Migrations: Ireland in a global world 9781526111517

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IRIS H

S O CIETY

MIGRATIONS Ireland in a global world

Edited by

Mary Gilmartin and Allen White

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M IGRATIONS

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IRISH SOCIETY The Irish Society series provides a critical, interdisciplinary and in-depth analysis of Ireland that reveals the processes and forces shaping social, economic, cultural and political life, and their outcomes for communities and social groups. The books seek to understand the evolution of social, economic and spatial relations from a broad range of perspectives, and explore the challenges facing Irish society in the future given present conditions and policy instruments.

SERIES EDITOR Rob Kitchin ALREADY PUBLISHED

Public private partnerships in Ireland: Failed experiment or the way forward for the state? Rory Hearne Youth policy, civil society and the modern Irish state Fred Powell, Martin Geoghegan, Margaret Scanlon and Katharina Swirak

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MIGRATIONS Ireland in a global world

Edited by Mary Gilmartin and Allen White

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Manchester and New York distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

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Copyright © Manchester University Press 2013 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN 978 07190 8551 2 hardback First published 2013 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Minion by Action Publishing Technology Ltd, Gloucester

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Series editor’s foreword

Over the past twenty years Ireland has undergone enormous social, cultural and economic change. From a poor, peripheral country on the edge of Europe with a conservative culture dominated by tradition and Church, Ireland transformed into a global, cosmopolitan country with a dynamic economy. At the heart of the processes of change was a new kind of political economic model of development that ushered in the so-called Celtic Tiger years, accompanied by renewed optimism in the wake of the ceasefires in Northern Ireland and the peace dividend of the Good Friday Agreement. As Ireland emerged from decades of economic stagnation and The Troubles came to a peaceful end, the island became the focus of attention for countries seeking to emulate its economic and political miracles. Every other country, it seemed, wanted to be the next Tiger, modelled on Ireland’s successes. And then came the financial collapse of 2008, the bursting of the property bubble, bank bailouts, austerity plans, rising unemployment and a return to emigration. From being the paradigm case of successful economic transformation, Ireland has become an internationally important case study of what happens when an economic model goes disastrously wrong. The Irish Society series provides a critical, interdisciplinary and in-depth analysis of Ireland that reveals the processes and forces shaping social, economic, cultural and political life, and their outcomes for communities and social groups. The books seek to understand the evolution of social, economic and spatial relations from a broad range of perspectives, and explore the challenges facing Irish society in the future given present conditions and policy instruments. The series examines all aspects of Irish society including, but not limited to: social exclusion, identity, health, welfare, life cycle, family life and structures, labour and work cultures, spatial and sectoral economy, local and regional development, politics and the political system, government and governance, environment, migration and spatial planning. The series is supported by the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP), an all-island platform

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S ERIES

EDITOR ’ S FOREWORD

of integrated social science research and graduate education focusing on the social, cultural and economic transformations shaping Ireland in the twentyfirst century. Funded by the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, the ISSP brings together leading social science academics from all of Ireland’s universities and other third-level institutions. Given the marked changes in Ireland’s fortunes over the past two decades it is important that rigorous scholarship is applied to understand the forces at work, how they have affected different people and places in uneven and unequal ways, and what needs to happen to create a fairer and prosperous society. The Irish Society series provides such scholarship. Rob Kitchin

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Contents

List of figures and tables

page ix

Contributors

xi

Acknowledgements

xv

Introduction: Ireland and its relationship with migration Allen White and Mary Gilmartin

1

Part I Networks 1 Transnational networks across generations: childhood visits to Ireland by the second generation in England Bronwen Walter

17

2 ‘Two Irelands beyond the sea’: exploring long-distance loyalist networks in the 1880s William Jenkins

36

3 Migrant integration and the ‘network-making power’ of the Irish Catholic Church Breda Gray

55

4 Ireland’s diaspora strategy: diaspora for development? Mark Boyle, Rob Kitchin and Delphine Ancien

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5 Transnational media networks and the ‘migration nation’ Aphra Kerr, Rebecca King-O’Riain and Gavan Titley

98

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C ONTENTS

Part II Belonging 6 Children’s words, children’s worlds: exploring the experiences of migrant children in Ireland Allen White, Naomi Tyrrell, Fina Carpena-Méndez and Caitríona Ní Laoire 7 African migrants in Ireland: the negotiation of belonging and family life Liam Coakley 8 (Re)negotiating belonging: the Irish in Australia Patricia M. O’Connor 9 Betwixt, between and belonging: negotiating identity and place in asylum seeker direct provision accommodation centres Angèle Smith

117

132 147

164

Part III Intersections 10 A countertopography of migrant experience in Ireland and beyond Deirdre Conlon

183

11 Unbounding migration studies: the intersections of language, space and time Bettina Migge and Mary Gilmartin

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12 Context, scale and generation: the constructions of belonging Jamie Goodwin-White

213

Conclusion: the place of migration Mary Gilmartin and Allen White

228

Index

241

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List of figures and tables

Figures 2.1

4.1 4.2

Map of the places visited by Kane and Smith in September– October 1886 and their correspondence with townships with significant numbers of Protestant Irish birth or ancestry How diaspora can impact upon the development of sending states An analytical framework for the study of diaspora strategies

page 46 83 85

Tables 0.1 3.1 3.2

Intercensal net migration (inward less outward), 1926–2011 Irish Catholic Church responses as a sending church Responses of the hierarchal Irish Catholic Church as a receiving church 3.3 Responses of religious congregations as a receiving church in Ireland 3.4 Responses of individual clergy or religious to immigrants in Ireland 10.1 Participant age, place(s) of origin, names and length of residence in Ireland 12.1 Annual percentage employment change by nationality group, 2007–10 12.2 2007–10 shift-share decomposition, by nationality (000s)

3 60 67 68 69 190 218 220

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Contributors

Delphine Ancien is a Lecturer and Researcher at the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin and a Research Administrator for the Research Evaluation Policy and Practice (REPP) project at the Childhood Development Initiative in Tallaght West, Dublin, Ireland. She completed a PhD in Geography at the Ohio State University in 2008. She has recently completed a collaborative project investigating state–diaspora relations in various national contexts and the development of diaspora strategies. Mark Boyle is Professor of Geography at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. His research interests include the development of diaspora strategy and, relatedly, the experience of Irish in the west of Scotland and Scots in Ireland. His book, Metropolitan Anxieties, was published by Ashgate in 2011. Fina Carpena-Méndez is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Oregon State University. She completed a PhD in Anthropology (2006) at the University of California Berkeley. Her research examines the effects of neoliberal globalization on the condition of children’s lives in the contemporary world, with particular reference to Latin America (Mexico and Brazil), the USA and Europe (Ireland and Spain). Liam Coakley is ‘Head of Interdisciplinary Programme – MA in Contemporary Migration and Diaspora Studies’ at University College Cork. His research interests include migration policy, transnationalism and the politics of ‘integration’ in Ireland. He has published in Irish Geography, Geography and International Migration and has produced research reports for a range of statutory and non-statutory organizations, for example the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Integrating Ireland, the International

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Organization for Migration and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Deirdre Conlon is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Urban Studies, Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, New Jersey. Among her current projects is an Economic and Social Research Council-funded comparative study of asylum advocacy and activism sectors in the USA and UK; in this work Deirdre’s focus is the emotional spaces, politics and effects of migrant advocacy work. She has published articles in Irish Geography (2009), Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (2010) and Gender, Place and Culture (2011) and has contributed book chapters to three edited volumes. Deirdre has co-edited a volume with Dominique Moran and Nick Gill titled Carceral Spaces: Mobility and Agency in Imprisonment and Migrant Detention (Ashgate, 2013). Mary Gilmartin is Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Her recent research focuses explicitly on the geographies of contemporary migration to and from Ireland, and on theorizations of migration. Jamie Goodwin-White is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include immigration, migration, inequality, labour markets and social mobility. Recent publications include journal articles in Social Science Quarterly, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Economic Geography and Population, Space and Place. Breda Gray is Senior Lecturer and Director of postgraduate programmes in Gender, Culture and Society in the Department of Sociology at the University of Limerick, Ireland. She is author of Women and the Irish Diaspora (Routledge, 2004) and has published widely on diaspora, transnationalism, mobilities, feminism and the politics of emotion. She is joint Principal Investigator on the Government of Ireland, Irish Social Science Platform Project: ‘Nomadic Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy’ (http://nwl.ul.ie/) and was PI on the recent Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) project: ‘The Irish Catholic Church and the Politics of Migration’ (www.ul.ie/icctmp). William Jenkins is Associate Professor of History and Geography at York University, Toronto. His published work has focused on agrarian change in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland and Irish immigrants in nineteenth-century urban North America and has appeared in the Journal of

