PJ Kirby: How to make your friendships withstand long distances now everyone’s emigrating again

Although your racist cousin in the ‘Ireland is Full’ group on Facebook overlooks it, Irish people have a rich history when it comes to emigration. From as early as 1603, Irish people have been emigrating to find opportunities in new lands; fleeing war and oppression and seeking political asylum. Whether they landed in America, Australia or the big smoke, they worked hard, laid roots and sent money back home.

Nowadays this has resulted in around 80 million people around the world having Irish heritage and the odds of an American shouting “you know I’m Irish too, right?” in your ear on St. Patrick’s Day is much more likely. Our history, combined with a government that puts more effort into a bike shed than it does on the welfare of young people, has driven even more to emigrate. In 2024, 34,700 Irish citizens have emigrated, which is a 14% increase on 2023. As emigration numbers rise, I find that once a month, along with the charge for my Apple TV subscription that I keep forgetting to cancel, I’m almost guaranteed to receive an invite to one of my friends’ going away parties. As we drunkenly clasp each other’s faces in the smoking area and promise to stay in touch, I always wonder in the back of my head are we (and pardon the Hercules reference) going to go the distance.

I’m not great at keeping in contact with people. Friends who need constant reassurance and validation kind of give me the ick, if I’m being honest. Don’t get me wrong, if my friend rings me in need, I’m there in a heartbeat with a shovel to bury the body or a tissue for the tears, whatever the moment calls for. But in my experience, it’s the low-maintenance friendships that last the longest. This rings even more true for childhood friends. As you grow older you grow individually, but this doesn’t mean you need to grow apart. Growing separately, however, does mean that you will arrive at life stages at different times and the distance between you could feel greater in those moments.

While living in London for 10 years, I worried that I was drifting from my friends back home. My friend Dylan, for example, now had two kids and a mortgage while I couldn’t figure out what day they collected the bins in my area. Our daily lives were so different. Bottle service for me was in a club with sparklers sticking out of vodka and for him was in the kitchen with a crying baby and steriliser, though both iterations probably were happening at 3am. We didn’t have much in common during that time but what we did have was our friendship. The bond we have, the laughs shared and the stories I can’t type because of the legal ramifications that would ensue. We didn’t text loads during that time and still don’t, but when we meet up it’s like nothing has changed. We catch each other up on the latest chapter of our lives and I take solace in the fact that when I do have a baby, he can show me how not to break it.

If you have a friend emigrating or if you’re the one fecking off, don’t stress. The right type of friendship will withstand the distance and differences that come as a result. Sure, you might grow at different speeds and even start asking yourself why they’ve started speaking with an American twang even though they’ve only lived in Bushwick for three months, but you can bate that out of them down the line. For now, just be there for each other, it’s a tough ole world and good friends are few and far between. Try to be happy for your friend, even if it’s lashing rain in Ireland and they’re sharing stories from a beach in Sydney with a hot Aussie. At least you’ve access to Taytos and a decent pint of Guinness. Okay, maybe you can hate on them a small bit.

Photography by Arman Jose Galang, @arman.jose.galang.

I’m Grand Mam Presents: That’s Showbiz is touring in Australia. Tickets are available here.