Migration

Abstract: The keyword migration denotes Ireland's history of tragic exile, of forced displacements caused by colonization, of journeys overseas, of hunger, poverty, separation from family, and death. Much of this discourse is connected to the context of the nineteenth-century famine. Yet this essay tracks some other histories of migration in Ireland, including the arrival of migrants in the last several years, making Ireland—for the first time since the seventeenth century—a net immigration society. In this new context, the words migration and migrant take on new layers of significance.