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Historical Geography, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space and the Journal of Urban History. His book on the comparative settlement experiences of Irish immigrants and their descendants, Between Raid and Rebellion: The Irish in Buffalo and Toronto 1867–1916, is forthcoming with McGill-Queen’s University Press. Aphra Kerr is Lecturer in Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Aphra’s current research focuses on social aspects of the production and consumption of media in a global context with a particular focus on new media. Her book, The Business and Culture of Digital Games, was published by Sage in 2006. Rebecca King-O’Riain is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Her research focuses on globalization, transnationalism, race and mixed race. Her academic publications include Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese American Beauty Pageants, and a range of journal articles, book chapters and reports. Rob Kitchin is Director of the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis and Chairperson of the Irish Social Sciences Platform. His principal research interests are cartography, software and social geography. He has published widely across the social sciences, including 20 books and over 100 articles and book chapters. He is editor of the international journals, Progress in Human Geography and Dialogues in Human Geography and he was the editor-in-chief of the twelve-volume, International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Bettina Migge is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at University College Dublin. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, language contact, and language and migration, and she has published widely on questions of language contact and language use among migrant populations. Caitríona Ní Laoire is Lecturer in Applied Social Studies at University College Cork. Her background is in migration studies and human geography. Her research interests lie in the areas of Irish migration and diaspora, child and youth migration, return migration, migrant life narratives, rurality and gendered identities. She has published in Social and Cultural Geography, Irish Geography, Journal of Rural Studies and Translocations. Patricia O’Connor graduated with a PhD from the University of New South Wales in 2006. Her PhD focuses on the experiences of recent Irish migrants to Australia. She currently works in Melbourne as a Senior Evaluation

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Consultant at Australian Healthcare Associates and holds an honorary academic appointment with the School of Social Sciences, College of Arts at the University of Western Sydney. Angèle Smith is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia. Her research focuses on the intersection of transnational migration and identity with space, place and landscape, with a geographical focus on Ireland, and she has published widely in this area. Gavan Titley is Lecturer in Media Studies at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. He is the author, with Alana Lentin, of The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age (Zed Books, 2011) and his work has appeared in Ethnic & Racial Studies, the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Journalism: Theory, Practice, Criticism and The Irish Review. Naomi Tyrrell (née Bushin) is Lecturer in Human Geography at Plymouth University, England. She graduated from Swansea University, Wales, with a PhD in Geography (2006). Her research interests include children’s experiences of family migration, children’s participation in migration decision-making, and migrant children’s social networks and experiences of schooling. She has published in Area, Population Space and Place and Children’s Geographies, and is joint editor (with Allen White, Caitríona Ní Laoire and Fina Carpena-Méndez) of Transnational Migration and Childhood, published by Routledge in 2012. Bronwen Walter is Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies at Anglia Ruskin University, England. Her research focuses on Irish migration to Britain and the wider experiences of the Irish diaspora. Her academic publications include a monograph Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women (Routledge, 2001) and articles and chapters on a wide range of aspects of Irish emigration and settlement abroad. Allen White is a Research Associate with the Institute for Social Sciences in the 21st Century, University College Cork. His recent research focuses on the experiences of migrant children in Ireland, and he is joint author (with Caitríona Ní Laoire, Naomi Tyrrell and Fina Carpena-Méndez) of Childhood and Migration in Europe, published by Ashgate in 2011. He is Research Officer in the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, University College Cork.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank colleagues, friends and family members who have contributed – in a variety of ways – to the (eventual) completion of this volume. Thanks to Mary Corcoran, Ronan Foley, Lotta Haikkola, Amanda Haynes, Teresa Hutchins, Ronit Lentin, Mark Maguire, Elaine Moriarty, Ronnie Munck, Eoin O’Mahony and Steve Royle for reviewing individual chapters. Thanks, also, to the editorial team at Manchester University Press for their assistance, and to our colleagues at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and University College Cork who provide intellectual and moral support for our work. We would particularly like to thank the contributors who responded willingly to our requests for their involvement in this collection. Our families and friends have been supportive despite the ever-extended deadline for this project, and we are grateful for their patience and encouragement.

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Introduction: Ireland and its relationship with migration Allen White and Mary Gilmartin

When the Central Statistics Office (CSO) published its 2010 Population and Migration Estimates in September 2010, showing the highest level of net emigration from Ireland since 1989, the media response followed quickly (CSO, 2010). The Irish Times described emigration as ‘this social and economic scourge that ripped the heart out of communities and stifled development’, adding that it must be ‘confronted and defeated’ (Irish Times, 2010). A day earlier, the Irish Examiner had described emigration as ‘the eternal curse of the Irish’, claiming that ‘the floodgates are open again and tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee the land of their birth’ (Irish Examiner, 2010). It is a far cry from the statement of then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, just three years earlier, when he declared that ‘emigration from our shores, which drained our youth and our future, has ended’ (Ahern, 2007: 9). Migration to and from Ireland is often the subject of definitive claims. Kerby Miller, for example, characterized the history of migration from Ireland in the post-Famine era as one of exile, in contrast to the earlier voluntary ‘emigration’ (Miller, 1985). The 1950s, historian Diarmaid Ferriter wrote, ‘was the decade in which emigration damaged the national psyche’ (Ferriter, 2010). During the 1980s, migration from Ireland was most commonly described as a brain drain (King and Shuttleworth, 1995). Of the more general history of migration from Ireland, Jim MacLaughlin described the country as an emigrant nursery (MacLaughlin, 1994). In the period between 1996 and 2010, when Ireland experienced net in–migration on a sustained basis, this certainty disappeared. Instead, Ireland represented a modern miracle: a state that had banished the spectre of emigration for ever. Migration now meant immigration into the country, and the challenge of migration was now seen in terms of interculturalism and integration or, for some, a dilution of Irish identity. Writing in 2006, Kevin Whelan observed that Ireland’s demographic balance sheet was a vital measure of national

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self–confidence (Whelan, 2006). These levels of self-confidence are reflected in debates about migration, which display a binary understanding of the process: either to or from Ireland, but never both at the same time.

The academic study of migration and Ireland The academic study of migration to and from Ireland has a long history. Ravenstein’s The Laws of Migration, the foundational text for migration studies in general, was based on a detailed analysis of movements of people within the United Kingdom, which at that time included Ireland (Ravenstein, 1885). In his analysis of movements of people, Ravenstein considered what he called currents and counter-currents (1885: 199): in looking at particular places, he was interested in the relationship between movements of people both to and from that place. His laws thus attempted to explain how these different directions of movement were interconnected: this complexity is often absent from subsequent studies of migration. The story of migration to and from Ireland remains as complex as ever. Table 0.1 shows the intercensal figures for net migration from 1926–2011. These aggregated and net figures mask the extent to which people both move to and leave Ireland each year. For example, during the period from 1986–91, the last sustained period of net emigration, close to 135,000 people migrated to Ireland. In the period from 2002–06, when the percentage of people living in Ireland with a nationality other than Irish rose from 7.1 per cent to 11.2 per cent (from around 270,000 to 460,000), over 120,000 people migrated from Ireland. However, despite the constant flows and counterflows, academic studies tend to focus on just one direction of movement, reflecting dominant concerns at particular points in time. For many decades, the study of Ireland and migration was dominated by historical accounts of the process of emigration. In this literature, Irish migration to North America has received a considerable amount of attention. This has included broad studies of the USA and Canada (Kenny, 2000; Miller, 1985), as well as more specific studies, either territorially based (for examples, see Akenson, 1999; Mannion, n.d) or focusing on particular groups of migrants, such as women (Diner, 1984; Nolan, 1989). There have also been historical studies of Irish migration to Britain, to places such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina, and to mainland Europe (see, for example, Bielenberg, 2000; Lyons and O’Connor, 2008; MacRaild, 2010; O’Farrell, 1986). More recently, sociological studies have focused attention on contemporary emigration. Examples include studies of Irish ‘illegal’ emigrants to the USA in the 1980s (Corcoran, 1993), and of Irish women migrants, in both the UK and in North America (Gray, 2004; Walter, 2001). Literature on migration to Ireland has been considerably less extensive,

