Carlow ranks eighth in Ireland for Australia escape dreams
Young Carlovians are interested in life on the Gold Coast. Image: iStock
Carlow’s young people are among the most Australia-obsessed in the country, with the county ranking eighth nationally for searches related to working holidays and life Down Under, according to new research.
The findings come from USIT, Ireland’s leading specialist in student travel and working-holiday programmes, which analysed a year of Google search data across Australia-related terms and weighted the results against each county’s population aged 18 to 35, which is the group eligible for Australia’s main working holiday visa.
In Carlow, that works out at 180 searches per 10,000 young people and an escape index score of 49.5 out of 100.
The research comes against a backdrop of surging emigration to Australia. Around 13,500 people moved from Ireland to Australia in the year to April 2025 - up 27% on the previous year and almost three times the 2023 figure, according to the CSO. It is the highest number since 2013.
USIT’s analysis covered search terms ranging from ‘working holiday visa Australia’ and ‘jobs in Australia’ to ‘cost of living Australia’ and searches about moving to Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne.
Topping the national table is Longford, where Australia-related searches run at 363 per 10,000 residents aged 18 to 35. Leitrim comes second with 280 searches per 10,000 young people, followed by Galway in third with 226. Dublin ranks fourth and Wexford fifth, with Donegal, Meath and Carlow completing the top eight.
Neighbouring Kilkenny comes tenth on the escape index, with a young population of nearly 19,905 in the 18-to-35 age bracket.
Lisa Collender, head of Ireland & advocacy at USIT, said the research demonstrated how widely the ambition to emigrate was shared across the country. “Every year we see thousands of young people from every corner of Ireland take the leap and head to Australia,” she said.
