Two of the best flee to the rest.

I often wonder about the accuracy of the emigration figures and just exactly how they are compiled.In relation to the native Irish ,I think that they are greatly understated.Certainly the evidence of my own eyes and ears suggests that this is so.
One neighbouring GAA Club has just one player remaining in the country from a very successful under 16 football team of fifteen of seven years ago.Another neighbouring Club has lost nine adult players  since last year and two have returned leaving a net loss of seven.These are small populated rural clubs,like ourselves.
The lost generation of those in their twenties,the anguish of parents bereft of their children and grandchildren,the brutalisation of the populace by the imposition of austerity ,the inability of the middle aged and elderly to sustain any decent level of lifestyle, the plague of suicides,the granting of increasingly draconian powers to Government agencies ,the attempt of the Government to bully the judiciary into submission and to make it just a rubber stamp for Government ,the lack of decent employment for nearly half a million people,the fear of losing your home,the impossibility of those without homes of securing one and marrying and raising a family,the relentless pursuit of those who owe money and have nothing and never will if they stay here,the determined attempts of Government to turn the populace into informers on their neighbours ,the total abandonment of hope by the majority of decent people,the denigration of religion by a largely bigoted electronic and printed media and certain politicians and academics and the tired untrue cliches about the return of green shoots by the jigger pokers ,have kick started the exodus from the country of the next generation up,viz.those in their thirties and indeed older.
I had cottoned onto this trend some time ago.It is now gaining momentum.This generation just can take no more. Still living at home with the folks,mad willing for work of which there is none,no prospects of settling down here because they will never have a roof of their own over their  heads and facing the prospect of never being able to afford to have children if they stay here,e are voting with their feet and heading of as far as they can get.
This week we lost two of the finest people I know to the emigrant plane.Both in their thirties .Both who burst themselves when work was to be got. Both with loving families and at the heart of communities that can ill afford their loss.That mourn their loss.
No decent society can afford the continuing  loss of such decent people .
I am beginning to wonder if the three principles Hitler enunciated when he invaded Russia during the 1940's are  being deliberately implemented here.These are "Rule ","Administer," "Exploit".
There is no other reason for the imposition of such misery on us.Nor any need for it.
To Keith and Sean bon voyage.