The grim fifties in Ireland and Cork City

St Patrick's Street, Cork, in the 1950s

Over 500,000 people left independent Ireland between 1945 and 1960. The 1961 Irish Census of population at 2,818, 341 was lower than the 1926 Census. The latter was the first Census of the Irish Free State.

The 1950s: “It Was a Great Time in America” but "Between 1946 and 1961, 531,255 people, almost 17% of the population, left Ireland. Forty per cent of those between the ages of 10 and 19 in 1951 were gone by 1961. Most of the migrants went to Great Britain, but 68,151 left for America during and after World War II (1941–1961).

This piece is an addendum to a personal piece I wrote last year: Michael Hennigan's year of 1953 and 70 years later

Recently I located Google photos of Geraldine Place, which was in the centre of industrial activity in the City of Cork, Ireland.

The rich countries immigration boom and housing crises

EU

According to Eurostat in 2022, legal net migration was 5.1mn people, who immigrated to the EU from non-EU countries, while 1.0mn people emigrated from the EU to destinations outside the EU.

The inflow of immigrants from non-EU countries more than doubled compared to the estimated 2.4mn in 2021. Conversely, the number of EU residents emigrating to countries outside the EU remained stable, with 1.0mn emigrants in 2021.

Note: Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and Liechtenstein did not include refugees from Ukraine who benefit from temporary protection in their population and migration statistics.

1.5mn people previously residing in one EU Member State migrated to another Member State in 2022, an increase of around 7% compared with 2021.

27.3mn people (6.1%) of the 448.8mn people living in the EU on 1 January 2023 were non-EU citizens (the total of foreign-born is double-see below).

The Irish Government has said "Since February 2022 just under 107,000 people have arrived in Ireland as Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2023 approximately 13,000 people applied for International Protection (asylum) in Ireland."

Smart City Index 2024: Dublin at 69th ranking among 142 cities

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564): His cities were Florence and Rome*

IMD World Competitiveness Center (International Institute for Management Development is a business school with campuses in Lausanne, Switzerland and Singapore). 

"Smart cities are a fast-growing species, and a fascinating field for new experiments in a number of critical areas, ranging from urban planning, sustainable energy, and transport strategies to social integration and talent attraction, to name a few. 

As leaders and citizens around the world continue to assess, design, implement and improve on ways to create better cities, they often find themselves confronted with a multitude of decisions and a wide range of partial solutions to specific problems such as traffic congestion, waste management and crime."