Weird obsession with Irish people living abroad.

Hamachi

Reading the Irish Times during the Christmas holidays and it occured to me that they have an almost borderline obsession with Irish people living abroad.

In some cases, it’s ‘Generation Emigration’ features, which typically focus on whingy ex-pats regaling us with tales of their new life and how c**p Ireland is in comparison. In other instances, it focuses on people with seemingly unremarkable jobs and lives in other countries.

I’d understand this if it were the ‘50s or ‘80s, when Irish people left and had little contact with home. With the proliferation of modern technology, it’s very straightforward to maintain close ties.

What say you AHs? What’s the reason for this slightly weird, Irish Times obsession?

Omackeral

If they’re Irish immigrants living abroad they’re ex-pats, not immigrants.

If they’re Irish illegal immigrants living abroad they’re undocumented, not illegal immigrants.

dxhound2005

Hamachi wrote: »

Reading the Irish Times during the Christmas holidays and it occured to me that they have an almost borderline obsession with Irish people living abroad.

In some cases, it’s ‘Generation Emigration’ features, which typically focus on whingy ex-pats regaling us with tales of their new life and how c**p Ireland is in comparison. In other instances, it focuses on people with seemingly unremarkable jobs and lives in other countries.

I’d understand this if it were the ‘50s or ‘80s, when Irish people left and had little contact with home. With the proliferation of modern technology, it’s very straightforward to maintain close ties.

What say you AHs? What’s the reason for this slightly weird, Irish Times obsession?

I'd say it's a full blown obsession and totally weird. I didn't read it myself.

whisky_galore

I really don't know. I'm not the faintest bit interested in inane musings of economic migrants John Joe or Emer in Amerikay or sun kissed Bondi.

dwayneshintzy

Well it was hardly easy to get home this Xmas now was it

Your Face

The Irish Times is a rag. It is increasing the number of opinion pieces and they are designed to be divisive.

Hamachi

whisky_galore wrote: »

I really don't know. I'm not the faintest bit interested in inane musings of economic migrants John Joe or Emer in Amerikay or sun kissed Bondi.

This is it. There’s one older guy who lives in Tasmania and is featured regularly. His musings are amongst the most naval-gazing drivel I’ve ever read.

I’m curious about the type of person who sees fits to contact the Irish Times to tell us about their boring job in IT and send on a picture of their wife, who looks more like an East German shot putter than Claudia Schiffer.

Thelonious Monk

God I remember seeing some article about The Irish Millenials taking London by storm in the Independent I think. There is an obsession with it and also with moving abroad with Irish people, I guess there are limitations to living in Ireland and people want to broaden their horizons.

corkgsxr

Problem is they will tell you it's the most amazing place in the world while having a 5er to their name and living in a ditch

FTA69

I think we have a one of the largest percentages of national population living abroad. Most (or at least a very many) families will have people who left the country to work elsewhere, especially after things went wallop in 2008. Emigration is a dynamic relevant to a lot of people and this year a lot of families will be missing people who were supposed to be home for Christmas but can’t. (Me for one!)

I do agree with the whinging aspect at times though, someone banging on about how brilliant life is and how sh*t things are at home etc. I’d give my left b*llock to be at home to be honest but I’m equally as happy with the life I have here. I’ve lived in England for 12 years now in total and you do come across Irish people in London working in finance or whatever who think they’re now wonderfully cosmopolitan sophisticates while everyone at home is some sort of a closed-minded donkey-driver. It’s almost like a different form of “stage Irish” that people adopt as a comfort blanket because they’re fed up with many aspects of their lives abroad.

Collie D

FTA69 wrote: »

I think we have a one of the largest percentages of national population living abroad. Most (or at least a very many) families will have people who left the country to work elsewhere, especially after things went wallop in 2008. Emigration is a dynamic relevant to a lot of people and this year a lot of families will be missing people who were supposed to be home for Christmas but can’t. (Me for one!)

I do agree with the whinging aspect at times though, someone banging on about how brilliant life is and how sh*t things are at home etc. I’d give my left b*llock to be at home to be honest but I’m equally as happy with the life I have here. I’ve lived in England for 12 years now in total and you do come across Irish people in London working in finance or whatever who think they’re now wonderfully cosmopolitan sophisticates while everyone at home is some sort of a closed-minded donkey-driver. It’s almost like a different form of “stage Irish” that people adopt as a comfort blanket because they’re fed up with many aspects of their lives abroad.

Don’t forget the boot cut jeans

whisky_galore

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

God I remember seeing some article about The Irish Millenials taking London by storm in the Independent I think. There is an obsession with it and also with moving abroad with Irish people, I guess there are limitations to living in Ireland and people want to broaden their horizons.

