Little to do: Revisited

In November of last year the Social Welfare office on the Navan Road was dotted with twenty-somethings inclined to creative aspirations spurred by the whip of the dole queue. Saturated with supposed gloom to look forward to, these young people chose to explore the opportunities put upon them. We are perhaps still waiting for the Commitments cinema moment to encapsulate the mood of a nation, though the recession-induced creativity from which that film was spawned is doing similar things in the depths of this downturn. For that group of young people spoken to in the signing-on queue on the second Wednesday of the month back in November things have changed.

Young people across every strand of society have effectively been afforded two options. The easy option (for those without obligations) is to leave; with the road less travelled being the one at home. For those who stay, finding a means or reason to hang about can be difficult but in that difficulty there germinates an artistry and enterprise that bodes well for this country’s future. With the improving weather, and buoyed by a thorough spring clean in Dáil Eireann, it seems a there is an optimism about the air now, perhaps only a glimmer yet, but it does seem to be there.

A return to the bright and airy social welfare office on the Navan Road finds that an improvement in circumstances, albeit not necessarily a financial one. Back in November, they who were supposed to have little to do were investing time and energy into personal pursuits which are now yielding reward. Rather than continue to waste their educations in welfare lines, these particular twenty-something graduates have seen some fruition to the creative endeavours induced on them.

Graduate architect Robin Jardine had been experimenting with cider-making in November, deciding to take a sabbatical from a career in architecture for the time being. Since then the cider has matured, and there are but four or five bottles left of the last batch remaining. He took the lack of jobs in a profession with 70% unemployment as an opportunity to see if making cider was something he could do. He collected wine and beer bottles, designed and made three different labels for each different cider and distributed them amongst his friends and family. He has gone on to do a two-month apprenticeship with cider maker David Llewellyn at Lusk in north County Dublin. He still sees cider as more of a hobby than enterprise, though if circumstance were different he says he may reconsider.

Carl Giffney is a recent NCAD graduate, and he along with Ruth Lyons have been taking part in the restoration of 18th Century Clonearl House on the Westmeath-Offally border in return for which they are afforded a studio base from where they can work. Eileen Hanlon owns the property and has a vision to restore it and set up a variety of creative uses occupied in the complex of buildings on site. She proposes that the former workshop, brewhouse and painthouse could all be re-imagined as creative spaces, artisan workshops, forges, photographers’ or artists’ studios and even a return to brewing. Indeed Robin Jardine has considered the possibility of using the recently planted Clonearl orchard for his next batch of cider.

For those others spoken to last November not quite as lent to artisan pursuits, though no less creative ones, many of their situations have also changed for the better. Roisín Grimes will not be attending today. She had previously been volunteering with Citywise in Ballymun between sending out cvs, she still visits but has since been accepted and begun a full-time masters degree in primary school teaching. Kieran Flood had also been forced to volunteer to occupy time between job rejections. He spent some time learning his profession with the Irish Wildlife Trust but is expecting March to be his last visit to the Navan Road welfare office for quite a while as he has been commissioned by the Trust to undertake broadened reports on the declining newt population of Ireland.

Since signing-on day in the Navan Road Social Welfare office last November and this week in mid-March, currents statistics say that in the region of 20,000 young people will have emigrated. That is a lot of wasted talent. By some good grace though, some are choosing (or even trying) to stay and exploring all pipedreams and opportunities as they ‘emerge’ as adults. In this post-election optimism, the mess remains though now there appears some semblance of hope where young people clutch at straws yielding all sorts of possibility.