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Table 0.1 Intercensal net migrationa (inward less outward), 1926–2011 Period 1926–36 1936–46 1946–51 1951–56 1956–61 1961–66 1966–71 1971–79 1979–81 1981–86 1986–91 1991–96 1996–2002 2002–06 2006–11

Net migration –166,751 –187,111 –122,489 –196,763 –212,003 –80,605 –53,906 108,934 –5,045 –71,883 –134,170 8,302 153,881 191,331 122,292

Source: CSO (2012). Note: a Positive numbers indicate net in-migration to Ireland; negative numbers indicate net out-migration from Ireland.

and is generally contemporaneous rather than historical. While there are occasional accounts of immigration, such as return migration of Irish nationals and ‘counter-cultural’ migration (Kockel, 1991; McGrath, 1991), these represent a sporadic and far from sustained engagement with the topic. Research on migration to Ireland began to develop as a coherent body of work from the late 1990s onwards, as academics started to address the changing patterns of immigration to Ireland. This work was initially from a crisis management perspective, and later developed a stronger focus on specific migrant groups, integration and interculturalism. While early work focused on asylum seekers and refugees, and on service provision, later work highlighted labour migration, particular (usually nationally defined) groups of migrants, and the relationship between immigration and identity. There was a strong social policy and empirical focus to research carried out at the start of this period, and this has certainly persisted. However, a more theoretical strand of work has also emerged, drawing on political economy or critical race theory to make broader arguments about the process of immigration to Ireland (for an overview, see Mac Éinrí and White, 2008). Both of these bodies of literature display evidence of a certain kind of exceptionalism. The scale and extent of emigration from Ireland are often marked as substantially different from that of other European and/or modern nations. The scale and extent of recent migration to Ireland are also differentiated: both by the recent history of emigration from Ireland and by the speed

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at which the transformation took place. Though there are some attempts to understand migration to and from Ireland in terms of broader transformations, such as agricultural restructuring in Europe from the nineteenth century onwards or European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004, in general Ireland is constructed as standing alone, distinguished by its complicated relationship with and experiences of migration. These exceptionalist tendencies have implications for how migration is understood. In contemporary discourse and scholarship, they are most often manifested in a willingness to paint particular time periods as associated with a uni-directional flow of migration. Thus, the 1950s and the 1980s are characterized as decades of emigration, the Celtic Tiger era as a period of immigration, and the current recession is manifest as a return to mass emigration. The reality, for each of these periods, is more complicated. People migrated to, and continue to migrate to, Ireland in all of the emigrant decades, and people continued to leave Ireland during the Celtic Tiger era, often under very difficult conditions. Now, as in the past, the misinterpretation of demographic data (Daly, 2006) takes place, where migration flows are simplified and sanitized, and pressed into the service of a particular and exclusionary narrative of Ireland and Irish society. The use of particular sources of data, for example statistics based on multiple and often problematic reasoning about migrants and migration, partly explains the persistence of monocausal explanations of migration to and from Ireland. It also reflects the dominance of economic explanations in social science studies of migration (Papastergiadis, 2000). There are some attempts to develop a more synthetic approach to the study of Ireland and migration. An edited collection (Duffy, 2004) focuses on planned migration schemes to and from Ireland, incorporating movements as diverse as Irish emigration to Castile in the seventeenth century (O’Scea, 2004) and attempts to repatriate Irish single mothers from Britain in the mid twentieth century (Earner-Byrne, 2004). Fitzgerald and Lambkin (2008), in their 400-year survey of the topic, articulate a tripartite framework, encompassing immigration, internal migration and emigration. Their work is broad-ranging and ambitious in scope and, as a consequence, not fully successful in its integrative ambitions. It too falls into the exceptionalist trap, describing Ireland as more affected by emigration than any other European country (2008: 293). Yet, their work offers the first sustained effort to consider the relationship between Ireland and migration in a more holistic way, where the emphasis is on the migratory process. Their conclusion calls for an acceptance of the ‘through-otherness of the world in Ireland and Ireland in the world’ (2008: 295), paradoxically highlighting the persistent boundaries that construct migration from and migration to Ireland as separate processes.

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Alternative ways of theorizing migration and Ireland The complexity of migration to and from Ireland, over decades and centuries, makes it a fascinating site for the study of migration and the migratory process. Though academic research tends to be myopic, focusing on either immigration or, more usually, emigration, we argue for attention to this complexity, and to the different and diverse ways in which migration is woven into the story of Ireland. Our approach to migration is influenced by the work of writer Rebecca Solnit, whose account of travels around Ireland poetically expresses the complexity of the ongoing relationship with migration. Solnit describes Ireland as washed over with ‘wild tides’ of ‘invasion, colonization, emigration, exile, nomadism, and tourism’ (Solnit, 1998: 7). For Solnit, the ebbs and flows of the movement of people into, around and out of Ireland make it a place where identities are fluid and far from fixed. We find Solnit’s emphasis on the fluidity of Ireland and Irish identity compelling, and a stark contrast to other work that emphasizes emigration as an essential part of Irish identity. Unlike writer Polly Devlin, who commented that ‘emigration was a big sad Irish word in every sense . . . [w]e were all poised on the point of eternal emigration’ (in Logue, 2000: 42), Solnit sees emigration as just one part of a wider story about the mutable relationship between place and identity. Thinking about migration to and from Ireland in these terms leads us towards considering the ‘processes of flux and flow, rather than fixing solely on the causes or consequences of single trajectories. From this perspective, migration would be seen as a multi-vectoral phenomenon’ (Papastergiadis, 2000: 35). In response to the challenges posed by Solnit’s conceptualization of Ireland and migration, we have taken a different approach to this collection of research. Rather than focus on particular time periods or particular types of migration, we have organized the book around three linking themes: networks, belongings and intersections. The first theme, networks, is explicitly situated in a broader literature on transnationalism and translocalism. Rather than focusing on places as separate, a network approach highlights the (often unexpected) links and connections between people and places in the context of a globalized world. The second theme, belongings, highlights the ways in which identities are (re)produced and performed, and the ways in which places are made and remade, in and through processes and experiences of mobility. In particular, this theme highlights the ways in which the relationship between places and identities is constituted through social practices across a variety of scales. This section draws on work within the ‘new mobilities paradigm’, as well as non-representational theories, cultural studies and landscape studies. The third theme, intersections, is concerned with the construction of migration in and across scales of knowledge and experience.

