Espaces et échanges en Irlande (document en anglais)

Espaces et échanges en Irlande:

This notion deals with the geographical and symbolic areas that all societies occupy and with the interactions between men and different societies. Our world is built on the exploration and conquest of new spaces. The different cultural, economic, sociological and language interactions have shaped and characterised our modern-day world.

How has Ireland's economy impacted migration ?

To illustrate this notion, I'm going to speak about recession to boom, then boom to bust.

We saw in class a Bernard Canavan's painting "Emigrant Journey". The document is a tryptic which depicts the Irish immigration in the 1950's. We notice that the Irish people come from a village. They are leaving Ireland because of poverty, they are travelling by foot and with a suitcase, to go abroad or to the city. The city is modern, with various means of transport. It looks industrial and there are many immigrants. People are praying because they are afraid. Travellers look unhappy and the electric poles in Ireland conjure up the crucification scene.

With this painting we understand that people are emigrating in the 1950 s because of lack of employment in Ireland. Irish emigrates went to Britain to get unskilled, low paid, hard jobs in the building industry.

Secondly, we listened to an audio recording named " Ghost estates" in Ireland. During the economic boom, many estates were built. People bought houses. At a time of recession many people find thremselves in a house bought during the boom at a high price. Most houses are unfinished and a third of the houses are empty. In the meantime, the husband lost his job, his wife had to take a cut in salary and they cannot repay their mortgage.

They are called "the sacrified generation". For these people, 1 out of 7 will not be able to repay their mortgage. Several thousands will emigrate. The real estate bubble was developped by the government during the economic boom. Ireland received a lot of subsidies from the American and Europeen communities.

In the late 1900 s, the Celtic Tiger was born, when Ireland's economy grew rapidly, unemployment dropped significantly and foreign investments began to pour in. It was the ultimate economic rags-to-riches success story. However, the dream was short-lived. The global community is without borders. Its Irish cultural heritage is alive and shared all over the world.

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