There is a distinct group of Irish expats, scattered from the US to New Zealand. Easily identifiable by our fluorescent uniform, we hail predominantly from the western counties of Donegal, Mayo, Galway and Kerry. We are construction workers and tunnel men. It is a community I am proud to be part of.
Growing up in rural, coastal, Gaeltacht Donegal, I always expected to move away. At primary school in Fanad, when we talked about where we would go when we finished school, Trinity or UCD were never mentioned. The US and Britain were more likely destinations. A family member, generally an older sibling, aunt, uncle or cousin, were usually the deciding factor; wherever they were living determined the starting point of our own journey.
I’ve worked in construction since leaving school, in 2001, as a formwork carpenter. People think construction workers made their fortune during the boom, but to men like me it made little difference. The Celtic Tiger never reached the wilderness of the western seaboard.
Many of us worked in Dublin then, when the money was good. I worked on the Port- Tunnel project, and most of my fellow workers were from Donegal. The fact that it was Dublin, as opposed to Chicago or London, was of little consequence. What difference does it make to a man from the west whether he is pouring concrete in Dubai or Dublin? He's not at home either way.
Men of our background have long been “long-distance men”, willing to travel for work and move on again. I moved to London after the port tunnel finished for more tunnel work and the strong pound. I had aunts, uncles and cousins there; it was much more homelike than Dublin in that sense.
I didn’t stay long there before moving to Chicago, where I worked illegally for three years. I knew a lot of men from Fanad working in the windy city. I now speak a bit of Spanish, from time working with Central and South Americans. I often felt more of a kinship with them than with men I met from Dublin.
I returned to Donegal in 2007 but only lasted a few weeks. The recession had begun to bite, and work was scarce, so I moved back to London for a while before deciding to go to Australia. I worked in Sydney for a year, on a new desalination plant for a Kerry man, before moving to Melbourne in 2009.
There I got a job as a fly-in, fly-out – or Fifo – employee, flying from Melbourne to Port Hedland for four weeks, and back to Melbourne for one week. The money is good on Fifo, but it puts a strain on relationships, and I was glad to give it up when I got married. I now work in the city, currently on new studios for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
I have just completed an online degree in construction management at IT Sligo and hope to move into management. With luck this will make a move back to Ireland feasible, as my wife and I would like to bring our children up close to family.
The traditional western-seaboard pattern of going away and going home gives us a distinct outlook on emigration and what it means to be Irish. There is less thought given to Ireland generally; parish and county are much more important markers of identity. We rarely lose, change or attempt to soften our accent. There is a clannishness to us. We often don’t mix with other Irish expats.
The biggest difference between us and other Irish emigrants is that we tend to find it easier to visit Ireland. Many say that leaving again at the end of the trip makes it too hard to go back. Us, we’ve always come and gone.
