Go east, young man

Young Irish immigrants have been trying their luck here since long before the potato crop failed. But these days in Boston -- as in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and all the cities shaped by the Irish diaspora -- they are hearing the siren song of a new land of opportunity: Ireland.

by Ellen Barry

The Carrickmore returnees are just about unpacked. The McCrystals were the first to arrive home, and they helped unpack the McGinns, who helped unpack the McCartens, and so on until, now, when the McElduffs arrive, nearly 20 families will have left the same West Philadelphia neighborhood and resumed their lives within a 40-mile radius of one another in Carrickmore, County Tyrone.

The families had done well in America. They'd moved here in the mid-1980s, made some money, got settled, paid off mortgages. America was good to them, but now, with small children starting school -- at the point when they finally had to choose between countries -- all 20 families chose Ireland.

And now Brian McElduff, 35, whose wife and three children left for Ireland during the summer, is packing up what remains of his American decade.

"I guess everyone just decided they had done their time here and they were ready to go back," he says, not without a little regret. "Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, but I wanted the kids to know where they are from. In another 10 years it might be over."

The McElduffs and their Carrickmore neighbors are novel in their solidarity, but far from original in their desire to go home. With Ireland's economy having grown at a rate of 7 percent over the last three years -- faster than any other economy in Europe -- Irish emigrants are moving home from all over the world. Last year, the number returning to Ireland from overseas outstripped the number leaving. Tentatively -- as if the announcement would somehow break the spell -- officials are speaking of an end to the age of Irish emigration.

Even here in Boston, where Irish immigrants still line up for visas every year, the backward glance is increasingly purposeful. When then-social welfare minister Bernard Durkan visited America in the summer of 1996, he fielded so many inquiries about returning that the Department of Social Welfare's emigrant-advice service has followed up its pamphlets "Thinking of Going to London" and "Thinking of Going to the US" with a free booklet called "Returning to Ireland," which is widely distributed in the US and England. The booklet tactfully reminds returning emigrants of Ireland's unemployment rate (a disturbing 11 percent) and its income tax rate (as high as 48 percent), and gently informs readers that "it is important that you are prepared for the changes you will encounter upon your return."

If the boom has not depleted Boston's Irish-American community -- and by all accounts it hasn't -- then it has at least transformed the way emigrants think about the country they left behind. To wit: those who were planning on going home anyway are getting a clear message that now is a good time to do it.

"It's not lines out of the airport every night. It's more of a psychological change. It's a mindset," says Ciaran Byrne, who has been vice consul in Boston for four years. Durkan, on his visit here last summer, "was genuinely surprised that the scene was beginning to change in terms of people looking to come home," Byrne says. "I think it's something the government is very pleased with. It's a vindication of all the economic changes that have taken place since the '60s and '70s. This is a real turning point."

According to Noel Waters, an immigration specialist at the Irish Department of Justice, Equality, and Law Reform, there is no reason to think that the economic miracle will stop any time in the next five years. And until it does, emigrants will be toying with the idea of going back.

"It's definitely a hot topic," says Rosemary McDonough, of Boston's Irish Networking Society. "There is definitely an opportunity to take a chance, which is a word people wouldn't use before."

On to part 2

Ellen Barry can be reached at ebarry[a]phx.com.