Yes my friends, we are in deeeeeep shit in here. The ESRI (Economic and Social Research Institute) published the figures last week: Ireland is going to go through the worst recession of a Western country EVER. The GDP would shrink by 9.2% by 2011, a number never reached before. Yes, we were proud of our Celtic Tiger and our success story. A small poor country that had succeeded to reach the rank of second richest country in Europe. I will not go into political considerations, there are too numerous and too unnerving to be talked about.
BUT! Ireland does have a strength: its immigrants. It is nothing to do with self promotion (well, not exactly) but it seems like in those bleak days, immigrants (called non nationals in the politically correct world) are the only ones having some kind of entrepreneurial spirit. Rents are going down, people are coming back to more essential values and it boosts initiatives. But mostly those initiatives come from people like me, born in another country, and embracing the opportunity of a very informal and still creative country.
The first initiative is mine: Rothar (www.rothar.ie). The idea is spreading out, Rothar is growing day after day (maybe very very good news by the end of June, but sssshhh that's a secret), and most of the people working with me are foreign nationals. A lot of other immigrants have decided to create their own company / studio etc. A very good project is the D light studios, based in Summerhill, created by a Polish lady (http://d-lightstudios.com/). Another highly influential project is Joerg, central figure of the Event magazine, browsing through every free event in Dublin and publishing them on the Internet. Joerg is German. And there is the Flea Market, created by a melting pot of Italian and Czech people, recycling initiatives in Ballymun launched by a British team etc etc etc.
Who said immigration was a danger? We are the ones who worked for a lower salary, in not so prestigious jobs during years when we were over qualified. We were the ones creating the Celtic Tiger by providing workforce to the American companies, speaking different languages and being extremely adaptable. We are still here, and it seems we will be the ones pulling the country up again. I think we should have a statue in the middle of O'Connell St acknowledging our highly important role in the Irish society.
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"We were the ones creating the Celtic Tiger by providing workforce to the American companies, speaking different languages and being extremely adaptable. We are still here, and it seems we will be the ones pulling the country up again. I think we should have a statue in the middle of O'Connell St acknowledging our highly important role in the Irish society."
No self promotion huh ? ;-)
Just kidding. Congratulations on what you accomplished.
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