IRELAND AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Success and Failure in Modern Ireland

Canadian Association for Irish Studies/ l’Association canadienne d’études irlandaises Annual Conference, 2010
Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
19-22 May 2010

“Anyone who is failing at one thing,” psychoanalyst Adam Phillips has  suggested, “is always succeeding at another.” We invite proposals for papers interrogating the relationship between success and failure in modern and contemporary Ireland, as reflected in its politics, its economic policies, its literature, and its popular culture. The Celtic Tiger is one obvious recent example of a ‘success’ narrative that was intimately linked to a series of failures on the part of Irish society to safeguard its more vulnerable communities. With the recent publication of the “Ryan Report,” to cite another example, it is clear that the success of the Catholic Church in exerting its power over Ireland’s educational and reformatory institutions came at the price of a failure to guarantee the safety and welfare of Ireland’s youth. By the same token, it might be argued that Fianna Fáil’s longtime political success depended on the failure to engage with the ‘National Question,’ i.e., Partition and Northern Ireland. Success and failure, as manifested in language revival policies, in gender-related issues, in the lives of prominent public figures, and the reality and perceptions of the Irish diaspora, including the Irish in Canada, are also topics worthy of consideration.

We welcome papers that address other topics and proposals for special panels.

Please send proposals including contact information (250 words) by
e-mail to:
Pádraig Ó Siadhail, D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3C3
(padraig.osiadhail@smu.ca) by 15 January 2010.

Britain

Irish Oral History Archive – a reference archive and resource for the contemporary and historical spoken narratives of Irish people at home and abroad, especially as they relate to the story of emigration.

MovingHere.org.uk: Luton Irish Forum – a variety of individuals detail their moves to England

I Only Came Over For a Couple of Years… 2005 – Interviews with Irish elders in England who arrived between the 1930s and 1960s. (Half-hour documentary, £7 plus postage and packaging)

Irish Elders Now project

Dunne, Catherine. An Unconsidered People: The Irish in London. Dublin: New Island, 2003 – a book detailing the experience of older emigrants.

Canada

A story to be told: Personal Reflections on the Irish emigrant experience in Canada (book)

Memories of the Past: Reflections from Ottawa’s Irish Drop-In group – a collection of memories and recipes

United States

Archives of Irish America – Interviews with a range of notable people in the New York Irish community, discussing their life history and sense of identity.

When Mem’ry Brings Us Back Again – the stories of 35 people who moved to New York between 1927- 1964. Available as both book and DVD.

An Irish (American) Story (film, 1997) – The 96-year-old grandmother of the filmmaker recalls her emigration as a 17-year-old in 1911.

The Gathering: Collected Oral Histories of the Irish in Montana – Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, this project is based in the University of Montana.

Irish Dance in Arizona – Tracing the history of Irish dance in the American southwest since 1942.

Crossroads Irish Oral History Project Archives of the San Francisco Bay Area – Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the project looks at the Irish and Irish-American communities of the San Francisco Bay area.

Molloy College – documenting the Irish of Long Island and the greater New York area.

University of Notre Dame – Director of Notre Dame’s Department of Anthropology Deb Rotman is working on a developing an online archive of Irish-American oral histories.

Australia

The National Library of Australia – has a number of Irish-related recordings in its oral history catalog.

New Zealand

National Library of New Zealand – has several oral history collections; contact them for Irish-related materials.

Global and Irish-based

GAA Oral History Project – recording what the GAA has meant to the Irish people, in their own words.

Breaking the Silence: Staying at home in an emigrant society – examines the impact of emigration on those who stayed through 78 oral narratives and 12 text contributions.

Returning to Ireland

Narratives of Migration and Return – Stories of returning emigrants

Coming Home: “Stories of young men and women who left Ireland and, after many years in exile, closed the circle of emigration by coming home again� – produced by the Safe Home project – also see their True Lives page.

Ireland’s unemployment rate is 11.8%. Here are the rates in some of the countries most commonly considered by those seeking to emigrate:

• UK: 7.1% (March 2009 – Office for National Statistics)
• US: 9.4% (May 2009 – Bureau of Labour Statistics)
• Canada: 8.4% (May 2009 – Statistics Canada)
• Australia 5.7% (May 2009 – Australian Bureau of Statistics)
• New Zealand – 5% (April 2009 – Statistics New Zealand)

Organisers say the Working Abroad Expo will include immigration officials from Australia, New Zealand and Canada giving visa advice, relocation services, employers and recruitment consultants, and financial advisers. Information on volunteering abroad will also be available.

For more information, see the Working Abroad Expo website.

