Irish still have opportunities in America - Ambassador

Irish still have opportunities in America - Ambassador Rooney


Anton McNulty

THE trials and tribulations of emigration were outlined to students in the Castlebar campus of GMIT during a lecture entitled ‘Transatlantic Migration in Irish America’ delivered by US Ambassador to Ireland, Dan Rooney, who visited Mayo for a whistlestop two-day tour last week.
During his two day visit, Mr Rooney attended a lunch hosted by Hibernia College in Castlebar, met with the County Manager and Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council at Aras an Chondae, and attended at the GMIT lecture before departing for Westport where he dined with local town councillors.
Tales of emigration and the consequences were given by speakers at GMIT which included, Ambassador Rooney, Art Ó Suilleabhain, from the Mayo Education Centre, and by Thomas McAndrew of the Mayo Emigration Liaison Committee. Austin Vaughan, County Librarian also gave a presentation on emigration from Mayo.
For many of the students in the room, facing the prospect of emigration may not have come into their thought process when they started their course but for many it will be inevitable following their graduation. Ambassador Rooney told them that despite the current difficulties in the American economy and with emigration reforms, there were still opportunities for Irish emigrates.
“I think there are opportunities but American immigration policies have to do with everybody. On the south, we have Mexico and central American, on the north, we have Canada and on the east we have Ireland. We can’t write a policy just for one but I will say this with regards to politics, you have a lot of friends in Congress. I would tell the Irish to go up the Hill and get Congress on their side. They will write up the bill but it will have to be a uniform bill but that doesn’t mean they won’t look at a special situation,” he said.
Ambassador Rooney explained that his father’s family left Ireland for Pittsburgh and described it as a melting pot for the Irish who would work in the mills and the mines. He said that Irish people from different counties would go to their own area and the area where Mayo people went to was Oaklands.
Austin Vaughan told the lecture that between 1851 and 1860, 81 per cent of all emigrants to the US were Irish and the peak of emigration was in 1890. He explained that one million letters were sent from the US in 1859 alone and £260 million was sent to Ireland in the 19th century, which historians have described as the largest transfer of funds in history.
Art Ó Suilleabhain explained that he experienced emigration both ways after leaving Ireland when he was a baby for Boston and returning when he was seven after his Grandmother became ill.
“I was now a stranger in Ireland and was moving to the Gaeltacht in Cornamona. I spoke English in a Dorchester accent and I was the yank in an area that spoke only Irish. At the age of seven, I was at school with no Irish and was the complete migrant because at the time if you didn’t speak Irish you were a complete outsider,” he said.
Tom McAndrew gave a different picture of Irish emigrants who went to England saying that while in America they were proud to be Irish, in Britain the attitude was to ‘keep the head down and say nothing’.
As a teacher in Manchester, Tom was a member of the Mayo and Irish societies in the city and helped form the Irish Education Group to reflect Irish culture among students, which he said was not available at the time.
“I was talking to a parent once who was at a parent teacher meeting and met with the music teacher. He said ‘I’m sorry your son has no interest in music and doesn’t attend classes’. The father told him that actually he was the current world champion on the fiddle in traditional Irish music. The teacher later asked the student why he didn’t tell him and his response was, ‘I didn’t know it counted’. I thought that was the typical feeling towards Irish culture at the time,” he said.