Today’s New York Times reports that New York neighbourhoods in the Bronx, Yonkers, and Queens that have traditionally been home to Irish immigrants are seeing both naturalised citizens and illegals who came to the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s returning to Ireland in unprecedented numbers. Such is the scale of the exodus that, according to the paper, “Liffey Van Lines […] had to keep its container loading dock in upper Manhattan open 24 hours a day to meet the demand from families shipping their household goods back to Ireland before school began.”Similar large-scale departures are also being reported from Boston and Philadelphia.The article cites the crackdown on illegal residents stemming from heightened security concerns as well as the lure of a newly prosperous Ireland. One wonders, however, whether an immigrant community leaving in such numbers, albeit returning to another First-World nation, can give an idea of just how troubled the American economy actually is beneath the upbeat headlines. For until now the lure of the American Dream appeared to have been sufficient consolation for the pangs of homesickness. Yet as harried families struggle with bloated healthcare costs and steep fees for their children’s education, the traditional middle-class American existence may be becoming a pursuit only the rich can afford. And it seems that many Irish, after looking hard at the balance sheet, have decided to vote with their feet. (Education and particularly the health service in Ireland are very far from perfect–yet the cost to consumer is probably not the primary problem in either area.)Needless to say those returning to Ireland having cashed in their chips Stateside must be aware that a Brooklyn brownstone does not translate into a mansion in leafy Ballsbridge, or even necessarily a semi-D in Terenure. And with the euro just popping the $1.30 mark, the image of the flush Irish-American returning to lord it over his benighted compatriots is quickly becoming an anachronism. Of course, if the euro goes much higher (and some commentators eying the US trade deficit warn of a potential collapse to $1.70 to a euro) the question will be whether Ireland might see its own mirror-image migration–as American multinationals flee an exorbitantly expensive nation for more accommodating climates in Eastern Europe and beyond.By the way, for those who don’t want to register with the NYT, the same story is available on the International Herald Tribune site.