Growing up in Ireland, almost everyone had an uncle, cousin, or family friend who moved to America at a young age. These people established a good life for themselves and visited “home” every once in a while.
These individuals often carried an aura of mystique, perhaps due to their softened accents, lack of paleness, and whirlwind holidays to Ireland. Could these diluted Irish-American accents be overtaken by Irish-Australian twangs by 2050? (Scarily, only 26 years away 😱).
In the last few weeks alone, two prominent Australian news outlets have covered the incredible surge in Irish travellers and professionals who moved to Australia in 2023.
Between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, the Australian Department of Home Affairs granted 21,525 working holiday visas to Irish citizens. This has more than doubled the previous year’s allocation of 10,491. Living on the ground, I am incredibly confident that the 21,525 number will easily surpass the 2023 statistics.
Remarkably, these figures exclude those who come over with a job and visa already secured or anyone from Northern Ireland with a British passport. To put this in perspective the United Kingdom was granted 38,177 visas in the same period.
The extent of this exodus is outlined by Paul Minton, who founded Lemon Talent. They specialize in placing emigrants in sought-after professional services roles:
The surge of migrants coming to Australia over the last few months has been crazy. We receive messages daily from accountants and management consultants who have arrived in Sydney and are looking to start work.
Paul Minton, Founder of Lemon Talent
Moving to Australia is certainly not a new thing, especially for professionals. There is an incredible network of executives and start-up founders like Paul who have already achieved so much.
However, given the burgeoning trend of Irish people moving to Australia, will it (or has it already?) overtake the United States as the premier location for Irish emigrants?