those who ruled were not those who left or, if they did, it was by choice. Emigrants, like all of us, made their own choices, although not in circumstances of their own choosing. It would be a mistake simply to present them as victims without agency of their own. Most went on to achieve fulfilled lives and to make an enormous contribution to other countries and other cultures. Emigration on the scale on which we experienced it gave Ireland a significance abroad out of all proportion to the size of the home population and the home country. Our loss was often someone else's gain. Moreover, many of those who left found opportunity, variety and fulfilment of a kind which would simply not have been possible had they remained at home. The lives of many such persons are portrayed in this book. Clare Emigration
Michael Normile, Lochinvar, Australia, letter written in 1855 to his father Michael at Derry, Liscannor (from David Fitzpatrick (1994), Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia. Cork: Cork University Press) A classic high-emigration countyClare fulfilled all the conditions for a classic high-emigration county - heavy density of rural population, low valuation of agricultural land per head, high percentage of population living in rural areas and high percentage of agricultural areas in smallholdings. The Famine hit the county particularly hard and the subsequent pattern of high emigration was typical of Clare and all of the western seaboard Irish counties for more than a century. In that period of the Famine to the Fifties, Clare was always one of the top ten counties for the most rapid fall in population. In 1841, the population of the county stood at 286,394. Forty years later, in 1881, it was less than half that figure, 141,457. By 1951 it was only 81,329, and fell further in the subsequent decade. By the late 1940s, the average age on marriage in Clare was twenty-nine for a woman, thirty-four for a man. The really striking factor, however, was the marriage rate. Ireland had the lowest marriage rate in the world, at about five persons per thousand per annum, at that time. Other European countries, and the USA, had rates of over twice this level. Within Ireland, Clare consistently had one of the lowest marriage rates of any county between 1910 and 1947. One can thus conclude that for most of the first half of the twentieth century Clare had one of the lowest rates of marriage anywhere in the world, an ironic posthumous vindication of Brian Merriman's caustic comments in Cúirt an Mheánoíche. When couples did marry, of course, they had large families, but as we have seen earlier, many of these children were destined to emigrate. Any natural increase in the population was always more than outweighed by emigration, perpetuating a long-term pattern of decline. In the 1946-51 period, the five counties with the highest rates of emigration per thousand of population were (in descending order) Leitrim, Kerry, Clare, Roscommon and Cavan. Today the trend has halted; the present population of the county stands at just fewer than 90,000. Indeed, the census of 1996 records a 10.4% increase in only five years in the population of Ennis, from 16,058 to 17,726, compared to 1991. Clare and the mid-West region are now experiencing a growing demand for employment and an inward flow of population, replacing the long-term pattern of constant outward migration. A strong culture of emigration
Michael Considine (original version as collected by Robbie McMahon), composed in California, late nineteenth century. The American historian Kerby Miller, writing about Irish emigration, distinguished between 'emigrants' and 'exiles'. Exiles defined themselves by reference to their native land and looked constantly to the past. Emigrants were a more forward-looking lot and thought of themselves in terms of their adopted land, not the one they had left. Irish people, he suggested, were strongly attached to their native places and to the pre-modern world-view embodied in their culture. The reality is more complex. There is no necessary contradiction between the retention of a strong if sometimes sentimental attachment to the home place while forging a new life elsewhere; indeed the one may sometimes be the prerequisite of the other. One of the places where these contradictions are most clearly played out is in the music and folklore of the people. Spancilhill and Bánchnoic Éireann Óighe have become, in their own quite different ways, anthems of emigration and exile. Beir beannacht óm chroí go Tír na hÉireann Is fairsing is is mór iad cruacha Éireann Donnchadh Rua Mac Conmara, Cratloe, 1715-1810, probably written in Hamburg, Germany. While this book is a recognition of the lives of a modest number of living Clare emigrants, their predecessors have made varied, significant and colourful contributions to many other countries. Even a few names convey a sense of the range of people and places involved. Thomas O'Gorman, Castletown, 1732-1809 became a soldier and wine-merchant in France. James Bartholomew Blackwell, Ennis, 1763-1820, French republican and reputed stormer of the Bastille, was a member of Hoche's ill-fated Bantry Bay expedition and later served with Napoléon in Prussia and Austria. Joseph Kavanagh, born in Lille of Clare descent, was also a revolutionary republican and the