Related article:

IrishExaminer.com: Destination anywhere

It reports, for example, that the General Skilled Migration programme to Australia costs over €5,000 for the visa, for example, while Canada requires that a would-be emigrant show they have at least CA$10,833 (about €6,717) to support themselves while looking for a job.

Read the entire article at the Irish Independent website: If you want to escape, it will cost you.

For more advice and information on migrating, check out our “Need Advice?” section.

To listen, visit RTE’s archives:

• Emigrating to the US in search of work – 3 March
  
• Australia still popular with Irish emigrants – 4 March
  
• Emigrating to Britain – 5 March
  
• Emigrating to Canada – 6 March

The newspaper takes an international rundown:

Australia - the number of Irish people seeking to emigrate to Australia has increased dramatically, but the labour shortages of a year ago appear to be ending, and redundancies are increasing. The unemployment rate is currently 4.4%, but rising.

Canada - Canada’s economy has been strong, but its November job losses totaled 71,000, the highest number of layoffs in a single month in 25 years. The west of the country remains in better shape.

US - Even those who are legally entitled to emigrate may find the US tough going right now – more than a half-million people lost their jobs last month, the highest number since December 1974.

The Middle East – Dubai looks like its economy is faltering due to overspeculation, but there remain openings in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi for such professionals as engineers, architects and accountants.

Eastern Europe – One report says that there will be strong growth in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic. While many Polish expats are returning home to take up new opportunities in its growing economy, there are good jobs available even for those who don’t speak Polish. While wages are low, so is the cost of living.

Related article:
Irish Independent: Emigration once again – but where can our young job-seekers go now?

Here’s the rundown of this year’s publications:

“Memory Brings Us Back: Irish Stories of Farewells and Fortunes”: This film by Derek Woods is the followup to “While Mem’ry Brings Us Back Again” – the 2006 hit book, produced by New York’s Aisling Irish Centre, detailing the lives of older Irish emigrants living in America. This DVD tells the stories of ten men and women who left for America between 1929 and 1965. With music by Joannie Madden, this film is sure to be a treat.

Order both the DVD and the original book at the Aisling Irish Community Centre’s website.

“Coming Home” – Frances Browner, the editor of “When Mem’ry Brings Us Back Again”, has returned to Ireland and compiled the tales of 36 emigrants who returned to their native land thanks to the help of the Safe Home organisation. Safe Home reports that this is a hot seller for Christmas. Their website says, “Frances Browner has conducted thirty-six fascinating interviews that highlight the heartache of leaving home; the struggles and successes of survival in a new land; the joy, and sometimes trauma, of returning.”

Buy it at the Safe Home website.

“A Story to be Told”: This gorgeously produced book tells the stories of 129 emigrants to Canada in their own words. Edited by Eleanor McGrath and with photographs by William C. Smith, this book reveals the diversity of the Canadian Irish experience, telling the tales of artists, mothers, a labour leader, a bus driver, a dance teacher, an actor, an engineer, an accountant. Their Irish identities are diverse as well, with tales of people from what seems like every possible background: rural farmers; Belfast Protestants and Catholics; Lithuanian descendants; Jewish Dubliners; American-and English-born, Irish-raised emigrants.

Many of them express love for both Ireland and their adopted home of Canada: “Today I am a very proud Irish Canadian who is blessed to call two of the greatest places on the planet home”, says one interviewee in a sentiment echoed by many others – although some express greater loyalty to one country or the other. A moving book and a great addition to the increasing library of oral history books.

Order the book from the Liffey Press.

For another Canadian treat, Ottawa’s Irish Drop-In Group has created a wonderful miscellany called “Memories of the Past: Stories and Recipes from Ottawa’s Irish Drop-In Groupâ€?. The eclectic collection of reminiscences, poems, jokes, photographs and more is a splendid insight into the lives of the 40+ seniors in the drop-in group, which meets every week at Margaret Mary’s Church in the south end of the Canadian capital. This book has the most ‘home-produced’ feel, but with about 60 recipes, including for such traditional favourites as barm brack, colcannon, champ, porter cake, beef stew, and soda bread, this spiral-bound volume has much to offer.

See the website for the Irish Society of the National Capital Region.

For a musical treat (albeit a commercial one), check out “The Irish Scattering” from Galway traditional singer and musician Sean Keane. Available as both a CD and a DVD, the music tells diverse tales of Irish emigrants through the centuries, including the travels of Irish monks, Irish settlers in Montserrat, Irish soldiers abroad, and the Ulster-Scots in America. The CD features 16 songs; the DVD of the live performance features 28 songs with music and dancing from some of Ireland’s finest practitioners.
Buy it at Sean Keane’s website.

Any suggestions? Post them in the comments below.