Once again, Ireland's young prepare to leave

Tracy MacVeigh
The Observer

Ireland enjoyed a boom like no other in the last 10 years, fuelled by foreign investment and runaway property speculation. But it is all over now, and the desire to emigrate, set deep in the nation's psyche, has taken hold once more

In the tiny sub-post office at Liscarney, on the road out of Westport, under the snow-touched pyramid of Croagh Patrick, postmaster William Joyce is considering his schooldays. "In my class maybe a third left. It was America then."

Joyce, 54, got married and stayed put. "I've the farm as well as the post office and the wife works; one job is not enough around here." His three teenage sons are at college, the first generation of the family to reach further education. "I knew the boom wouldn't last. All the young crowd working on borrowed money with two cars to every house, out every weekend, they didn't see the day coming when it would have to be paid back. They knew nothing else. But the minute the banks stopped, everything stopped.

"Now it's people coming in here for the social welfare and the young lads are all looking for visas for Canada." His youngest is thinking of Germany. "I wouldn't stop them, any of mine. What am I going to say when I know myself what it's like on 60 acres of worthless land? Travel is education."

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