“We’re a bit of a wandering tribe, the Irish,” Kingsley Aikens, CEO of Dublin-based consultancy Diaspora Matters, told CNBC in a phone call. “Ireland is an island off an island off of Europe — we want to see the world.”
Aikens, who is Irish-born and spent 25 years living in Boston and Sydney, Australia, before returning home nine years ago, doesn’t see the American diaspora returning in big numbers. But he said that for those who do, it’s a combination of family connections, new opportunities and lifestyle choice.
“Obviously, the economy is having an effect because it’s sucking people back,” he said.
In 2015, after recovering from a prolonged recession, the government launched ‘Global Irish,’ a program aimed at bringing back some of the estimated 240,000 Irish who left during the 2008 financial crisis. By 2014, the country had rebounded to become one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe.
Other efforts included the International Entrepreneur Fund, launched by Ireland’s American Chamber of Commerce, which last year provided €30 million ($35.8 million) in startup funding for returning expats.
“Countries are realizing they have value in these diasporas,” Kingsley said. “Diaspora capital is made of three flows: money, people and knowledge.
“They are not lost actors anymore. Thanks to improved interconnectedness, travel and communication, they can now be national actors.”
These national actors include Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, a fourth-generation Irish-American who in July confirmed that Dublin would be the banking giant’s EU hub.
‘A huge mindset change’
Many more Irish beyond those in the U.S. have returned home in recent years. Between April 2016 and April 2017, the CSO reported that 27,000 Irish nationals returned home from around the world.
Still, more Irish nationals are leaving the country than returning. In that same period, 30,800 moved away. But there has been an 85 percent decrease in the net outward migration of Irish nationals since 2012, when 49,700 left and only 20,100 returned. The enduring challenge, government officials say, is to keep creating the types of jobs and opportunities that attract young people.
Kieran Furlong, who grew up in Ireland, spent nearly his entire professional life in the U.S. before returning this year to launch the European office of Finistere Ventures, a U.S.-headquartered agri-tech venture capital firm.
“When I left Ireland in 1998, Grand Canal Dock, which is our ‘silicon dock,’ had one new building,” he said. “Now Google, Facebook, Airbnb are all there — there’s a well-established path from Silicon Valley.
“There’s been a huge mindset change here since the 1990s. People used to take the safe jobs, but now there is this huge enthusiasm for startups and innovation. We’re finally moving Ireland up the rankings of scientific R&D output.”
Of course, making a transatlantic move comes with its challenges, financial and cultural. But for Norton, the transition seems to have worked out.
“My wife and I joke that It’s ‘expat lite,'” he said, laughing. “You’re in another country, but it’s pretty close. The jokes all translate, you’ve even got the same brands and products.”
“It doesn’t feel like it’s far away from home,” he said. “Makes it that much easier to live across the ocean.”