Move abroad by all means, just don't bore us to death your life experiences at 25. No one cares, except their mammies.

Hyperbollix

Newspaper editors think about how they're going to sell newspapers......

Newspaper editors know Irish people like noting better than seeing how Tim's daughter Maire is getting on nursing in Melbourne.....

People buy newspapers to read these features so they can have a whinge and a moan about Maire and her notions, who loves to rub it in about how amazing her new life is and how glad she is she left this windswept rock.....

Newspaper editors rub their hands and think about how they're going to sell more newspapers.....

Hamachi

Hyperbollix wrote: »

Newspaper editors think about how they're going to sell newspapers....

I get that. It’s a tactic to sell copy. To be honest, I’d actually be interested if these people were leading a life less ordinary.

I lived abroad for a long time myself. When I was in Munich I met a girl from Co. Tipperary, who had married a German guy and moved there without a word of German. Within a decade, she spoke the language to near native ability and had become one of the top ICU nurses in Germany. She was also a very proud Irish woman and had her kids involved in GAA and Irish dancing. That’s the kind of remarkable person I’d like to read about.

Instead, we’re ‘treated’ to an almost daily diet of tedium from south-side Sorcha, who is a low-ranking sub-editor for some obscure publication in London, and who feels so sophisticated in her new home.

It’s horse****e of the highest order..

Ficheall

FTA69 wrote: »

I’d give my left b*llock to be at home to be honest but I’m equally as happy with the life I have here.

Hamachi

Hamachi wrote: »

I lived abroad for a long time myself. When I was in Munich I met a girl from Co. Tipperary, who had married a German guy and moved there without a word of German. Within a decade, she spoke the language to near native ability and had become one of the top ICU nurses in Germany. She was also a very proud Irish woman and had her kids involved in GAA and Irish dancing. That’s the kind of remarkable person I’d like to read about.
.

Doesn't seem so remarkable, seems normal enough I would think

elperello

Your Face wrote: »

The Irish Times is a rag. It is increasing the number of opinion pieces and they are designed to be divisive.

A rag as compared to what?

Opinion pieces are used to stimulate debate and interest in topics.

Hamachi wrote: »

I get that. It’s a tactic to sell copy. To be honest, I’d actually be interested if these people were leading a life less ordinary.

I lived abroad for a long time myself. When I was in Munich I met a girl from Co. Tipperary, who had married a German guy and moved there without a word of German. Within a decade, she spoke the language to near native ability and had become one of the top ICU nurses in Germany. She was also a very proud Irish woman and had her kids involved in GAA and Irish dancing. That’s the kind of remarkable person I’d like to read about.

Instead, we’re ‘treated’ to an almost daily diet of tedium from south-side Sorcha, who is a low-ranking sub-editor for some obscure publication in London, and who feels so sophisticated in her new home.

It’s horse****e of the highest order..

I suggest that you do what regular readers of the IT do, skip over the articles that don't interest you.

dxhound2005

Hamachi wrote: »

I

I lived abroad for a long time myself. When I was in Munich I met a girl from Co. Tipperary, who had married a German guy and moved there without a word of German. Within a decade, she spoke the language to near native ability and had become one of the top ICU nurses in Germany. She was also a very proud Irish woman and had her kids involved in GAA and Irish dancing. That’s the kind of remarkable person I’d like to read about.

Me too, I want to know so much more about her life. You should expand it and submit it as a colour piece to the Times. People would just love that.

Just another aspect of the subjectivity of the media these days..

It's not worth the paper it's written on anymore..

They can't just tell you the news.. it's all human interest stories..

It bypasses the thinking mind, and gets the idiots to just go 'aww'..

They're treating people like idiots, and in turn people are just becoming more idiotic..

whisky_galore

Hamachi wrote: »

I get that. It’s a tactic to sell copy. To be honest, I’d actually be interested if these people were leading a life less ordinary.

I lived abroad for a long time myself. When I was in Munich I met a girl from Co. Tipperary, who had married a German guy and moved there without a word of German. Within a decade, she spoke the language to near native ability and had become one of the top ICU nurses in Germany. She was also a very proud Irish woman and had her kids involved in GAA and Irish dancing. That’s the kind of remarkable person I’d like to read about.

Instead, we’re ‘treated’ to an almost daily diet of tedium from south-side Sorcha, who is a low-ranking sub-editor for some obscure publication in London, and who feels so sophisticated in her new home.

It’s horse****e of the highest order..

Apart from top ICU nurse, exceptional maybe but hardly terribly interesting, it's fairly ho-hum.

If you can't speak the language of whatever country you emigrated to in a couple of years god help you.