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It takes the idea of intersectionality – ‘the multiple relationships between different dimensions of identity’ (McDowell, 2008: 491) – and extends it to consider not just identity but also space, scales and time. Thus, this theme develops the theorization of migration in national, transnational and global contexts, and suggests alternative epistemologies that transcend disciplinary boundaries. In highlighting these three themes, we draw on rich bodies of literature in the social sciences and beyond. An emphasis on networks, in migration studies, highlights the social connections that faciliate movement from one place to another, and that support the establishment and maintenance of new communities in new places. Flows of migrants to and from Ireland, rather than being stand-alone and exceptional processes, are components of and outcomes of global movements of capital, people and ideas. A focus on networks has been used to show the transnational and translocal nature of migration (Vertovec, 2001). Following Glick Schiller et al. (1999) today’s international migrants (or transmigrants) are qualitatively different from migrants from earlier eras. Immigrants to, and emigrants from, Ireland today are more likely to encompass both host and home societies; their everyday lives go back and forth traversing national boundaries, they live dual lives, through two (or more) languages, being part of two (or more) households (see also Portes et al., 1999). In many ways, a network focus has replaced a more conventional approach to the study of migration that emphasized ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors, instead highlighting the connections that are created across time and space by the movement of people and ideas. There are differences in the conceptualization of networks across the social sciences. Sociologists, for example, are more likely to highlight the social dimension of networks, emphasizing the connections between people that emerge, develop and change (see De Tona and Lentin, 2011). In contrast, geographers are more likely to highlight the spatial aspects of networks, as in recent work on translocal geographies (Brickell and Datta, 2011). Paying attention to networks – of both people and places – highlights the complex, and often surprising, links that arise as a consequence of migration. The question of belonging, in migration studies, is intimately bound up with place. Belonging is theorized at a range of scales, from home and neighbourhood, to the nation-state and new forms of transnational belonging, at times described as cosmopolitanism. However, there is an innate tension in the conceptualization of belonging in the context of migration. Too often, belonging is understood in terms of roots, fixity, longevity, stability and borders. A ‘sedentarist metaphysics’ (Malkki, 1995) surrounds ‘belonging’ allowing (as with ‘community’) its unexamined and usually positive meaning. However, the act of belonging, in this way of thinking about the term, is as much concerned with processes of exclusion as it is with inclusion and expan-

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siveness. Belonging, then, has reactionary tendencies, with the potential to be employed at times of change or perceived threat. The ‘new mobilities’ paradigm in the social sciences has challenged such an essentialist conceptualization of belonging. As Hannam et al. observe, it takes issue with any understanding of place as relatively fixed, instead seeing place as dynamic and relational (Hannam et al., 2006: 13). This has implications for belonging, which becomes – like place – an outcome rather than an essence; a fluid (re)articulation of practices and proximities at a range of different scales. Migrants, through their biographies of movement and mobility, displace and disrupt any fixed understandings of belonging and associations between belonging and citizenship. Migrant belongings are negotiated through specific grounded experiences of domesticity, intimacy and foreignness which work to frame identities through simultaneous notions of attachment and detachment to particular places. Thus, migrants produce ‘belonging’ in ways that disrupt any simple opposition between roots and routes, movement and attachment, or host and guest (Walsh, 2006; see also Bell, 1999; Probyn, 1996). While the ‘new mobilities’ approach to place and belonging (or ‘moorings’) emphasizes the contingent nature of both, a more structural understanding of belonging is articulated by Antonsich (2010). Commenting on the vague understandings of belonging that permeate the social sciences, he suggests that belonging is best understood at the intersection of two different approaches to the topic: one emphasizing the personal and intimate affectual sense of being ‘at home’; the other focusing on the politics of belonging, and the ways in which boundaries (of groups and places) are policed and enforced. The third theme, intersections, draws from feminist analysis. Early work focused on the ways in which gender and race intersected, giving rise to specific experiences of oppression for women of colour. Later work focused on additional aspects of social identity, such as class, sexuality or disability, and focused on the intersections between these different identities. The two significant approaches to intersectionality – either additive or mutually constituted – focus on social categories. Taking ‘migrant’ as one such social category, a focus on intersections addresses the ways in which the category ‘migrant’ intersects with other categories, such as gender or race. While this highlights the complex and at times messy interplay of identities, it is often aspatial. The different ways in which identities are produced across space are rarely theorized: instead, intersectionality is examined in place, but the role of place in creating and shaping specific forms of intersections is not examined. Valentine, writing from a feminist geography perspective, comments that theorization of intersectionality ‘has paid scant attention to the significance of space’ (Valentine, 2007: 14). Meanwhile McDowell, in her use of intersectionality to research transnational labour migrants, insists on the need to

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understand how different processes ‘operate across and between spatial scales’ (McDowell, 2008: 495). Cindi Katz’s concept of countertopography makes explicit reference to understanding the connections between these disparate spaces and scales, with an emphasis on ‘scale jumping and geography crossing’ (Katz, 2001: 1216). In these ways, intersectionality has analytical use including, and beyond, social categories, and makes explicit the roles of space and scale in the production and contestation of identities, including migrant identities.

Introducing the chapters The chapters in this book address the three key themes from a variety of spatial, temporal and theoretical perspectives. The theme of networks is addressed through five separate chapters, which range from a consideration of the Irish diaspora to loyalist–unionist networks in Canada. This section opens with Bronwen Walter’s discussion of the experiences of childhood visits to Ireland by second-generation Irish in England. Drawing on interviews, autobiographical and fictional accounts, the chapter provides a historical perspective on the transnational networks that have long linked Ireland and England, and on the significance of those networks for identity formation. This is followed by William Jenkins’ account of long-distance loyalist networks during the 1880s. By focusing on loyalist speaking and fundraising tours in Canada, Jenkins expands our understanding of the Irish diaspora beyond nationalist networks and communities. Transnational loyalist networks acted both to facilitate the speaking tours of loyalist speakers and to re-translate the political meanings and messages being communicated by the speakers. Appeals to trans-imperial ‘Britishness’ and Protestant sociopolitical identities thus made sense in both Belfast (threatened by Catholic Irish nationalism) and Quebec (threatened by Catholic French republicanism). Like Jenkins, Breda Gray focuses on religious networks, but her chapter deals with the Irish Catholic Church and specifically its re-working of its traditional pastoral, lobbying and development role within Irish emigrant communities to become a key institutional actor in the management and organization of the ‘integration’ of immigrant communities into Ireland. In both cases the (often laudable) work of individual Church agents needs to be understood within the Church’s exercise of ‘network-making power’ as a national and global agency and institution. Following Castells (2011) this power to decide upon the strategic alliances between different actors in networks means the Church plays a key role in the evolution of policies and responses to successive em/immigration crises. Ireland’s diaspora strategy is the focus of the chapter by Mark Boyle, Rob

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Kitchin and Delphine Ancien. In their chapter, they provide an analytical framework for understanding diaspora strategies in general, with a particular focus on the case of Ireland. By highlighting three key areas – motives, institutions and strategies, and support infrastructures – they suggest that the Irish experience offers a nuanced understanding of the different forms of networks that exist between a state and its diaspora, and shows the importance of working to support the self-organization of the diaspora. The role of migrant media in the lives of two of Ireland’s migrant populations is the focus of the chapter by Aphra Kerr, Rebecca King-O’Riain and Gavan Titley. The authors explore the role of traditional migrant ‘print media’ in the lives of migrants in Ireland while also pointing to the centrality of transnational media outlets (via satellite TV, streaming audio and video services as well as web-based news and media outlets from home countries (and beyond)) in the lives of migrants. However, the authors also point to the availability of many of these networked resources to the ‘non-migrant’ population and pose the important question – why do we only explore transnational experiences and networks in the migrants’ lives when both migrant and non-migrant populations are exposed to these media? The theme of belonging is addressed through four empirically strong and theoretically rich chapters. Allen White, Naomi Tyrrell, Fina CarpenaMéndez and Caitríona Ní Laoire discuss belonging from the perspectives of migrant children and young people. Drawing from a broader research project that used child-centred methodologies, the authors discuss belonging from the perspective of ‘not belonging’, arguing that migrant children and young people are often assumed to not belong in Ireland. They chart the diverse strategies migrant children use to counter these assumptions, paying particular attention to the use of global consumer culture – music, TV or fashion, for example – as a means to create a sense of belonging. In his discussion of African migrants living in Ireland, Liam Coakley focuses on life narratives to investigate the ways in which migration affects and alters the conceptualization and practice of family. He identifies strong transnational constructions of family, and an emphasis on maintaining links with a spatially dispersed extended family while also focusing on life in Ireland. Coakley characterizes this as a form of ‘in-between-ness’, with implications for the construction of identity and belonging in contemporary Ireland. Patricia O’Connor’s chapter focuses on recent Irish migrants to Australia. Over 200 Irish migrants, from both North and South, were interviewed by O’Connor in the course of her research. The participants all lived in the Greater Melbourne area, and had moved to Australia between 1980 and 2001. The chapter discusses perceptions of belonging both pre- and postmigration. In common with Coakley, these are migrants who must negotiate formal and informal modes of belonging in host countries. Angèle Smith

