Website lets you buy piece of Ireland for $50 - cashing in on Irish American nostalgia? - VIDEO

Irish plots, soil, available ahead of The Gathering

First it was acreage on the moon, now it's dinky one square foot plots of sod nestled somewhere in rural Ireland.

BuyIreland.com is one of several online Irish retailers stepping up their effort to make a quick buck from Irish-American nostalgia for the 'Emerald Isle' - taking a lead, no doubt, from government-sponsored initiatives like the controversial Certificate of Irish Heritage and that even more divisive initiative, The Gathering.

Founded by two Limerick businessmen in 2003, the website, allows willing customers a 20 year leasehold legal interest in the miniscule holdings, and is a sort of natural addition to web-based earth retailer officialirishdirt.com - covered in a 2007 article by the New York Times.

Like competitor APieceofIreland.com, it's questionable whether the tiny sum needed to make the purchase actually gives the customer long-term legal ownership of the land, but as a novelty gift it's more than enough to satisfy most punters.

That venture, itself operating since 2007, is one of a growing number of websites specializing in the retail of bags of the 'aul sod', as Irish ground is sometimes affectionately referred to as.

The business is one of only two such retailers to have been granted permission from the USDA to import foreign soil, a potentially dangerous vector for germs and insects, to the US; the other is an Israeli company offering Jerusalem dirt, according to Corey Kilgannon of the New York Times.


BuyIreland.com's customers certainly can't complain about the price.

Free worldwide shipping is included as standard in the meager  $50 price-tag, which covers both the cost of the mini plot itself and the dispatch of a map showing precisely where your modest acquisition is actually located in the back and beyonds.


But what's driving this strange fetish for all things Irish soil?

Besides sentimentality, retailers say the certificates showing claim to the one square metre lots of ground are a valuable means for families to teach children about their Irish heritage, and to feel a connection to the home turf.

The soil and dirt retailers say customers' desire to have Irish gruond sprinkled over their ex-pat graves - often in cemeteries in locales as far-flung as Australia and South America -  is a growing part of their market.

Clearly the market can also be big business: the New York Times article cited the case of one eccentric Cork-man who bought a six figure sum of the dirt just to fill his American grave with sod from the Rebel County.

London's young Irish immigrants hopeful for a brighter future at networking event

Ambassador Bobby McDonagh spoke of bilateral relationship,
and the young Irish experience in London, at Embassy do.

Ireland's latest crop of London-based emigrées convened for a night of handshaking, discussion, and mutual support, at a networking event held at the Irish Embassy in central London on Tuesday evening.

The event marked the last major appointment on the recently founded London Irish Graduate Network's (LIGN) busy 2012 calendar, which featured a wide series of networking opportunities, business meetings, and more informal affairs.

The network, founded in 2010, is the first London-based Irish network created specifically for recent graduates, something which board member Chris Murnane says underscores just how vast the numbers of young Irish flocking to the city has become.

"Unfortunately we're dealing with a tidal wave of emigration from Ireland that shows no signs of letting up," Murnane, a recent law graduate from University College Cork (UCC), commented.

"Some young graduates arrive in London by choice, but we're seeing many others come here after arriving at the conclusion that staying in Ireland just isn't an option career-wise."

"Our role at the LIGN is to facilitate young professionals' easy integration into London society, and particularly to create for them a network of like-minded individuals who are all seeking broadly the same thing, namely securing paid employment, finding a reasonably-priced place to live, and networking with other young Irish who also happen to find themselves in London."

"We're seeing a sharp increase in the numbers of Irish coming here looking to get into more professional sectors of the economy such as legal services, accountancy, and banking, and changes in traditional settlement patterns within the City itself, but just about everybody stands to benefit from meeting other people with similar needs and interests."

"Moving to a big city like London can be daunting, and although there are several other Irish networks operating in the city, LIGN is the first one targeted specifically for this age bracket and stage in life. We feel that it's fulfilling a valuable need."

