Irish return home as US dream fades
Published: 14 November 2004
THEY were the hands that built America, but now record numbers of Irish people are leaving the country, reversing a 200-year trend. A clampdown on illegal immigrants, as well as a decline in jobs, is being blamed for the exodus.
Between 1820 and 1920, about 4½ m people emigrated from Ireland to America, including the ancestors of Henry Ford, the car manufacturer, John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Now traditional Irish haunts in cities such as New York are emptying. Tom Conaghan, the director of Philadelphia’s Irish Immigration and Pastoral Center, said: “If this trend continues, it will be very rare to hear an Irish accent in this country.”
The American ambassador to Ireland has promised to raise concern with his government about the jailing of some illegal immigrants before they are deported.
James Casey Kenny has agreed to investigate complaints that some Irish citizens have been detained for up