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highlights the dilemmas of belonging for asylum seekers in Ireland. Her chapter is based on ethnographic research in six Direct Provision asylum accommodation centres across Ireland. The legal, social and spatial limbo of asylum seekers forced to live in these Direct Provision centres means they constantly experience a world betwixt and between. Transnational life is frequently a life marked by experiences of simultaneously belonging and non-belonging, belonging to more than one place, and negotiating between more than one culture and identity. The final set of chapters provides insights into the intersections between ‘migrancy’ and other social categories including gender, nationality and class/position in the labour hierarchy. For Deirdre Conlon the ‘countertopographies’ of the experiences of different migrant women in Ireland speak to the intersections of their gendered experiences (as women, as mothers, as workers in insecure positions in the workplace) with their migrant status. The connections and common experiences of these women, despite their heterogeneous migrant statuses, need to be understood as responses to the impermanence, instabilities and anxieties produced by the globalization of a small society and economy by international capital. Thus, gender, migrant status and other social identities intersect in specific ways in the geographic context of Ireland, producing the women’s shared narratives of working, settling and moving on to other future migrant destinations. Bettina Migge and Mary Gilmartin seek to illustrate how the ‘migrancy’ of migrant identities intersects with their gendered, class-based and other social relations to produce specific narratives (about moving, living, settling, and so on, in Ireland) in contingent, context-specific ways. They extend these ideas to explore how intersecting and contingent social relations structure and shape the methodologies (and by extension the data and published results) that predominate within migration studies in Ireland (and in particular the face-to-face qualitative interview). Thus, the role of researchers, their gender, choice of venue, voice, even their presence play an important role shaping the self-representations and narratives of research participants. Their attention is directed to the intersection of these different relations and especially to the ways location, place and space play a role creating and shaping specific forms of these intersections. Jamie Goodwin-White explores the different labour market performances of Irish and migrant workers from the Celtic Tiger to post International Monetary Fund/EU bailout Ireland. She makes the point that far from ‘taking’ jobs from their Irish counterparts, migrants were concentrated in the ‘boom’ sections of the Celtic Tiger economy (especially the construction sector) and post-crash migrants lost these jobs first (i.e. before their Irish counterparts). Building on these insights into the restructuring, changing and volatile Irish labour market Goodwin-White goes on to point out that

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resulting labour market inequalities present key barriers and challenges to the successful social and cultural integration of migrants and their Irish-born children with serious implications for those parts of Ireland (and in particular the Greater Dublin Area) where migrants are concentrated (places with new suburbs and exurbs and older inner-city neighbourhoods and social infrastructures that are under serious pressure). Thus, migrant status intersects with labour market/class positions, in the process serving to marginalize and socially and spatially exclude large groups of people from full participation in Irish social, political and economic life.

Conclusion In different ways the authors in this edited collection address the key themes – networks, belongings and intersections – and show how the story of migration in Ireland is not best understood by identifying and describing different historical epochs of emigration and immigration or complex typologies of ‘kinds’ of migrants. Instead the collection of chapters that follows shows how at different points in time and space the lives of migrants intersect with their various identities (e.g. racialized, ethnic, gendered, class-based, sectarian or aged identities) to negotiate multiple experiences of (not) belonging within networks of connections between different places, groups and communities. While each author focuses on a specific group or groups of migrants to (or from) Ireland at specific points in time, when taken together this collection reveals the fluidity and multi-vectoral nature of migration (re)shaping places and connecting yet other places. Moreover, the chapters reveal Ireland’s complex relationship with migration in the historical and immediate past, in the present and into the future. Ultimately we return to Solnit’s (1998) argument that migration is one part of the story about place and identity in Ireland. We argue (and will return to this in the concluding chapter to this collection) that the story of migration in Ireland is one of a series of stories about places – the places people move from, the places they and others move to, the places that are connected through the mobility of migrants, the real, the virtual and the mediated places used by migrants as part of their everyday lives both in Ireland and in other parts of the world.

References Ahern, B. (2007) Taoiseach’s statement: ‘We will build an Ireland of pride and great purpose’, Irish Times, 30 April. Akenson, D.H. (1999) The Irish in Ontario: A Study in Rural History (2nd edition). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Antonsich, M. (2010) ‘Searching for belonging – an analytical framework’, Geography Compass, 4:6, 644–59. Bell, V. (1999) ‘Performativity and belonging’, Theory, Culture and Society, 16:2, 1–10. Bielenberg, A. (ed.) (2000) The Irish Diaspora. Harlow: Pearson. Brickell, K. and A. Datta (eds) (2011) Translocal Geographies: Spaces, Places, Connections. Aldershot: Ashgate. Castells, M. (2011) ‘A network theory of power’, International Journal of Communication, 5, 773–87. Corcoran, M. (1993) Irish Illegals: Transients between Two Societies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. CSO (2010) Population and Migration Estimates April 2010. Available online at www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/population/ 2010/popmig_2010.pdf. Accessed 10 August 2012. CSO (2012) CD122 Components of Population Change Since 1926. Available online at www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp? maintable=CD122&PLanguage=0. Accessed 10 August 2012. Daly, M.E. (2006) The Slow Failure: Population Decline and Independent Ireland, 1920–1973. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. De Tona, C. and R. Lentin (2011) ‘“Building a platform for our voices to be heard”: migrant women’s networks as locations of transformation in the Republic of Ireland’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37:3, 485–502. Diner, H. (1984) Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Duffy, P.J. (ed.) (2004) To and from Ireland: Planned Migration Schemes c. 1600–2000. Dublin: Geography Publications. Earner-Byrne, L. (2004) ‘“Moral repatriation”: the response to Irish unmarried mothers in Britain, 1920s–1960s’, in Duffy (ed.) To and from Ireland, 155–73. Ferriter, D. (2010) ‘Ireland in the twentieth century’. Available online at www.gov.ie/en/essays/twentieth.html. Accessed 27 September 2010. Fitzgerald, P. and B. Lambkin (2008) Migration in Irish History, 1607–2007. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch and C. Szanton Blanc (1999) ‘From immigrant to transmigrant: theorizing transnational migration’, in L. Pries (ed.) Migration and Transnational Social Spaces. Aldershot: Ashgate, 73–105. Gray, B. (2004) Women and the Irish Diaspora. London and New York: Routledge. Hannam, K., M. Sheller and J. Urry (2006) ‘Editorial: mobilities, immobilities and moorings’, Mobilities, 1:1, 1–22. Irish Examiner (2010) ‘The flight of the Irish – curse we must bring to an end’, 22

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September. Available online at www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/editorial/ the-flight-of-the-irish-curse-we-must-bring-to-an-end-131416.html/. Accessed 27 September 2010. Irish Times (2010) ‘Emigration must be confronted’, 23 September. Available online at www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0923/12242795 05972.html. Accessed 27 September 2010. Katz, C. (2001) ‘On the grounds of globalization: a topography for feminist political engagement’, Signs, 26:4, 1213–34. Kenny, K. (2000) The American Irish: A History. New York: Longman. King, R. and I. Shuttleworth (1995) ‘The emigration and employment of Irish graduates: the export of high-quality labour from the periphery of Europe’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 2:1, 21–40. Kockel, U. (1991) ‘Countercultural migrants in the west of Ireland’, in R. King (ed.) Contemporary Irish Migration. Dublin: Geographical Society of Ireland, 70–82. Logue, P. (ed.) (2000) Being Irish: Personal Reflections on Irish Identity Today. Dublin: Oak Tree Press. Lyons, M. and T. O’Connor (2008) Strangers to Citizens: The Irish in Europe, 1600–1800. Dublin: National Library of Ireland. Mac Éinrí, P. and A. White (2008) ‘Immigration into the Republic of Ireland: a bibliography of recent research’, Irish Geography, 41:2, 151–79. MacLaughlin, J. (1994) Ireland: The Emigrant Nursery and the World Economy. Cork: Cork University Press. MacRaild, D. (2010) The Irish Diaspora in Britain, 1750–1939 (2nd edition). Basingstoke and London: Macmillan. Malkki, L. (1995) ‘Refugees and exile: from “refugee studies” to the national Order of Things’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 495–523. Mannion, J. (n.d.) Tracing the Irish: A Geographical Guide. Available online at www.inp.ie/?q=node/40. Accessed 24 January 2011. McDowell, L. (2008) ‘Thinking through work: complex inequalities, constructions of difference and trans-national migrants’, Progress in Human Geography, 32:4, 491–507. McGrath, F. (1991) ‘The economic, social and cultural impacts of return migration to Achill island’, in King (ed.) Contemporary Irish Migration, 55–69. Miller, K. (1985) Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. New York: Oxford University Press. Nolan, J. (1989) Ourselves Alone: Women’s Emigration from Ireland, 1885–1920. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press. O’Farrell, P. (1986) The Irish in Australia. Kensington, NSW: New South Wales University Press. O’Scea, C. (2004) ‘Irish emigration to Castille in the opening years of the

