LIAM O’Connor is part of the over 100,000 Irish people who now call Australia home.
In 2012, he left Kilmaley for the shores of Australia, just one of the 80,000 people who emigrated from Ireland that year.
“It’s a long story. I was looking for new opportunities, things were quiet here at the time. Everyone else was gone so I said I’d go and have a look. 2012 there wasn’t a lot going on but I always had enough to be doing. I started off working on building sites and driving machines, worked all over the city and regional Australia,” Liam told The Clare Echo.
Kilmaley’s Liam now runs O’Connor Contracting, a machinery and contracting business based in Perth. The Western Australia capital city is home to more than 16,000 Irish emigrants and is a popular spot for Clare’s emigrants. “There’s a mix of everything going on, there’s a lot of people landing over there. They’re from all over Ireland. England, Australia itself, New Zealand, Tasmania. Lads would travel from over east, west Australia and vice versa wherever there’s a good run of work on”.
Liam started his business a year after he first landed in Australia, specialising in all kinds of machinery, working his way up from small machines to a wide variety of trucks and 50 tonne CAT excavators. The machines are mainly used in roadworks and mining operations with some costing as much as $500,000. Liam’s firm regularly covers distances of over 1000km to deliver machinery to the most remote parts of Western Australia. He says that while the southern hemisphere is full of opportunities, it’s still hard work. “The first few years it was quiet in West Australia right up until 2018 and 19 it started picking up a bit, there’s always work there. It was slow back then, there was a downturn from 2010 on and it only started picking up in 2018/19 so since then it’s been busy”.
O’Connor said that the perception of Australia that most Irish people have is untrue. “That’s the thing but that’s painting a picture, next thing you realise you have to work. That’s not suiting everyone”.
Irish people can suffer a culture shock when they first land Down Under. Those who enter the country on a working holiday visa must complete 88 days of “specified” or “regional work” in remote parts of Australia such as Tasmania, formerly Van Diemen’s land, a penal colony established in 1803 where many Irish prisoners were sent by Britain. The work can be very demanding physically with emigrants often working on large scale dairy and beef farms, some in excess of 600 cattle.
In spite of the harsh realities, Irish people continue to head abroad in record numbers with Australia, Canada and Dubai proving the most popular destinations at the moment. O’Connor says that the cost of living and lack of opportunities is what’s driving the current high rates of emigration. The Australian bubble can’t last forever though, he warns. “There’s definitely going to be a wind back. It depends on the mines and the Chinese markets and what they want. If they have a big demand for stuff, Australia is busy because it’s got a lot of resources, a lot of the work depends on that, at the minute that’s booming”.
Australia’s cost of living is continuing to rise. Many Irish people travel to Australia for Fly In Fly Out or FIFO work. These is an extremely demanding form of employment where workers are flown out to mines in the most remote parts of the country, working 12 hour days for a period of two weeks followed by a week off. While the pay is good at $58 or €32 an hour, many people complain of long hours and lack of recreational activities at the mining sites.
Clare people such as Liam have been a constant part of Australian history. In 1842, Edward Burton Gleeson established the town of Clare, close to Adelaide in South Australia, naming his home house Inchiquin and serving as the town’s first mayor. Today, the area is a popular wine region and offers many hiking trails for tourists.
Despite the huge success of his business in Australia, Liam still plans to return home to Kilmaley one day. He regularly returns to his family’s farm in Derrynacarra which he continues to run with his father, managing his business abroad online when he is based in Clare.
