From the Archives August 15th, 1956

How empty the land becomes when you push into the south-west! Not just the emptiness which you have experienced before in the western parts of the country – always sparsely inhabited – but a new feeling of something missing, something that was there before.

After a while, you begin to become aware of what it is that disturbs. A whole age group of people is missing; those roughly between the ages of 22 and 35 are simply no longer there. Here and there you meet individuals between those ages, but in bulk they no longer exist. They have migrated.

This is not news any longer, but their physical absence comes as a shock, as does the attitude of those who still remain but who fully intend to go in their turn. With these latter it seems not just to be a matter of following in others’ footsteps, nor even of economic necessity, but rather an automatic assumption that one leaves as soon as one can. It is assuming the proportions of a trial migration; they go in waves as their turn comes.

Yet probably conditions, both social and economic, have never been better for them. The south-west cannot be labelled a distressed area, although there is undoubted hardship in many places. Even this is only relative, however. Nowadays there are buses to take the children to school where they formerly walked; the fishing is well organised and offers a good living to too few takers; rural electrification pushes onwards, and various social services offer social comforts not known before this generation; the tourist trade may fluctuate, but still it brings in good business and good money annually.

Nor can the lack of employment be put forward as a good or sufficient argument any longer. The very fact that so many have already gone has automatically made many more jobs available for the remainder, and in some cases, such as the fishing, the jobs are going a-begging.

Still they go; the jobs they take, jobs often good and permanent if they want it that way, are used merely as a means to the end of migration.

I have spoken to many of them, these young people. The majority intend to go; some will not, and a few have come back.

Those on their way cannot always make clear their reasons for their intended move. They do not speak of hard domestic conditions or of a rigidity of clerical control, but they do say that there is something lacking in their life and feel that over there they will find what they seek. Even in the tourist areas, where a variety of jobs is available, they talk of the dull and unattractive winter, and express their determination to go as soon as they can.

Those who intend to remain are the minority who seem conscious of their birthright. They have jobs, of course, but these alone would not hold them; they want to stay because they are conscious that the country still holds something for them, and that there is still much to be done which they would like to do. They are, however, a small, and probably politically-aware, minority.

Finally, there are the few who have come back. All those to whom I spoke said that they had to do so for personal or domestic reasons. Some came back to avoid conscription, others because their families needed them; all would like to go away again.

So there we have it, although the complete reason for this continued flight is not yet wholly apparent. It is like a detective story in which many clues have been provided, but in which the master clue which will tie all the others together is still missing. Action taken to deal with any one clue will not solve the problem. It is a malaise which cannot be diagnosed without deeper probing than has hitherto been carried out; but diagnosed it must be, if the land is not to be left to the very young and the very old. […]

The life of the countryside goes on, if at a diminishing tempo; but in the fields there are only old and middle-aged people, assisted by a few young children.

Full the original at http://bit.ly/1htt7sz

Selected by Joe Joyce; email fromthearchives@irishtimes.com