Jean's Journal: These are different times

By Jean Farrell

'Europe Is Dying,' announced a headline in a paper recently. I was quite shocked to read this.

What the article was referred to is the fact that the birth rate is falling drastically in every European country. We are not replacing ourselves at all, so we are 'dying'.

The reasons were discussed at length in the article. Unlike long ago, women are not prepared to have numerous children anymore, and how right they are! The availability of contraceptives gives them a choice that they didn't have in the past.

Mrs Ann McStay, Housewife of the Year in 1969, went on to have two more children - 13 in total. Europe was kept 'alive' by mothers like her! (The photo used below is in my new book, alongside an article about our wonderful Irish Mammies).

In the past, most women didn't get a chance to avail of third level education. Now they do. They go on to have interesting careers that they enjoy. Many seem to be making the conscious decision not to have children.

The article stated that for young couples, their financial situation is a real issue, also. They basically can't afford to have more than one or two children. Mortgage repayments and child-care are just too expensive.

This leads to many problems. One is that there will not be enough people on this continent to work. And the solution to this pressing problem is obvious. Europe needs immigrants. And therein lies more problems, as we know.

I was chatting to a man my age, from Donegal, lately. As a young teenager, he and his many friends spent all their summers in Scotland. There, they picked potatoes from dawn until dusk.

"The Scottish people weren't prepared to do this menial task," he told me. "So, we Irish did it for them."

Wasn't it the very same with rebuilding London after the war, in the early 1950s? The eldest son in the family inherited the small farm here. His many brothers and sisters had to head to England for work. There, lots of them did the menial jobs that the English weren't prepared to do.

And wasn't it the same for all the starving Irish people who headed to America, during and after the famine? There, as immigrants, they were glad to get any work at all. The fact that they were white and could speak English was a huge advantage to them.

Many missed their homeland very much, as we know from the ballads they sang. "My feet are here on Broadway, this blessed harvest morn, but oh the ache that's in them for the spot where I was born."

There are people in our town now from all over the world. I often watch them and wonder are they missing their homeland too, as they walk amongst us. How unwelcome they must feel as they hear the abuse hurled at them by some.

A lot of these immigrants, from all over Europe, are doing the menial tasks now that we won't do. Some of these immigrants work in top positions in our hospitals, too, and we'd be lost without them.

Whatever our opinion is on immigrants arriving, the bottom line is that they are needed badly. Without them Europe will 'die' for want of people.

I wrote recently about having worked with parents, for a few years, before I retired. It was in December 2000 that the first big influx of immigrants arrived into Ireland. One hundred mobile homes were set up to house them, in Cornamaddy. A lot of their children came into our school.

In my role as Home School Liaison Teacher, I went out to visit many of these mothers, in their small mobiles homes. They were mainly from Africa and had come here without their menfolk.

Their English wasn't great and some seemed terrified. Heavy snow fell that December. They had never seen snow before and most didn't know where they were. They seemed absolutely shell-shocked!

The parents' room in our school was great. Gradually, some of these mothers came into town by bus and attended classes there. We had arts and craft type activities, as well as English classes. They mixed with Irish parents. They could see where their children were being taught and meet their teachers.

Even though I'm over thirteen years retired, would you believe that I still meet parents whom I visited. Only yesterday, a granny stopped me, in Penneys, to share good news about her granddaughter, whom we both worried about. I was very happy to chat to her and know that all was well now.

I meet one of the African women too, often. A good friend of mine is in a local nursing home, sadly. Whenever I visit her I meet my African friend. She arrived here, in 2000, with three small daughters.

One of these girls is now a doctor in Portlaoise Hospital, another is a nurse in a Sligo and her third is studying accountancy in college. Their mother works, seven day a week, in this local nursing home. Our country has definitely benefited from that family's arrival here, 24 years ago.

There are many families like them. Tolerance and respect are what is needed badly.

I have been invited, by a local ICA guild, to read some articles from my new book. If any of you are in an organisations of folk my age, I'd be delighted to come along and read for you too!

* My book, 'Jean's Journal 2' is on sale in local shops or by contacting me at: jeanfarrell@live.ie