Across the Sea to Ireland: Return Atlantic Migration before the First World War

Abstract Are return migrants “losers” who fail to adapt to the challenges of the host economy, thereby exacerbating the brain drain linked to emigration? Or are they “winners” whose return enhances the human and physical capital of the home country? This article analyzes databases constructed from the 1911 Irish population and 1910 US censuses to address these issues for returnees to Ireland from North America more than a century ago. The evidence suggests that returnees had the edge over Ireland’s population, but not those who stayed on in the US in terms of human capital, as proxied by occupation and literacy; returning couples also had fewer children than the stay-at-homes, and their children spent longer at school. It also shows that returnees were less likely to return to the poorer regions of Ireland.