subject of a contemporary pamphlet Les exploits glorieux du célèbre Cavanagh. Cause première de la liberté française. William Smith O'Brien of Dromoland, 1803-1864, was deported to Tasmania for his part in the 1848 rebellion in Ireland. Charles James Mahon, Ennis, 1800-1891, politician and soldier, allegedly managed to serve with the armies of Russia, Turkey, Austria, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and USA; he was certainly one of the last of the gentleman soldiers. Hugh McCurtin, Kilmacreehy, Corcomroe, 1680-1755, poet and lexicographer, chronicler of the O'Briens, spent a significant part of his life in France. Thomas Dermody, Ennis, 1775-1802, became a poet and soldier in England. William Mulready, Ennis, 1786-1863 was one of London's best-known society painters in his day. Harriet Smithson, Ennis, 1800-1854, singer, married Berlioz in Paris; his Symphonie Fantastique was composed in her honour. Frederick Burton, Corofin, 1816-1900, became a painter and Director of the English National Gallery. Edna O'Brien of Tuamgraney, one of the most acclaimed of modern Irish writers, is herself one of the subjects of this book. Richard Barry O'Brien, Kilrush, 1847-1918, was a notable lawyer and author in London. Caitlín (MacNamara) Thomas, 1913-1994, whose father was from Ennistymon, married the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas; it was a turbulent marriage. Patrick Hannan, 1840 - 1925, discovered the Kalgoorlie goldmine in Australia in 1849. John Philip Holland, a former Christian Brother of Liscannor (1841-1914) invented the submarine. Originally intended as a possible offensive weapon against the British, it was subsequently taken up by the American and the Royal Navies. ConclusionIreland, and Clare, are changing. Emigration is no longer a one-way trip, as final as the last voyage. If the 'American Wake' still exists, it is a relatively light-hearted affair. Frequent travel, cheap communications and the interlinkages of global culture have made the world a smaller place. Moreover, employment opportunities in most parts of Ireland, including Clare, have improved dramatically in recent years. If a person wishes nowadays to remain in Ireland rather than emigrate, it is much easier to do so. Many return after spending time abroad. We are becoming a little more comfortable, and maybe a little more honest, with ourselves and with our past. With this change, public recognition of the Diaspora and their part in our own story is coming at last. In part this is the spirit of the age, in which migration in all its forms is increasingly recognised as a central part of the human experience. In part it is the role played by Presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, both of whom have sought to reach beyond the territory of Ireland to the Irish community worldwide. In part it is because Irish migrants themselves are no longer prepared to remain silent and forgotten. We should not be complacent. Not all of the 1950s emigrants have done well. It would be a doubly cruel blow if, having rejected them by obliging them to leave in the first place, a newly wealthy Ireland was to refuse to help them now. Some may wish to return; we should take steps to make this possible. Meanwhile, we continue to deny our citizens abroad the right to vote - something which many other emigrant countries such as Italy and Poland have long granted their citizens. And if we do not create a more equal society here in Ireland, all of our wealth will not prevent the departure of those who continue to feel that there is no place for them at the table. It is good to note that not all migrant traffic has been one-way. Clare is probably unique in Ireland in having been served by two foreign-born political representatives, Eamon De Valera and Dr. Moosajee Bhamjee. Shannon Airport, as well as being the port of exit for generations of Irish emigrants, has also been the point of arrival for thousands of others, including the children and grandchildren of previous emigrants. In recent decades, well before asylum-seekers and refugees became an issue in other parts of Ireland, Clare welcomed people who applied for asylum in Shannon and established an active and well-supported office of the Irish Refugee Council in Ennis. There is a danger, with the present climate of progress and change in Ireland, that we may forget the sacrifices made by previous generations when they left, as well as the enormous contributions which they made to other places. But if we deny the reality of the Irish Diaspora, we deny a significant part of our own identity. This is especially important because of the rapid changes in Ireland itself. It is ironic that in some respects the emigrant Irish constitute one of the last repositories of an Irish cultural identity which has now all but disappeared in Ireland itself. If we are fully to respect and preserve this identity, we can begin by providing a space where the tales of those who left can be told. Emigration is a phenomenon which we usually think about in the plural: the movement of people. However, we can only understand it in the singular: individual and unique decisions, experiences, stories. That is why this book is so important. 1 Reports on the Commission for Emigration and Other Population Problems 1948-1954. Dublin, Stationery Office. |