Driven out of the land of a thousand welcomes

Last week, at the Irish Gaeltacht festival in Brussels, I heard more Irish spoken and trad played than I had at any point in the preceding two years. This may not be using the phrase in its intended sense, but níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin—more Irish than the Irish themselves—definitely applied. Living abroad often makes people from Ireland hyperaware of their Irishness, so they engage more with Irish culture and language than they did at home.

I moved to Brussels in September 2021, after being offered a paid internship in the city. I work in communications for a European political foundation, and am renting a large room in a lovely three-bed apartment with two young Europeans—Swiss and Spanish—for less than €500 a month, including bills.

I’m 24 now. I graduated in the middle of the first coronavirus lockdown, with a degree in international development and food policy from University College Cork. When that lockdown was announced I moved back to my family home, in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, and gave up my rental accommodation in Cork. I thought I would only be there temporarily, while I finished my final year, and could move back to Cork in the summer of 2020, after Covid had been brought under control. Instead I ended up living back in my family home for a year.

In Ireland, the expectation outside finance, tech and pharma now seems to be that an entry-level job candidate will already have completed an internship or two—most of which are unpaid or underpaid, in Dublin, and highly competitive

As for most people during those harsh first lockdowns, very little happened. I worked remotely for several months, managed to save a bit of money and then moved back to Cork in the summer of 2021. The pandemic meant every NGO had pulled back to focus on its core projects and consolidated its staff and resources in light of the ongoing uncertainty.

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Employment opportunities at NGOs were already limited, as many nongovernmental organisations were unwilling to hire someone on an entry-level contract unless they had prior experience. The expectation outside finance, tech and pharma now seems to be that an entry-level candidate will already have completed an internship or two—most of which are unpaid or underpaid, in Dublin, and highly competitive, as third-year university students also need to find work experience as part of their degrees. Opportunities that paid a wage big enough to live on in the capital were few and far between.

So I set my sights abroad—and got my Brussels internship offer. The city is a fabulous melting pot of people, cultures and languages, partly because of Belgium’s colonial past and partly because of its more recent role at the heart of the European Union. About a third of Brussels residents are Belgian, a third are other Europeans, and a third have origins outside the EU.

Brussels is incredibly vibrant—there is always something going on, from a free open-air music festival held by the city to community exchange events held in anarchist-squatted buildings—and each of its 19 municipalities has a unique feel. The city is about the same size as Dublin, with 1.2 million or so inhabitants (the wider area has about 2.5 million people if you include the outer commuter belt), but its vastly superior transport system makes it quite easy to get around.

And although there are also issues in the housing market here, they don’t compare even marginally to Ireland’s. Tenancy laws are much stronger, lease agreements get stronger over time, rent is indexed against the cost of living, and accommodation is of a much higher quality.

Some of my friends from Ireland also moved abroad last year. Wanderlust played its part in their decisions, but they also cited the housing crisis, the lack of decent job opportunities and the lack of political will to really tackle issues disproportionally affecting young people. Many others are planning to emigrate in the near future.

It is lamentable that in the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the world, we still haven’t managed to stop the emigration of young Irish people, from nurses and doctors to electricians and builders. We really need to solve the problems that are driving so many away from our land of a thousand welcomes.

If you live overseas and would like to share your experience with Irish Times Abroad, email abroad@irishtimes.com with a little information about you and what you do