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seventeenth century’, in Duffy (ed.) To and from Ireland, 17–37. Papastergiadis, N. (2000) The Turbulance of Migration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Portes, A., L.E. Guarnizo and P. Landolt (1999) ‘The study of transnationalism: pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22, 217–37. Probyn, E. (1996) Outside Belongings. New York: Routledge. Ravenstein, E.G. (1885) ‘The laws of migration’, Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 48:2, 167–235. Solnit, R. (1998) A Book of Migrations: Some Passages in Ireland. London and New York: Verso. Valentine, G. (2007) ‘Theorizing and researching intersectionality: a challenge for feminist geography’, Professional Geographer, 59:1, 10–21. Vertovec, S. (2001) ‘Transnationalism and identity’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27:4, 573–82. Walsh, K. (2006) ‘British expatriate belongings: mobile homes and transnational homing’, Home Cultures, 3:2, 123–44. Walter, B. (2001) Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women. London and New York: Routledge. Whelan, K. (2006) ‘The numbers game: our demographic balance sheet has always been a barometer of national self-confidence’, Irish Times, 11 July. Available online at www.irishtimes.com/timeseye/whoweare/p2top.htm. Accessed 10 August 2012.

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1 Transnational networks across generations: childhood visits to Ireland by the second generation in England Bronwen Walter

Introduction The close entanglements of families spread between Ireland and England are often ignored as transnational links, reflecting the hazy understanding of separate states within the ‘British Isles’ especially outside the Irish Republic. But the significance of these ties was demonstrated by the size of return migration of Irish nationals with their British-born children in the Celtic Tiger phase of economic growth of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. About half of the immigration ‘explosion’ was accounted for by first- and second-generation ‘returning’ migrants who constituted 8.8 per cent of the total population in 2006 (Ní Laoire, 2008). These recorded moves represent a visible outcome of a myriad of hidden exchanges which connect families between the two islands. Indeed long summer holiday ‘home’ visits to Ireland in childhood are an iconic feature of second-generation British Irish experiences, in contrast to more widely recognized Irish-American identities. This chapter examines both the public record available in recent autobiographical memoirs and novels, and private accounts produced in discussion groups and interviews generated by the ESRC-funded Irish 2 Project to uncover the complex family networks which structure migration flows between Ireland and England.1 The geographical specificity within the broader location of Britain selected here reflects distinctive patterns of migration as well as national and religious alignments which contrast with Scotland, for example. A particular historical focus is also given to visits made in the childhoods of adults now in their middle age, whose parents were part of the post-war outpouring of migrants from the ‘rural backwater’ of Ireland

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to provide labour for economically booming, and labour-poor, England (Hickman et al., 2001). Such a perspective responds to Steven Vertovec’s critique of ‘the current shift to a transnational approach towards migration processes and migrant communities’ when he observes: ‘it is often unclear or undemonstrated just “how new” transnational networks are among migrants.’ An historical perspective is often largely lost (Vertovec, 2001: 576). Inevitably such an approach relies on adult memories rather than the direct contemporary accounts of children themselves (Ní Laoire, 2011). A striking feature of childhood visits is the mismatch between the rich and often treasured memories of the participants and their families, and their absence from English imaginations. Typically the visits arose out of, and reinforced, the distinctive ‘stem family’ system whereby one branch of the Irish farm family remained on the ancestral land while most siblings emigrated to establish new family units in other parts of the diaspora (Arensberg and Kimball, 1968). The larger extended family reunited for particular occasions – Christmas, weddings, funerals and for a longer period in the school summer holidays. Such family traditions and behaviour were far removed from English urban industrial society, where families were smaller, had few significant intergenerational or lateral extensions and lacked the domestic space for large gatherings. As a result the summer outflow of children from Irish neighbourhoods in English cities had no parallel in English people’s experience and was barely noticed as an activity among Irish neighbours. For their part Irish families contributed to this domestic privacy by ‘keeping their heads down’ about their summer plans. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a stigma attached to visits to Ireland, which did not compare in prestige to a holiday in Spain. Moreover, in the 1970s and 1980s the application of the Prevention of Terrorism Act was a strong deterrent to visiting Ireland, as it could lead to lengthy questioning at ports and airports, creating anxiety, missed travel connections and costly re-booking (Hickman and Walter, 1997: 201–3; Hillyard, 1993). Within the Irish community in Britain, however, family visits had important consequences at a number of levels. For individuals they reinforced a sense of ethnic and national identity which may have been discouraged in Britain by parents fearful of social and political stereotyping. For families they inserted new generations into strong social networks of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. They also added valuable economic resources at a time of high expenditure on young children. At a wider community level they introduced children to a knowledge of Irish history which was absent in their education in Britain (Walter et al., 2002). Children heard first-hand stories about Irish independence and often gained an alternative view of the political relationship between Ireland and Britain which strengthened their ability to resist discrimination.

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Autobiographic narratives of childhood visits Memories of family visits to Ireland are recorded publicly in both autobiographical and fictional accounts by Irish authors. These include vividly remembered episodes replete with details about the contrasting landscapes and standards of living, different patterns of social behaviour and replacement within extended families. Autobiographical memoirs and novels describe them either as golden times of family wholeness (Casey, 1987; McCarthy, 2000; Walsh, 1999) or as missing events which urgently need to be compensated for or explained in adult life (Morrison, 2003). In all cases these stories mirror the diasporic condition of split families and selves, and individual attempts to resolve dilemmas of identification and belonging. Childhood visits to Ireland are also a key part of the private experiences of many second-generation Irish people. This chapter uses life story data from second-generation Irish women and men living in England, to explore ways in which childhood memories have contributed to constructions of identity at different stages of their lives. It explores people’s memories of their visits and understandings of their meanings in relation to life in England and investigates processes by which group discussions prompt elaboration of accounts and re-evaluation of common experiences. Links are made to second-generation Irish people’s contemporary senses of Irish, English and other identities as they are expressed both in groups and individually. Key dimensions of difference are highlighted here, taking account of a range of intersecting ways in which people born in England to one or two Irish-born parents are positioned. These include gender, social class, age, religion, rural/urban ‘home’ places in Ireland, locations of origin in the North and South and hybrid ethnic backgrounds both within the ‘British Isles’ and with another parental origin in mainland Europe or territories of the former British Empire. Three categories of childhood experience are explored in more depth, including first, the iconic long summer visit to the west of Ireland where the contrast between urban industrial life in Britain and the rural ‘idyll’ of the west of Ireland was most extreme. Secondly, a small group with mixed racial heritage was received into families and neighbourhoods in different parts of Ireland where whiteness was the norm and ‘strangers’ from other parts of the world were then almost unknown. Thirdly, the situation faced by children being introduced to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which were at their height during the 1970s and 1980s at the peak of numbers of second-generation children in Britain, is examined.

