The Irish Girl

Reading has left me exhausted, Mary

Many are familiar with the Irish diaspora, in which upwards of one million people fled starvation when a disease wiped out the potato, the staple crop of the poor. Black '47, they called it, the height of the famine in 1847. But the diaspora went on, through the 1800s and beyond, never quite ending until the Celtic Tiger brought prosperity to a very poor country.

More women than men emigrated in those dark days, drawn by opportunity and a chance to get a job. They were willing to work cheap, and so every American home could afford to hire an Irish girl as a maid of all work.

Even families of limited means had the ability to pay the miniscule salary of a girl just off the boat from Ireland. In turn, she would have a place to live and food to eat, which was a better deal than anything she'd left behind. Her small salary could then be sent back to her relations who relied on her income to keep themselves fed.

The Irish girl is back.

McCreery Contract Cleaning is expanding in Dublin and is set to hire fifty people to clean the homes of the well-off who don't have the time to do their own housework. The Irish Times is trumpeting this news as an opportunity for the unemployed, who find themselves in the same situation as their ancestors, except with the dole to fend off starvation. And a council house to fend off eviction.

As in days of old, the cleaners will be screened so that one does not have to allow some undesirable sort into one's home. Wouldn't want an Irish girl coming in with an eye for valuables to be lifted and pawned, would one?

When everyone had an Irish girl, it was common practice to call them all by the name 'Mary', which made it easier for the lady of the house to remember the maid's name. The Irish girls who skivvy for McCreery Contract Cleaning will, no doubt, be allowed to work under their own names, but whether or not the client will be interested in learning that name depends on the client. Many will most likely not be home when the cleaners come, too busy with their social and work activities to spend much time in their lovely houses.

Ireland has come full circle, from grinding poverty to prosperity and back towards grinding poverty. The job offerings have come around as well. Now it's news if a person can land a job as a cleaner.