Ireland has suffered through the British, the potato famine, mass migrations and now the latest blight - Dell, the country's biggest exporter, accounting for 5% of its gross domestic product, deciding to pull up stakes and transfer all its EMEA manufacturing to its new factory in Poland and Asian subcontractors in the name of becoming more competitive on the back of cheap labor.

The transition, which will start in April, is expected to take until next January to complete and cost the Irish 1,900 jobs that will be hard if not impossible to replace.

Ireland was the first of the euro-zone countries to slip into recession last year and unemployment is currently believed to be headed for at least 10%.

Dell expects to continue to operate a so-called Global Innovation Solution Center and EMEA Command Center in Limerick, the site of the soon-to-be-shuttered factory, and a sales and marketing operation in Dublin. It figures 1,100 jobs will stay in the Irish backwater and another 1,300 in the capital - at least for now.

Limerick is expected to continue to coordinate EMEA manufacturing, logistics and supply chain involving product development, engineering and procurement.

Attracted by government subsidies, Dell made Ireland its European production base in 1990. Up until Thursday's announcement, it was still the country's second-largest employer, with economists calculating that each Dell job underpins four or five other jobs.

The AP says wages in Poland are at least two-thirds what they are now in Ireland, where a living wage is a relatively new invention.

The Limerick closure is part of Dell's $3 billion restructuring program announced last year. Dell ignored Christmastime pleas by the Irish government to save jobs.