2 - The Rhetorical, Political and Legislative Framing of Irish Women Emigrants

Summary

In twenty-six years, we have had three Governments, each of which took office loudly (and sincerely) announced its determination to tackle for once and for all the emigration and rural depopulation problems. The first two of those Governments first began to ‘postpone’, then proceeded to hedge and compromise and discover difficulties and, in the course of a few years in power, became strong apologists for and firm supporters of both emigration and rural depopulation. The present Government shows every sign of following the same course.

Memorandum, ‘Origin and Development of the Present Emigration Mania and Catastrophe’, submitted by the playwright Michael J. Molloy, Milltown, Co. Galway, to the Commission on Emigration and Other Population Problems.

Will any Deputy on the opposite side say that it is a good thing that young girls should be allowed to put themselves in a position in which they may find themselves without any control, that they should go to England or any other country without anybody to look after them?

Quote from a speech by Éamon de Valera, Dáil Éireann Debates, vol. 97, col. 2449, 13 July 1945.

From examining the statistical profile of Irish women's migration, we turn now to consider the rhetorical pronouncements made on emigration in general, and women's migration in particular, in the post-independence era. Emigration was debated in the Dáil and Seanad in discussions on the economy, rural depopulation, employment policy and ‘national policy’, sometimes in heated exchanges. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that governmental debates or expressions of opinion by political parties have been raised in interviews with emigrants themselves. We don't know, therefore, what emigrants made of the many public pronouncements on their motivations, behaviours, experiences and desires. The parliamentary debates on emigration have not featured strongly in historical work on the area, despite being mined extensively by those examining the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the 1937 Constitution, for example. They are a fruitful area of research in tracing dominant attitudes at the highest level of government, opinions across political parties and from deputies representing diverse areas, many of which were the key emigration sending sites. Unlike the aims of successive British governments, Irish governments had no interest in promoting emigration for the benefit of the nation; the paradigm for discussing emigration was always one centred on loss, and any suggestions to the contrary were met with rather hysterical condemnation.