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Iconic visits to the West of Ireland The largest number of emigrants to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s came from rural Ireland, especially the counties of the western seaboard where farms were smallest and economic life most vulnerable (MacLaughlin, 1997: 17). Typically families were large with many siblings, most of whom emigrated especially to urban England when visas to the USA became difficult to get. But parents remained on the home farm and a few children stayed, to provide labour for their ageing parents or to marry into neighbouring farms. A ‘skeleton’ family thus continued to occupy the land which had been farmed by a particular family for several generations. This provided a base to which emigrant branches of the family could return when time and finances allowed. They were usually welcomed back as sources of social and economic support. Hugh Brody (1973) describes the positive response to summer visitors in areas which had experienced heavy depopulation. Local people who felt depressed and isolated in winter months were given a morale boost by visitors’ decision to spend time with them and value their way of life and the beauty of their surroundings. Family members would ‘settle back’ into their roles in the household, women helping their mothers and sisters with domestic work and men joining in the labour of harvesting and turfcutting. The return was an extension of the behaviour of urban migrants within Ireland, who returned to help with the harvest and brought their children (Moving here). A third of the participants in the Irish 2 Project (30 out of 87) had at least one parent born in the west of Ireland.2 They described the different roles of emigrant family members. Interviewer: Did your dad come with you on these holidays? Nicholas:3 He would come over for a couple of weeks. He’d have two weeks off from work, whereas we’d go for the whole of the summer holidays. Clearly my mum was expected to work while she was there, she’d be helping out in the shop, doing this and that, it wasn’t really a holiday in the sense of sitting in a deck chair enjoying the sunshine, for her at least. We were pretty well allowed to roam at will as young kids. Dad would come over for two weeks and it would be a big event going up to the junction to meet him off the train.

Children would also be expected to take their share of farm chores. Brian: We were brought up in a city [Birmingham] and the only thing we had was the local park, but this was the whole countryside for the month or six weeks. Everything else that went in with it, we did the harvesting, collecting the water from the well, the animals on the farm, it was all good fun.

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Summer visits were thus not simply holidays. They were part of an extended family economy which benefited both stayers and movers. Children travelled to Ireland with one or more parents or on their own. Parents who accompanied children did not always remain for the whole period. Fathers, especially, came for a short period and then returned to work in England. James, who grew up in London, emphasized the practicality of the arrangement. His father organized the transport, which was required because of the inaccessibility of the destination and the need to ensure the safe arrival of young children. He’d get very little time off, so he would take us over, and then come straight back, he might stay for a weekend, or link it in if there was a horse race or hurling match going on, we were never invited. Then he would come over and pick us up. It sounds almost like an immersion, let’s take these children and immerse them in their own culture. I don’t think it was, it was like Sunday school and Saturday morning pictures. They were just glad to get us off their hands, convenient, childcare basically. It wasn’t for Irish culture, as you wouldn’t find it there anyway, certainly not the popular conception of Irish culture. There was no traditional Irish music, if you heard anything you would hear country and western.

Mothers were more likely to stay longer, often because they had part-time work which coincided with school holidays, for example employment as school ‘dinner ladies’. This exchange of supervision from parental care in an urban environment to a looser surveillance within a rural community added to the sense of freedom which many interviewees in the Irish 2 Project reported. James: Looking back on it now, it was the freedom, you went out in the morning and didn’t get back until 10 o’clock at night. You would eat at whichever house you happened to be at, it was always an aunt or uncle anyway. You had cousins galore that were roughly the same age, so we were going out all over the place, just wandering up and down the streets. There was virtually no traffic, we’d hang around outside the pubs, to see if you could see an uncle who was yours, and he might buy you a packet of crisps, trying to see what was going on inside. Tremendous freedom.

Bernadette, who was born and brought up in London, echoed this narrative of freedom. But she also nuanced the ‘rosy’ picture with more adult reflections about the positioning of English-born children within the rural society they were entering. Interviewer: What were your impressions of Ireland as a child? Bernadette: I loved it. If you think we were in town, so that was totally different,

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N ETWORKS I am sure in the country in England I would have felt the same. In Ireland everybody knows who you are, you were Frank Kavanagh’s wee one, you were known, people would talk to you and knew who you were. Everyone was very friendly, but as I got older I realized they weren’t just friendly it was a bit nosey, but that is country folk for you. Interviewer: Small town life. Bernadette: Absolutely, but having said that as a youngster I loved it, I would climb mountains, go off with my cousins, there was so much freedom. We had a good amount of freedom, but strangely enough we seemed the naive ones when we were there, we really did. As city kids we were naive, so obviously there was a bit of leg pulling, but you learn from it. Apart from that I loved it.

The theme of freedom is echoed in other accounts of second-generation childhood visits. King et al. (2009) present this very strongly in their analysis of childhood visits by second-generation Greeks and Cypriots to the parental homeland when they observe, ‘one word stood out as completely predominant in the narratives of all these summer visits – freedom’. Moreover, like the iconic west of Ireland stories, they found this picture to be ‘remarkably consistent’ (King et al., 2009: 6). Peggy Levitt (2009: 1234) also remarks on the ‘glowing terms’ in which Gujarati second-generation Americans remembered their annual trips ‘home’. Even though the primary consideration may have been economic, the consequences were social and cultural. The length of the stay meant that children established close relationships with their relatives and absorbed everyday aspects of culture which fitted with the domestic world of their nuclear family in England, if not necessarily with the wider society of school and neighbourhood. Nicholas: It was an integral part of your identity, we didn’t talk about it as a holiday, in fact when I was in my teens and other kids at school would ask, ‘Where did you go on holiday?’ I’d say ‘To Ireland.’ They’d say ‘Didn’t you go abroad?’ and I’d say ‘Ireland is abroad’, and get into that debate, but actually it was just something we did. Every summer we’d get bundled off to Paddington station and on to the train, we’d be over there for summer holidays all of us. My mum would go home to see her mum and dad, my father would come over for a couple of weeks when he got off work, but essentially we were there for the summer.

Issues of cultural difference and political conflict were raised, but family identities overrode ethnic and national assignments, especially for younger children. As Dermot, whose family lived in County Clare pointed out, English accents were commented on by strangers rather than family members.

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Interviewer: How do you think you were seen as a child in Ireland, were you seen as English or Irish or as so and so’s son? Dermot: When I was much younger, I didn’t really think about that I suppose. I think I was seen in different ways by different people, I think very much seen as the son of my father for one thing. I think some people it was probably more those that we didn’t know, if we met them out and about, and they might say ‘Are you from England?’ or ‘Are you English?’ but not really a big issue at that time. I think perhaps as a teenager, that came into it a little bit more, you pick up on more comments about that, you are more aware.

More than 70 per cent of second-generation Irish people in England have a non-Irish, usually English, parent. This was not necessarily a barrier to good relationships, although this could be the case, as writer Blake Morrison’s (2003) harrowing tale of his mother’s deliberately hidden Irish identity illustrates. But Nicholas’s father fitted in well: He loved it actually, maybe because he was always on holiday when he was there, but he could get on quite well at a level with the Irish way of life. Of course as the father of the family, he’d have a certain degree of status anyway, people were going to smooth his path, no-one would slag him off because he was English. He was quite a calm man, and happy sitting out watching birds or enjoying the country life. He liked the horses, a Guinness or two, and liked getting on with people. He was quite calm and happy in that way, so it was never an issue.

Although the balance of reports was strongly positive, not everyone had such happy memories. For some the level of poverty they encountered was shocking and others found family demands suffocating. Kieran, whose father was from County Limerick and mother from County Cork, said: It was about living in a rural area, very backward, there were not things like inside loos, very strange in that sense to come to terms with that. So you have this idea of a very backward community, also the fact that time didn’t seem to matter a great deal. You would be talking to somebody, a car would go down, and the other two people who were there, would have a discussion about who it was, where it was going, and why. Then the other thing was the whole ritual about going around to relatives. I can remember being violently sick, the reason being I had so much rich food, everywhere we went they all got the best food out. It was just too much in the end. It wasn’t a holiday, and I think that’s what my mum and dad felt. If you work the rest of the year, you only have two weeks off then you just want to relax.

Nevertheless childhood holidays in Ireland was the topic discussed at greatest length by focus group members, usually strangers brought together for the first time. They exchanged anecdotes animatedly and welcomed the unusual

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experience of finding people in England outside their families with whom to have such conversations (Walter et al., 2002: 213).