Hamachi

bubblypop wrote: »

Doesn't seem so remarkable, seems normal enough I would think

Quelle Surprise!

FTA69

Ficheall wrote: »

Yeah it might sound like a contradiction, I suppose it is in a way. You can want to be back home amongst friends and family and a slower pace of life etc but also be happy with your job/house/partner abroad at the same time. I’d like to retire back in Ireland but my partner is English and my job isn’t transferable at the moment so I’ll make the best of it here if that makes sense.

whisky_galore

whisky_galore wrote: »

If you can't speak the language of whatever country you emigrated to in a couple of years god help you.

My Mandarin is pretty decent in comparison to other foreigners living in China, but it's nowhere close to being similar to a native persons ability. Just as with German, you can learn all the vocabulary/grammar but if your pronunciation isn't perfect, many Germans will avoid speaking German to you and speak English instead.

I survived five years in China before I bothered learning anything past the basic survival phrases, and that's really common among the foreigners who live there long term. I know a few people who have lived there for twenty years, and can barely string a sentence together. They'll all have done a variety of formal classes, and informal learning, but most give up once they reach a certain point.

Learning a language beyond the basics, and itty-bitty conversations, is pretty damn hard (for practical use, not simply book learning which is often useless).

Kewreeuss

I would have thought you'd pick up a European language fairly quickly if you stayed away from your co-nationals.
I can't imagine how you'd pick up Chinese, Japanese or any Asian language!

whisky_galore

Kewreeuss wrote: »

I would have thought you'd pick up a European language fairly quickly if you stayed away from your co-nationals.
I can't imagine how you'd pick up Chinese, Japanese or any Asian language!

If you're working in a foreign multinational insulated from interactions with the local population you can cruise all the Irish pubs you want for company. You might not learn a whole lot about your host country, it would be more like an extended holiday.

I don't think anyone from another country coming to live over here would make a whole lot of headway or get much respect if they didn't get off their ass and learn English.

Kewreeuss

whisky_galore wrote: »

If you're working in a foreign multinational insulated from interactions with the local population you can cruise all the Irish pubs you want for company. You might not learn a whole lot about your host country, it would be more like an extended holiday.

What a waste!

Hamsterchops

Hamachi wrote: »

Weird obsession with Irish people living abroad.

Reading the Irish Times during the Christmas holidays and it occured to me that they have an almost borderline obsession with Irish people living abroad.

In some cases, it’s ‘Generation Emigration’ features, which typically focus on whingy ex-pats regaling us with tales of their new life and how c**p Ireland is in comparison. In other instances, it focuses on people with seemingly unremarkable jobs and lives in other countries.

I’d understand this if it were the ‘50s or ‘80s, when Irish people left and had little contact with home. With the proliferation of modern technology, it’s very straightforward to maintain close ties.

What say you AHs? What’s the reason for this slightly weird, Irish Times obsession?

It's called "Small country syndrome".

Like, why did you leave Ireland? Why did you go abroad for work? .... like why would you?

Well, like we are not the centre of the universe.

Strumms

I lived in France, loved it... well most aspects of it ...

Safe, the best food, nice people if quite reserved and far better weather from April - October then we could dream about here.

Loved too though hitting one of the genuine Irish bars if there was a match, rugby, soccer, gaa, hurling.....always a weird vibe removing oneself from the Corcorans Irish pub in St Michel..’you’ll never beat the Irish’ ringing in your ears, about 6 pints better or worse off, only to see Notre Dame Cathedral about a 60 second walk away...

dxhound2005

I wouldn't fancy living in some parts of France if global warming is going to continue. This is part of a news report from 2019.

France has hit its highest recorded temperature - 45.9C (114.6F) - amid a heatwave in Europe that has claimed several lives.

The new record was measured in the southern village of Gallargues-le-Montueux. Before this year the previous record was 44.1C during a heatwave in 2003 that killed thousands.

Health Minister Agnès Buzyn warned that "everyone is at risk".

France's weather service has issued an unprecedented red alert for four areas.

Those are all in the south, but most of the country remains on orange alert, the second-highest level.

tdf7187

We are one of the most travelled races, and even in the current, more prosperous and tolerant era, many people find simply Ireland too small or limiting to hold them. The gossiping, 'valley of the squinting windows' culture hasn't gone away and some people feel oppressed by it and need to get away - and stay away, in some cases. And it rains too much here. So there's nothing really odd about this 'weird obsession'. I would grant the IT overdoes it though.

jam_mac_jam

It's very boring and cheap journalism. Maybe a author or a famous playwright or something where you can do a feature on that.

Normal people waffling on about normal things just in another country is just a complete baffling feature to me.