The evening was kicked off with a speech by resident Ambassador Bobby McDonagh who praised the networks' young founders - graduate business students at Cass University, a popular city-center school - for their ingenuity in setting up the network, and spoke of a 'new era' in relations between Ireland and its closest neighbour.

"Historically, things have sometimes been difficult between us and the UK, but I think it's now safe to say that we're the best of friends."

"Networks such as the LIGN make a  more than worthwhile contribution to the lives of young professionals living, studying, or working, in the City," the career diplomat, in his fourth and final year in London, added.

One eager networker at the event, Robert Murphy, a recent commerce graduate from a Dublin university, said that he'd made some valuable contacts during the two hour mingling session held in the Embassy's main reception room, at which he'd had a chance encounter with someone from his hometown.

"I was lucky enough to meet another Galwegian who's working in more or less the same kind of accountancy work that I'm looking to get into."

"We grew up only a few miles from each other, and moved over here at roughly the same time, but there's probably little chance that we'd have knocked into each other if it hadn't been for this event."

"We exchanged business cards and if there are any openings at his firm I'm hopeful that he'll drop me a line."

Sarah Shanahan, from Cork, agreed that the evening had been a worthwhile experience, and looked forward to future events.

"I've only been living here for three weeks, so while the tips on the job hunt I got from others were useful, I was just as pleased to take advice about finding a place, or even just getting around London."

"It's comforting to know that there are countless other Irish my age out there and going through exactly the same thing. It's definitely something I'd go to again."

Starving students faced with college drop-out amid rising tuition costs in Ireland

Starving Irish students could be forced to drop out
if further fee increases are forthcoming, claim leaders.

Starving students are barely able to eat and pay rent, Irish student union leaders have claimed, ahead of a renewed wave of fees protests ahead of the next Budget.

The latest round of student protests in Ireland come as many full-time college students consider dropping out of college, and look with dread to an impending Budget which is likely to see a further increase in tuition fees.

Since reneging on a historical pledge to leading student education campaigners, Ireland's hapless Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn TD, has been forced to commit to a hotly unpopular programme of annual increases in college fees which parents and families say they simply cannot afford.

Savage cuts to key student support measures and a faltering grants payments system have compounded the difficulties students face in staying in college, students have claimed.

Despite Ireland's near rock bottom level tuition fees (students can pay as little as $2,100 dollars for a year of full-time college education) students have consistently railed against what they perceive as crippling government measures that they say will only serve to stymie any possible economic recovery for Ireland.

Student union leaders, among them UCC Student Union Welfare Officer Dave Carey, have cited educational advancement, and the promotion of hard skills such as mathematics and hi-tech training,  as key ways out of Ireland's economic blackhole -- and lucrative incentives for foreign corporations, predominantly American, to reinvest in Ireland.

Government policy aimed at fostering a culture of excellence in science and number intensive industries could be scuppered by these measures, the student spokespersons have claimed.

The latest wave of protests coordinated by national union the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) yesterday saw hundreds of students march to local politicians beseeching them to raise a voice in what they claim has been a debate on third level funding which has totally ignored the rights of students to an affordable third level education.

Hundreds of students in Cork protested outside local Fine Gael politician Jerry Buttimer TD, urging him and other Deputies to take a stand against a one-sided government programme of fees increases.

Dave Carey, of UCC Students Union, underscored the urgency of the situation, saying that he and other welfare case officers at the university, which counts a student enrollment of almost 19,000,  have seen a sharp rise in students seeking emergency financial aid packages offered by the European Union.

"Students are finding it increasingly hard to survive," the Union's President, Eoghan Healy, also commented.

University presidents themselves, however, have generally adopted the flip-side of the argument, citing diminishing central government funding and increasing student enrollment figures as factors contributing to create an almost impossibly difficult financial climate in which to run a university.

University College Cork's current president, Dr Michael Murphy, has himself been an outspoken advocate for fee increases, saying they are a necessary evil to ensure a quality education for those attending the institution.

Although precise figures on the number of students dropping out of third level education due to financial issues is impossible to quantify, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) say the number is already high and could rise further if additional increases are made to the cost of attending third level.