You Can Go Home Again

“I am not ashamed to say that I cried when it was time to go back to America after a month at home. My father was sick, he died later that year, and I was heartbroken at the thought that if I went back to San Francisco I would never see him or my mother again.
“There was no choice for people like me in those days. I’d never have got a job that would have allowed me to stay in Ireland and the family desperately needed the dollars that I could send back. It was five years before I was able to make the next trip home because, after sending money home, my savings were taken with helping to bring my three younger brothers and two sisters to San Francisco. After I had done my duty to them, I was able to go home every year and was in Mayo when my mother died in 2001. The homesickness never left me.”
Michael’s story is typical of thousands of Irish emigrants. For most, the dream of one day returning to their homeland never becomes reality.
Even in today’s era of global travel, many elderly Irish emigrants fear it is impossible for them ever to return home. Property prices, the high cost of living in Ireland and the weakness of the dollar against the euro are barriers for those living on pensions. For others, no pension and no social security means the likelihood of living a comfortable life in the U.S. is remote. The expense of moving to Ireland is beyond contemplation.
Broadcaster Adrian Flannelly frequently uses his weekend radio show to highlight Irish immigrant issues in the U.S.
“The reality is that most Irish emigrants left Ireland because of a failure of the government to make provisions for them,” he said last week.
“Five years ago was the first time that the Irish government said they should really look at how the Irish diaspora was faring up. It was the first time a government acknowledged that they had to leave.”
In recent years, the economic boom in Ireland has put the government in a position where it can start to make amends. In 2002, Jerry Cowley, a Mayo doctor, set up Safe Home, a national repatriation program that assists Irish emigrants living abroad to return to their homeland in the situation where they do not have the means to do so themselves.
The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government stepped in, designating 25 percent of housing built under the capital assistance low-income housing program for elderly returning emigrants taking part in Safe Home.
In order to qualify, emigrants must be over 60, living in rented accommodation with a desire to return to their county of origin or where they spent a substantial part of their lives and can show clear, identifiable links with an area.
So far, the program has helped more than 400 retired emigrants to settle back home in Ireland from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Africa and Europe. Michael, who asked that his last name not be used, is currently on the waiting list.
Thus far, fewer than 10 participants in the Safe Home program have returned from the U.S. According to Dr. Cowley, returning Irish emigrants from the U.S. tend to settle back into Irish life very successfully.
“The number of returning emigrants in the U.S. is growing all the time,” he said. “People returning from the U.S. seem to integrate better. It’s funny, because they were often the ones who were expected never to return. America was seen as the land of opportunity.”
This has not been the experience for a number of elderly Irish in America, according to Flannelly.
“There is a group of people who have been largely forgotten, those who have nothing to fall back on,” he said.
With more 8,000 dwellings available in Ireland for elderly returning emigrants, the government is trying to identify potential Safe Home candidates in the U.S. through the Irish consulate, immigration groups and church organizations.
“If you are destitute and want to return to Ireland, I would suggest that now is a good time to do it,” Flannelly said.
The department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is working toward amending rural planning laws so that returning emigrants have the same rights of planning permission and residency as locals.
“We want to introduce changes that are aimed at people who have been away for a long time and want to return but couldn’t buy a house because of the prices; it’s an opportunity for them to come back to their home place,” said Minister for Local Government Dick Roche.
“There are people who have been unfortunate and it wouldn’t do much for our reputation as a welcoming nation if we didn’t do our bit to help them. It was their remittances back home that educated the children in Irish households. Now that the country is has become so rich, to suggest that giving a special consideration to those people would be wrong, disgusting in fact.”
However, returning home after a long period abroad is not always the right option; many emigrants are dismayed to find that the country they have returned to is completely different from the country they left.
“The message we would give is that coming home isn’t for everyone,” said Mairin Higgins, program director with Safe Home. “About 50 percent of the people who approach us decide not to come home. If you move somebody back inappropriately, you’re not doing them any favors.”
Said Siobhan Dennehy, executive director of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center in Woodside: “There are so many things to consider if you decide to move back to Ireland. How much it has changed. How far will your social security go against the euro? How expensive the cost of living is. We give a detailed interview to decide what a person’s objective is in going home. Often, they will reconsider and decide to stay.”

Do the research
Her advice to anyone of any age who is thinking of returning to Ireland after a long time living in the U.S. is to research.
“People are often amazed by the changes that have occurred in Ireland since they left,” she said.
Breda Enright, who is in her 30s, returned to her home county of Limerick in 1999, after having lived in Queens for 11 years.
“I found it hard to settle,” she said. “The weather was my biggest problem, and the fact that you have to drive everywhere. Over here you have no privacy, everybody knows your business. Every time I visited New York, I didn’t want to come back.”
It took around three years for her to settle back into life in Ireland.
“It isn’t as rushed over here, and people are a lot more friendly,” she said. “I still love going back to visit New York, but now I don’t mind coming back.”
Fr. Colm Campbell, founder of the New York Irish Center in Queens, has compiled a list of recommendations and advice for returning emigrants based on his work with families who have gone through the process.
“Going home for a holiday is very different to moving back,” he warned. “In years gone by when people went home, their pension was worth more. Now it’s worth less and things have become more expensive. People they know have died or moved away, so close friends don’t really exist.”
Campbell believes elderly returning immigrants need more help to integrate back into Irish communities.
“We need complexes where everyone has their own little flat but there is also a common area so people can eat and mingle together,” he said. “It would allow people to maintain their freedom and also interact with others. Building separate homes doesn’t deal with that need for interaction.”
Safe Home representatives maintain contact with retired immigrants for up to a year after they return home, depending on their difficulty in adjusting. The organization also publishes a monthly newsletter that potential returnees can read to help them to understand how much life has changed in Ireland in recent years.
“We want to bring people back into the community, not just to a house,” Crowley said.
“The first man I ever brought home was a gentleman had left Ireland 60 years ago. He had always wanted to come back. He only lived for a few weeks after he finally returned, but he spent those last few weeks with a smile on his face.”
(For more information about the “Safe Home,” program contact 011 353 9836036 or log on to www.safehomeireland.com.)