Migration and the Making of Ireland

Explores accounts of migrant experiences across more than four centuries. The motivations that drove migration to Ireland and emigration from Ireland since the Plantation of Ulster in the 1600s are assessed. Political, economic, and legal circumstances that made emigration and immigration possible or necessary are considered. Commonalities and differences across space and time between the experiences of incoming and outgoing migrants, with a strong emphasis on the recent waves of immigration that are re-shaping twenty-first century Ireland, are deeply explored. Early chapters examine the experiences of specific migrant groups, and later chapters look at broader trends, illustrated with anecdotes of personal experience. This book is a landmark contribution to our understanding of modern Ireland, and will be essential reading for anybody seeking to understand the diversity of twenty-first century Irish society.

Bryan Fanning is Professor of Migration and Social Policy at University College Dublin. He has published extensively on immigration and social change in Ireland. His previous books include Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland, Histories of the Irish Future, Irish Adventures in Nation Building and, as editor, Studies: An Irish Century 1912-2012.