From the Daily News:Irish civic groups say a growing number of Irish have come to New York in the last year, in what some call a new Irish diaspora.
The Emerald Isle Immigration Center says there has been a fourfold increase in the number of calls from people looking to come to New York for the first time, or to return here after going home to Ireland when the economy was booming from 1995-2007.
The center's director, Siobhan Denehy, said the center's two locations - in Woodside, Queens, and the Woodlawn section of the Bronx - get a combined 80 inquiries a month from Irish clients, not counting Web site hits.
The Irish government recently reported that for the first time since 1995, the country of 4.5 million people has seen more people going than coming.
"There is no question that Ireland's desperate economic situation has brought lots more people to our center," said Brian O'Dwyer, a prominent New York lawyer and chairman of the immigration center. "For the first time in many years, people are showing up at our doorstep that have left Ireland in search of work."
Newly arrived Irish immigrants are difficult to capture in the annual census surveys. Census figures for 2008 estimate there were 2,649 Irish-born residents in Brooklyn, compared with 1,469 in 2007. In Manhattan, there were 3,760 Irish-born in 2008, compared with 3,101 in 2007.
The figures don't reflect how many more Irishmen are working illegally, hoping for a green card.
A Bronx bricklayer who arrived a few years ago said there has been a flood of Irish people coming, with men working as carpenters, construction workers and painters and women as bartenders, waitresses and nannies.
Given the struggling economy, it's no picnic here either.
The married father of two said laborers compete with Mexican and Brazilians for construction work.
Now you know why Bloomberg wants an Irish soccer field.
4 comments:
They were so quick to pack up and move back to Ireland when their economy picked up in the mid 90's. Now that all the jobs in Ireland are going to polish immigrants, they come back and find that all the footholds they had here, construction, doormen etc, have also been taken over by other nationalities. Forget bartending, so many Irish bars have closed up, and whatever jobs there might be are being held on to.
No wonder so many Irish ballads are laments.
Poor suffering country.
But during the over development boom times...the Irish government allowed a highway to be built over sacred Tarra Hill.
H-m-m-m...
it seems that the old gods weren't happy about this and payed back Ireland with an economic bust!
Great, another set of illegals to take decent paying construction jobs. They will probably be hired faster considering their light skin. Time to get my giant American flag out and protest somewhere in Woodside. Maybe I'll even burn a Irish flag white I'm at it.
the Irish never hire American citizens only illegal aliens.
Post a Comment