US-bound passengers to go through all pre-clearance in Ireland

US-bound passengers from Irish airports will soon go through all pre-clearance procedures through US officials based at Dublin and Shannon. The current system checks passports, but the US embassy says it is working with Irish authorities to implement the agricultural and customs checks that are now conducted in US airports after passengers arrive. The embassy says the move will offer significant security and commercial benefits.
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1695797&issue_id=14694

Mayo-born Argentine Navy founder honoured

A monument to Admiral William Brown was unveiled by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday in Dublin’s Docklands. The Irish Independent says the Mayo-born founder of the Argentine Navy who died in 1857, has 1,100 streets, 420 schools, six football clubs and two cities named after him in Argentina.
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1695760&issue_id=14694

Minister for Foreign Affairs meets with ILIR, NY groups

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, has met with representatives from the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) in New York to discuss the campaign on behalf of undocumented Irish immigrants in the United States. The minister reiterated the Government's strong support for the ILIR's campaign. He added, "The plight of the undocumented gets harder by the day and the ILIR campaign has undoubtedly already had a strong impact in Congress and beyond. The Government will remain actively involved in representing the concerns of the undocumented in the crucial period ahead.”

During his visit to New York, Mr Ahern also met with representatives of the following organisations:

• Emerald Isle Immigration Center
• Aisling Center
• Irish Immigration and Pastoral Center, Philadelphia
• New York Irish Center
• Project Irish Outreach
• Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers

The Minister praised the work of the centres, saying, “The services offered by the Irish immigration centers are critical, particularly for the more vulnerable members of our communities here. I welcome the ongoing focus on supporting community networks and the development of services for older Irish people in this country. The work that the centers undertake to respond to the particular difficulties encountered by the undocumented in their communities is also of key importance”.

See the Department of Foreign Affair's press release.

Eavan Boland comments on emigrant experience

RTE’s radio programme Rattlebag ran a rerun of an interview with Eavan Boland, in which she spoke extensively about her experience as an Irish woman abroad, beginning with her childhood as a diplomat’s daughter. She read her poem “The Emigrant Irish”. She characterized her own experience by saying, “I was never an emigrant. I was outside my country – it’s a much more luxurious experience”.

Film to focus on 1970s-era emigrants in Britain

Colm Meaney will be one of the featured actors in “Kings”, a film focusing on a group of Irish emigrants living in London. Based on Jimmy Murphy’s play “The Kings of the Kilburn High Road”, the film focuses on several friends who emigrated to England in the 1970s; they are reunited at the funeral of one of the gang, who has been killed by a train. The Irish-produced film will be shot around Belfast, Dublin and London. It will be bilingual in Irish and English. The ensemble cast also includes Donal O’Kelly, Brendan Conroy, Donncha Crowley, Barry Barnes and Seán Ó Tarpaigh.

http://www.filmboard.ie/stop_press.php?press=461

17,000 left Ireland last year

The latest set of CSO stats on emigration and immigration for the year up to April 06 has been released. There were an estimated 17,000 emigrants - interestingly reversing (though not by much) the downward trend of the last several years; the figure hit bottom last year at 16,600.

There were 87,000 immigrants – the highest recorded since the CSO began keeping track in 1987. About 20,000 of those were Irish nationals – Poles outnumbered returning emigrants however, with 22,900 immigrants.

• 4,400 emigrants went to Britain
• 2,800 went to the EU15
• 1,400 went to the US
• 1,100 went to the new EU states of the EU10 –some of these were likely returning emigrants from those countries.
• 7,300 went to the rest of the world.

See the full report on the CSO website.

Cork monument uses sound to commemorate

An innovative monument to Irish emigrants was unveiled on Cork's Penrose Quay on September 9th. "Listening Posts", designed by sculptor Daphne Wright and writer Johnny Hanrahan, consists of four sleek metal posts positioned at the traditional point of departure for emigrant ships. The City Council's press release explains,

While striking in themselves, these 'posts' function primarily as vessels for four multi-faceted sound scores. Using interviews with emigrants, their descendants, those they left behind, those who worked on the ship, those wishing to return and those who are glad they got away combined with marine, industrial, musical and abstract sound elements, Wright, Hanrahan and leading sound designer Dan Jones have built up rich, layered soundscapes each of which has its own internal logic and also contributes to the overall experience afforded by listening to all four posts.

The scores blend fragmented narratives embedded in emotionally intense soundworlds, musical clichés, Irish jokes and a range of instrumental and archival vocal gestures which have been manipulated to create a constantly fluctuating range of emotional tones.

The piece is firmly rooted in the history of emigration from Cork, but uses the specifics of that collective experience to explore broad themes of migration, displacement and self-re-invention. In this way it does justice to its commemorative function while also acting as an urgent, poetic commentary on the global issue of long-term migration.

See the press release on Cork City Council's website.

Returning emigrants featured in The Dubliner

Returning emigrants are the subject of an article in the oft-controversial The Dubliner magazine. In an article entitled "Lame Geese", reporter Angela Long details the experiences of several returning emigrants. She highlights particular difficulties in getting job searching, along with some culture shock as emigrants who left in pre-boom times come back to confront the rising materialism and pro-business culture. The reporter notes that all of the returnees she spoke with, however, had "resigned themselves to living in Ireland, warts and all".

The full article is at The Dubliner's website.

"Real" Annie Moore discovered

The story of the real Annie Moore has been unveiled. Annie Moore was the 15-year-old Cork girl who was the first immigrant to pass through New York’s Ellis Island in January 1892. While it had been long believed that Moore had moved west, instead, it genealogist Megan Smolenyak has discovered that Moore had actually made it no farther than the lower east side of Manhattan, where she bore eleven children, of whom only five survived; she died in 1924 at the age of 47. Although two statues of Annie Moore memorialise her story – one in New York harbour and the other in Cobh, Co Cork, her grave is unmarked. Her descendents are raising money for a headstone for the grave in Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, Queens.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-09-15T223324Z_01_N15390578_RTRUKOC_0_UK-LIFE-IMMIGRANT.xml

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/nyregion/16annie.html?ex=1158552000&en=90f781f38cc27b3a&ei=5087%0A