Robert Carry

The real story of the â€˜Great Famineâ€™

Last update: 12:20 | 25.03.10 | © Metro Éireann

Robert Carry: From the Home Front The 80-millioN-strong Irish diaspora owes its existence in large part to An Gorta Mór – the Great Hunger, or Great Famine – which drove millions of Irish people either abroad or into the grave

The sins of the fathers. Robert Carry: From the Home Front

Last update: 11:48 | 18.03.10 | © Metro Éireann

Belief in Catholi-cism enabled the Irish to survive 800 years of occupation. It helped bind us together, and was jealously guarded when other aspects of our identity – such as our language and culture – were being stripped away.

Nigeriaâ€™s still not a safe place for freedom fighters

Last update: 10:51 | 11.03.10 | © Metro Éireann

Robert Carry: From the Home Front Many opposed to immigration in Ireland point to the fact that large numbers of people from places not suffering from conflict arrive here and claim asylum. Among the most commonly highlighted country in this regard

What happened to gender equality?

Last update: 10:50 | 03.03.10 | © Metro Éireann

Two women are sitting in an office eating Maltesers, discussing the caloric content of their snack. “Only 180 calories?” says a blonde 30-something. “I don’t feel naughty at all now!” With that, she stands up and flashes her

Give a chance to the disadvantaged

Last update: 11:00 | 25.02.10 | © Metro Éireann

Robert Carry: From the Home Front All sections of Irish society have been hurt by the death of the Celtic Tiger and the arrival of our ever-worsening recession – some more so than others.

Screening is the best solution

Last update: 00:10 | 18.02.10 | © Metro Éireann

Robert Carry: From the Home Front It’s two years since I applied for a one-year working holiday visa for Australia. And rather than being the straightforward, exclusively online affair I was expecting, it turned out to be a little more complicated.

Trouble in paradise

Last update: 16:50 | 10.12.09 | © Metro Éireann

My stint in Aus-tralia came to an abrupt end recently when an opportunity to spend some time in my old stomping ground of Thailand presented itself – how could I refuse? A mate of mine I’ve been very close friends with since we were kids was

Meaning from tragedy

Last update: 13:43 | 12.11.09 | © Metro Éireann

Last week a phone call came from the editor of the Irish Echo, a Sydney-based newspaper geared towards Australia’s massive Irish community, which I had freelanced for on occasion. There was an important press conference about to get underway, he said,

Race: a thorny issue

Last update: 09:26 | 05.11.09 | © Metro Éireann

I was on a bus here in Sydney a few days ago when three Indigenous Australians – also known as Aboriginals – got on. The two men and one woman looked middle aged, were shabbily dressed and clearly drunk. They mumbled loudly between themselves and

A storm in a teacup

Last update: 04:24 | 22.10.09 | © Metro Éireann

Exploitation, Oz style

Last update: 02:47 | 17.09.09 | © Metro Éireann

Just over a week into my new career as a vineyard pruner, things were looking grim. Our merry band had been promised several months of continuous work on a number of vineyards, but we were soon close to finishing our first plot and details beyond that were sketchy.

The hard work begins

Last update: 15:59 | 10.09.09 | © Metro Éireann

Pitching a tent in the dark wasn’t quite the gargantuan challenge I expected it to be, even following my late evening’s adventures after getting lost on the way there, so I was soon nodding off ahead of my first day’s work on an Australian

Danger in the outback

Last update: 13:34 | 03.09.09 | © Metro Éireann

My job search soon led me to discover I was living in a parallel universe in which casual farm labourers earned more than journalists. It seemed a career change was in order, so I secured a position working on a vineyard without too much hassle, and once I had

Toiling in the fields of Oz

Perth’s backpacker-land is flooded with Irish people, and although personal experience is not always a representative sample, I was forming the belief that the Irish/non-Irish ratio was greener in Perth’s Northbridge than on Dublin’s O’Connell

The work search begins

It’s 8am on my first day living in Australia, and I’m dragging my luggage through an unfamiliar neighbourhood in search of accommodation. It’s a strange feeling having your life in a bag and not knowing where you’re headed, but in my

A rotten welcome to Oz

The last flight of my long journey finally touched down, and at last – after stopping off in England, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore – I was in Australia.

Singaporeâ€™s knocking shop

I suffered a disorienting start to my time in Singapore, the little rich kid and multicultural poster boy of southeast Asia. It began when I booked a room in Hotel 81 on the city’s Geylang Road, only to find that there were in fact eight Hotel 81s along

Weirdness abounds in the â€˜Lion Cityâ€™

My visit to Phnom Penh’s city dump, while upsetting, was not enough to put me off Cambodia, and as my flight to Singapore trundled down the runway I was determined to return for something longer than a holiday.

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