Abroad

Leaving New York, the Irish in Asia, and the animator working for Warner Bros

Top stories from Irish Times Abroad this week

Tired of New York, Katie Lynch wants to be a Dub again. Photograph: iStock/Getty Images

Ciara Kenny's face
Ciara Kenny
Thu Aug 2 2018 - 05:00

The Irish in Asia are generally very highly educated, and very well-connected to Ireland, according to a new survey of almost 800 people by the Department of Foreign Affairs published last week. While the survey revealed some interesting figures around the industries they worked in, their age profile, and whether they engage in Irish community activities, it didn't share any personal experiences. So Irish Times Abroad asked readers living in Asia to tell us their stories: when did they leave Ireland, why did they choose Asia, where do they live now and what is life there like? Here's what some of them had to say.

"I've lived away for three years and have never had such an unquenchable desire to go home," writes Katie Lynch in our most-read story this week, as she packs her bags and prepares to leave New York.

Are you living or holidaying in Europe? With temperatures forecast to surpass the 48C record across the Iberian peninsula this weekend, we want to hear from readers about how they are handling the heat.

The son of an Irish immigrant from Co Tipperary, Bob Clampett grew up next door to Charlie Chaplin in Hollywood. As an adult he worked for Warner Bros, animating the first Daffy Duck and Tweety with his unique, wacky style, and is credited as putting the looney into Looney Tunes: he is this week's Extraordinary Emigrant.

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James O'Neill did well for a poor, Irish emigrant who arrived in America on a coffin ship, but his son Eugene did rather better. He is still the only American dramatist to have been awarded the Nobel Prize, which he won in 1936 . A new festival in New Ross in Co Wexford, linked with a long-established one in California, will celebrate the playwright's Irish heritage - and the cultural link between Ireland and the US - this October.

"When you're training in Ireland you have a very pessimistic outlook of the future . . . I didn't see any future in Ireland. I felt that I had to go abroad and make the most of it over there," says one of several GPs interviewed for a feature on why so many doctors are leaving Ireland.

Ceire Sadlier, who spent years living in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania, finds out why the Wild Geese Irish diaspora organisations there aren't what they used to be, Claire Connell shares her experience of a gratifying career in speech therapy in Portland, Oregon, and we meet Martin O'Brien, the Irishman in California who founded the longest-running medical cannabis dispensary in the world.

You'll find plenty more stories by and about the Irish diaspora this week on irishtimes.com/abroad.

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