In the latter part of the 20th century, large numbers of emigrants from
Ireland, for the first time, began to return. Who returned? Why? What
are their stories? During the past two years, a team of
researchers have conducted narrative interviews with 92 return migrants
in Ireland, north and south. These interviews now form the basis of a
new oral archive titled Narratives of Migration and Return. The
Project, funded by the Higher Education Authority North-South
Programme, is an all-island collaborative project, involving the
Department of Geography (UCC), the Centre for Migration Studies
(Omagh), Department of Sociology (University of Limerick) and School of
History (Queen's University Belfast).
"The interviews which now form the basis of a new oral archive will be
available to researchers into the future. Together with the project
website, they comprise a valuable all-island research resource", said
Dr Catríona Ní Laoire one of the project researchers.
This unique project explores the experiences of more than 90 return
migrants, from all parts of Ireland and all kinds of backgrounds, in
their own words. Despite the significance of return migration in
contributing to population increase and social change in Ireland since
the early 1990s, little research exists to date on the experiences and
characteristics of return migrants. An understanding of return
migration is vital to understanding recent changes in Irish and
Northern Irish society and culture. It was felt therefore that there
was a need for research that would record and explore the migration
experiences of some of those who left Ireland during the decades of
high emigration in the 1970s and 1980s, and of their experiences of
returning to Ireland at a very different time. It was important to do
this while these experiences were still being lived. In addition, It
was felt that it would be of benefit that experts working on both sides
of the border were involved, in order to provide recognition of the
different migration contexts north and south. At the same time, the
island-wide perspective would enable recognition of the shared
experiences of migration, north and south.
The project therefore aimed to address these issues through recording
life narratives of recent return migrants, and producing online
research material aimed at facilitating an understanding of social
change in Ireland in the late 20th and early 21st centuries through a
focus on individual lives. Life narratives of 92 return migrants were
collected by the three project researchers: Caitríona Ní Laoire and
Liam Coakley (Department of Geography, UCC) and Johanne Devlin Trew
(Centre for Migration Studies/School of History, Queen's University
Belfast). These recorded interviews will be stored in an oral archive
which will be available to researchers and interested parties into the
future, while details of the research process will be available on the
new project website.
The research resource was launched on 10 April 2006 in UCC by Dr
Alistair Thomson from the Centre for Life History Research, University
of Sussex.
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