From ‘flood’ to ‘trickle’: Irish migration to Britain 1987–2006

Abstract

A dramatic change in the size and direction of emigration from Ireland has taken place over the past 20 years. The most striking feature is the sharp decline in movement to Britain from the Republic of Ireland, a traditional supplier of labour for well over 200 years. By contrast there has been a small increase in emigration from Northern Ireland, an important element of which is higher education students from Protestant backgrounds, who may be permanent migrants. Detailed statistics available from the Central Statistics Office of the Republic of Ireland show that proportionately more women have left as gross numbers have declined. This reflects the persistence of social, rather than predominantly economic, causes of emigration, also evident in the range of socially excluded people for whom Britain represents a 'safety valve'. Two groups now characterise the Irish population in Britain; the ageing 1950s cohort and their children and grandchildren, the large second and third generations.

Whose Day Is It Anyway? St. Patrick's Day as a Contested Performance of National and Diasporic Irishness

“…While the large community parades of the 1950s and 1960s were largely associated with the wave of Irish migrants who arrived in England in the 1950s, this generation has since been supplemented both by subsequent waves of Irish migrants, particularly in the 1980s, and by the rise of a distinct second‐generation Irish consciousness. The uneven geographical spread of these successive waves also needs to be taken into account, with Irish communities in the North‐West of England largely having been shaped by nineteenth and early twentieth‐century migration, communities in the West Midlands being associated with the 1950s generation, and London and the South‐East being the predominant destination for Irish migrants since the 1980s (Akenson ; MacLaughlin ; Neal ; Walter ). The specificity of the make‐up of the ‘Irish community’ within a locality may be seen as an intensely localised influence on the forms St. Patrick's Day celebrations take, which have the potential to come in conflict with a globalised, commercialised understanding of the feast.…”

The tyranny of transnational discourse: ‘authenticity’ and Irish diasporic identity in Ireland and England

“…Geographically, while London has always been a significant destination of choice for Irish migrants, large numbers of the 1950s generation of migrants found employment and settled in the West Midlands and in towns associated with manufacturing and construction. This was not true of later migration, which was largely, although by no means exclusively, directed towards London and the south-east (MacLaughlin 1997;Walter 2008a). Outside these areas Irishness is now becoming largely a second-generation phenomenon, given the age profile and dwindling numbers of the original 1950s migrants.…”

Overcoming “Crisis”: Mobility Capabilities and “stretching” a Migrant Identity among Young Irish in London and Return Migrants

“…Almost every generation has been impacted by the loss of people to emigration, and Ireland's sense of its place in the world has been anchored in a meta-level migrant narrative for most of its recent history. A rich and varied academic literature charts these patterns (Jackson, 1963;Miller, 1985;King, 1991;King and Shuttleworth, 1995;Walter, 2008;Gilmartin, 2015). This experience has fostered an emigrant identity informed by notions of victimhood and loss.…”