In many Western cultures it seems to have become a sort of right-of-passage for kids in their late teens or early twenties to spend a summer, semester or year (or more) working and living in a different country. These “working holidays” serve to (briefly) satiate young people’s desires for independence and adventure, and no country seems to have embraced the temporary-emigration epidemic more so than Ireland.
Youth emigration is a hot topic here — a result of the recent financial crisis, mass unemployment, widespread disillusionment and political apathy. The allure of foreign lands where jobs are plentiful, the skies are blue, the drink is cheap, and the Irish accent is seen as sexy is all too much for many a broke student to handle. As a result, Ireland sends more students to the US on temporary work visas than any other country in the world. That’s quite a feat given our petite population.
The figures tell the story better than words: In 2015, over 8,000 J1 visas were to Irish students, entitling them to temporarily work and live in the US. Similarly, 7,700 Canadian IEC (International Experience Canada) working holiday visas were snapped up by the Irish in 2015 for the second year in a row, due to an increase in the maximum number of Visas up for grabs. These visas allow young Irish people to live and work in Canada for up to 2 years. That year, the first round of 3850 permits were “sold out” in 12 minutes.
Maybe the Irish penchant for peregrination shouldn’t be so surprising, given the vast Irish diaspora spread across the globe. We’re no strangers to making the tough decision to uproot ourselves in the hope of a better life in a foreign land, taking our culture and traditions along for the ride. Indeed, as if to graffiti ‘The Irish woz ere’ across the grubby toilet stall doors of history, there are towns called New Waterford in Nova Scotia, Athlone in Australia, and Clifden in Cape Town. Even the infamous Menlo Park, where Facebook is headquartered, owes its origins to the town of Menlo, County Galway.
Again, however, that last fact shouldn’t strike you, astute Steemian, as particularly remarkable. America has been, for hundreds of years, the routine emigration destination for young Irishmen and Irishwomen. According to the latest census figures, 39.6 million citizens of ‘The Land of Opportunity’ claim Irish ancestry. That’s more than 8.5 times the population of Ireland itself! However, the allure of the American Dream is waning rapidly as political unease and social maladies continue to break headlines in The New World. Loose gun control, Muslim bans, heavily privatized healthcare, and yuge hands are increasingly at odds with the world view of the young, liberal Irish looking to emigrate. Our cultures seem to be diverging, and as a result, would-be Irish expatriates (of which there are still nearly 80,000 a year, or nearly 2% of our population) are looking to greener — or perhaps whiter — pastures in which to establish themselves.
Canada, or America Lite, is the second largest country by total area in the world, but is home to just 35 million citizens — nearly 80% of whom are huddled in a thin strip of land no more than 100 miles away from the US border. What better place, then, to get the American Experience ® without all the Trump and terrorism? The Irish sure seem to think so, at least. In 1916 (a particularly violent year in Ireland) some 4,200 Muintir na hÉireann made the perilous journey across the Atlantic to America. Ninety-nine years later, in 2015, that number had risen only slightly to 5,900 (although the Aer Lingus flights offered a fair increase in comfort, which explains at least some of the increase). Compare that to the rise in Irish emigrants to Canada from just 485 in 1916 to 7,700 in 2015 (out-immigrating even America), and it starts to look like the Irish love affair with the States has run its course.
It would be unfair to The Great White North, however, to conclude that its only appeal to eager migrants is that it’s “sort of like America, only more polite”. At least for young Irish people, a great deal of Canada’s charm is that our social ideologies are a lot more aligned with Canadians than with Americans. Canada also offers beautiful and diverse landscapes alongside large metropolitan cities, many of which are consistently judged to offer among the highest standards of living and quality of life in the world. What’s more, Canada is known for being a melting pot of cultures — a place where diversity is celebrated, and where migrants are welcomed with open arms. The economy there is strong and growing, and the superbly likable Prime Minister is a global superstar.
Ireland’s youth aren’t the only cohort to be taking a shining to America’s northern neighbor. Indeed, immigrants from around the world — and even from America — are increasingly looking to Canada as a new home or place of study. The day after the 2016 US election, visits to the University of Toronto’s recruitment site spiked at 10 times the normal traffic, writes the New York Times. Following Trump’s Muslim travel ban, international applications to the same university increased 24%.
Young people from Ireland and around the world looking for adventure in a new country are no longer willing to swelter in the increasingly hostile sociopolitical environment America offers. Civility is triumphing over hostility — surely a positive sign for our future. In the meantime, as a Canadian-Irish dual citizenship holder who spent a summer in Vancouver and, come September, will be studying a postgraduate degree in Toronto, I couldn’t be more excited to be emigrating in a time where I know there will be plenty of Irish culture and friends (along with new friends and cultures waiting to be discovered) greeting me on arrival.