A Question for my Irish Readers...

[ecosophia]

...and those in England as well, come to think of it. The not particularly "super" supermarket (submarket?) where I shop has an ethnic foods aisle which, unlike many members of the same species, isn't primarily a place for whitebread Americans to sample exotic (to them) foodstuffs. It's a place for immigrants or members of ethnic subcultures to buy familiar foods that you mostly can't get in US stores. Up to now it's been pretty much what you'd expect: a very good selection of Portuguese foods (plenty of families in this part of New England came from Portuguese-speaking countries, and East Providence in particular has a lot of Cape Verdeans and Azoreans), an even bigger selection of Mexican foods, some foods from other Hispanic countries, a decent collection of Japanese and Korean foods, a decent collection of Indian-subcontinent foods, and a Jewish section with some of the classic Jewish foods. 

The store just rearranged its shelves, and there's a new section in the ethnic foods aisle. Batchelors' canned beans and mushy peas, Marmite, Barry's Irish tea, McVities' Digestive Biscuits. Devonshire cream custard. 

Yeah. Irish and, to a lesser extent, English food. 

Do any of you happen to know if there's some kind of quiet exodus from Ireland and, possibly, England as well to Rhode Island -- and if so, why? 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm in Dublin, I haven't noticed a huge increase in emigration, but a lot of young people leave to work abroad for a few years at least. The housing crisis is really bad here, the rents are mental. I've only heard of one person who moved to the US in the last decade, and he only moved because he married an American. Most young people move to Australia, Canada or Dubai.