Tearful scenes as emigrants jet off to new lives abroad

Their parents were in Shannon with them, and Aisling said she was looking forward to a new start. “We’re going to Toronto, I’m a bit nervous but it’ll be fun when we get there.”
Canada has more to offer than Ireland, she feels. “There are no jobs here and I don’t think there’s anything to entice young people to stay here either. The dole is not enough to live on and there are much more opportunities in Toronto.”
They won’t be heading completely into the unknown, as they have some contacts in Toronto. “We have some friends that we’re staying with and they’ve done really well over the last year.”
While Aisling’s mother was quite tearful as they went headed for the departure gate, her father Pat felt she was doing the right thing. “I think she’s lucky to be going. She can come home next month if she wants to,” he said.
Eamon Chalke was heading back to London, where he has been based since last summer.
That was when he graduated from UCC and he said there were few opportunities available on this side of the Irish Sea. “I finished college in UCC last June and now I work for an educational charity in central London. I think a lot of people were coming out with good qualifications in law and medicine and various things and they thought they’d be fairly safe but they’re not. People are doing different things, they’re going to Australia, going to the UK, to America.”
He said the rising tide of Irish emigration is already evident in London. “There’s a huge Irish community, a lot of people who are 24, 25, 26 just left straight away after they finished college. Some people are going over to study, they think if there aren’t jobs, they might as well stay in college. Some are working, a lot of people I went to university with are over there now.”
While some of the long-term ex-pats leaving Shannon after their Christmas holidays said they hadn’t seen that much change since the Celtic Tiger days, the scenes of crying parents hugging their departing sons and daughters told another, much sadder, tale.