I stopped buying the Irish Times a few months ago because there was weeks of this ****e in the features.


But unless you are doing something incredibly interesting like starting your own business in Mongolia or Kazakhstan or you are a very interesting person then this is not a feature.

Does the Irish Times just ask their mates abroad for a story? It's dire.

AutoTuning

It’d be more interesting to do it both ways. We have lots of Irish people who’ve made their home elsewhere and lot of people of people from elsewhere who’ve made their home in Ireland.

It would be a more balanced feature to show both inward and outward experience. They’re both part of life in Ireland and being Irish.

I think we sometimes get stuck in a 1950s/1980s narrative when the country is in reality a very different place with people moving to and fro in both directions all of which are generating Irish connections!

Lyle Lanley

whisky_galore wrote: »

Apart from top ICU nurse, exceptional maybe but hardly terribly interesting, it's fairly ho-hum.

If you can't speak the language of whatever country you emigrated to in a couple of years god help you.

How many languages do you speak as a matter of interest?

Getting to a near native level in any language is a real achievement, regardless of how long you live in a country.

dxhound2005

At least we are courteous enough not to start speaking German to Germans living here who we hear speaking accented English.

Lyle Lanley

whisky_galore wrote: »

Move abroad by all means, just don't bore us to death your life experiences at 25. No one cares, except their mammies.

When I'm at home I always get people asking about where I live/what I'm doing. Do you think they then complain about me answering those questions?

Hamachi

tdf7187 wrote: »

We are one of the most travelled races, and even in the current, more prosperous and tolerant era, many people find simply Ireland too small or limiting to hold them. The gossiping, 'valley of the squinting windows' culture hasn't gone away and some people feel oppressed by it and need to get away - and stay away, in some cases. And it rains too much here. So there's nothing really odd about this 'weird obsession'. I would grant the IT overdoes it though.

That’s my point. If they find Ireland too limiting or are seeking to escape local gossip, by all means move abroad and chase the lifecycle and culture that best aligns with your outlook. But...

Don’t then turn around and submit your tedious musings to the Irish media, boring the arse off everybody else who is quite happy living here.

Deshawn

elperello wrote: »

A rag as compared to what?

Opinion pieces are used to stimulate debate and interest in topics.



I suggest that you do what regular readers of the IT do, skip over the articles that don't interest you.

Out of all of the newspapers out there for sale, right up to the national enquirer with its bat boy stories the Irish times is beyond doubt the worst rag of the lot.

jam_mac_jam

Lyle Lanley wrote: »

How many languages do you speak as a matter of interest?

Getting to a near native level in any language is a real achievement, regardless of how long you live in a country.

Yeah it's great. Doesn't really make an interesting or valid feature in a newspaper though.

dxhound2005

Hamachi wrote: »

That’s my point. If they find Ireland too limiting or are seeking to escape local gossip, by all means move abroad and chase the lifecycle and culture that best aligns with your outlook. But...

Don’t then turn around and submit your tedious musings to the Irish media, boring the arse off everybody else who is quite happy living here.

I wouldn't have known anything about it, if someone didn't think it merited making a thread here.

Hamachi

Lyle Lanley wrote: »

How many languages do you speak as a matter of interest?

Getting to a near native level in any language is a real achievement, regardless of how long you live in a country.

Absolutely, near native ability requires extraordinary determination. Anybody who fails to understand this, clearly isn’t bilingual.

whisky_galore

Lyle Lanley wrote: »

When I'm at home I always get people asking about where I live/what I'm doing. Do you think they then complain about me answering those questions?

Good for you. I'm sure it's fascinating...

Hamachi

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I wouldn't have known anything about it, if someone didn't think it merited making a thread here.

Presumably, you know where the ignore button is? Cheerio..

whisky_galore

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

Yeah it's great. Doesn't really make an interesting or valid feature in a newspaper though.

Front page news: person learns a language.

Hamachi

Hamachi wrote: »

Presumably, you know where the ignore button is? Cheerio..

Presumably you know how to ignore newspaper articles!

Hamachi

bubblypop wrote: »

Presumably you know how to ignore newspaper articles!

I do, but then I wouldn’t have the ‘pleasure’ of your exquisite company Bubbly!

elperello

Deshawn wrote: »

Out of all of the newspapers out there for sale, right up to the national enquirer with its bat boy stories the Irish times is beyond doubt the worst rag of the lot.

I must say I disagree completely with you.

For our size of population we are lucky in this country to have two quality daily newspapers The Irish Times and The Examiner.

They are both owned by The Irish Times Trust https://www.irishtimes.com/about-us/the-irish-times-trust.

Long may they prosper.