Mixed heritage Second-generation Irish people with ‘mixed race’ heritages have very different childhood memories of visiting Ireland. Four such people were interviewed for the Irish 2 Project, and although each had a distinctive set of parental backgrounds, there were elements of conflict in each case such that none had kept up the family contacts in adulthood although each subsequently visited Ireland by choice. Two interviewees had Irish mothers and Asian fathers, but their class positions were quite different. Tariq’s mother came from a middle-class family in County Cork. She had married an Indian man in London, chosen to convert to Islam and taken a Muslim name. The new family went back to stay with grandparents every summer. Tariq’s glowing account was very similar to that of the white second-generation participants: It was great, it was wonderful I don’t know if you know [town in County Cork], then it was a small little town, it has changed immensely, and my grandmother’s home was in a place called – , it was beautiful countryside, a river running behind the house. I was 10–11 and started going when I was much younger. For me it was a great time, get out of London, beautiful countryside, the weather was good if you were lucky, and surrounded by family. It was quite a big family then, it was my grandmother, my uncle who is still there, and another brother of my mother’s who has since passed away. There were cousins and friends, so it was a wonderful time, how Irish it was for me at that age, it was just visiting relatives. I was told not to walk too near the pigs by my father.

Tariq mentioned that in the 1970s, when rural Ireland had no experience of black immigration, his father was received in a positive way: Interviewer: What you were saying is in the past people were curious, friendly curious? Tariq: Yes, that is all it was, my father had no problem with it. I think we were quite happy there. I was very happy there I think, as far as I know my parents were happy there together. There was some rift between my mother and her family after she married, because of whom she married, but I think which is often the case, after the grandchildren come along, and they realize that you are serious and your partner is serious, it brings most people around.

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However, the visits stopped when his grandmother died and Tariq was ambivalent about his plans for future visits: I guess I am not eager to go back. I have no burning desire to go back, why that is I am not sure. Ireland for me has been a place where my mother is from, and my mother hasn’t been back often in the recent past. I think the only reason why I’d go back to Ireland is if I was going with friends, or if I had the opportunity to see the country and travel. I have heard it is a stunningly beautiful country with much to do and see. So whether I would go back to [County Cork] or whether I would go back to Ireland, are two slightly different questions.

Yasmeen told a very different story. Her Irish Protestant mother from County Meath in the Midlands had married a Pakistani man in London. He never accompanied his wife and children, which they welcomed as a respite from his violence. We would go to Ireland for every holiday, so that was nice, the Irish influence was there from my grandfather, all my aunts and uncles, that was OK. We were pretty free then my dad wasn’t there, there were no beatings.

However, they were subjected to sexual abuse from their mother’s brothers who lived isolated lives as Protestants on a remote farm with no co-religionists in the neighbourhood. Interviewer: What were your impressions of Ireland as a child? You went every summer with your mum and you saw your two grandparents. Yasmeen: On one hand it was really good, the farming, working the cows with my grandfather, totally free to run around like lunatics, but then there was a price to pay as there was a lot of child abuse as well at the same time, in my mother’s family. All the uncles the brothers, wherever you went it was there, I thought it was normal until I left home. During the day the day was nice it was free, you would dig up the potatoes the carrots and everything else, the boiled bacon, all together around the table, that was nice.

Like Tariq, the issue of food taboos was raised by the centrality of bacon in the Irish diet. Interviewer: You’d have bacon when you went back to Ireland? Yasmeen: Yes but my father was never there. Interviewer: Was he ever told about it? Yasmeen: No he’d have killed us all, but it was boiled bacon every day, I am an avid fan of bacon we have it every day I love it, not so keen on pork.

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Yasmeen’s holiday experiences were as strong and vivid as the idyllic pictures painted by the respondents such as James, Nicholas and Dermot who holidayed in the west of Ireland. They stood out starkly against the horrors of sexual abuse by her uncles and the imprisonment her father inflicted on the children in London. Although night times were horrific, day times were fantastic. It was wonderful in the day time, it was lovely walking across the bogs, I have good memories of the day time. Coming back to London it was a nightmare, it was back to our house, nobody was allowed in and we weren’t free, we could go into the garden or the bedroom, but we couldn’t go out anywhere. It was like going back into a chicken cage.

There are parallels here with Ruth Hopkins’ (2007) account of her father’s discovery that the ‘fairyland’ country of his childhood memories was simultaneously the site of great brutality towards women pregnant outside of marriage and children abandoned by their families. It is not my image of Ireland. What I recall is a mixture of pleasure, lovely memories, but meeting these women and to learn a bit more of the Magdalene asylums and industrial schools was really shocking. (Hopkins, 2007)

Like Tariq, Yasmeen felt drawn to other parts of Ireland but I don’t ever go anywhere that I went as a child. I have been to Cork quite a few times. I went for the night clubs which are fantastic, and to have a walk around. It has mainly been weekends away, little fishing villages. I was going to Donegal, went to Sligo, that was too close for comfort, been to Dublin, went to Cork, that was lovely.

By contrast two other interviewees had very little or no contact with the Irish side of their mixed heritage. Rick, who lived in Manchester, had never met his Nigerian father who left his unmarried mother before he was born. His mother took him once to Dublin as a child of ten, but his recollection was very hazy and he did not meet other people. I don’t know whether she rented it, there are vague impressions of a bungalow somewhere near the Liffey not far off there.

He too had returned as an adult: Then I went as a young man on a twenty-four-hour boozer trip. I did that a couple of times, and a couple of years ago did the grown-up family man bit, and stayed at [friend]’s place. I did the mature man’s view of Ireland.

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Gail was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and West Indian father, to whom she was not close. Although she was brought up in a strongly Irish family whose roots were in Wexford, there was no close family left there and her mother did not visit any relatives. Gail had visited Dublin simply as a popular tourist destination, but was surprised by her own reaction. I went to Dublin very much in the same way that I went to Paris, Copenhagen and Milan. It was a nice place for the weekend. When I got there I experienced a nostalgia for Ireland that I didn’t expect to happen, my family aren’t from Dublin, so I didn’t consider I was going home in any sense of the word. But when I got there, this was great, it was soothing, and great, it was to do with Irish people, not Irish soil. It was the high concentration of Irish accents, food, culture, I could get that going to Sparkhill [Birmingham]. It was the people, not the soil.

She felt no wish to go to Wexford and was aware that her reception might reveal unwelcome racism. I’d like to go for a holiday, but I don’t feel the need to go and touch the place I was from, and all of that, it doesn’t do anything for me. Especially I have no relatives there that I know, and they would probably be horrified to know they had black people in the family. I don’t have any need to do it.

Changes in the ethnic composition of Ireland as a consequence of immigration from other parts of the world mean that black people are no longer the rarity of the respondents’ childhoods in the 1970s and 1980s. However, there is evidence that racist attitudes have increased in some contexts so that mixed race second-generation people from England would continue to feel unwelcome (Garner, 2004; Lentin and McVeigh, 2006).

Visits to Northern Ireland Many people with Irish parentage have family connections to Northern Ireland. Although the levels of emigration from the North have not matched the extreme peaks experienced in the Republic in particular periods, such as the 1950s and later the 1980s, they have been at high levels (Walter, 2008). Of the second-generation Irish in England, a considerable proportion have at least one parent born in the North, including a quarter (nineteen) of the Irish 2 Project interviewees. High levels of intermarriage between people from the North and the Republic reflect shared cultural backgrounds which are brought together outside the island of Ireland. The major factor for children visiting extended families in Northern Ireland in the 1960–1990s was firsthand exposure to political violence. Fear for their children’s safety was an

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important reason for many parents to reduce these visits. Where there were different parental places of origin, safer places in the Republic were chosen over riskier destinations in the North. There were a number of consequences for children and their families. Children were informed about the causes of the Troubles in ways that were not available to them in England. Face-to-face associations with families in Northern Ireland also exposed Catholic children to suspicion of involvement in IRA activity. Identification as English was potentially more dangerous in Northern Ireland. Linda, who was born and had lived all her life in Banbury, had Protestant parents from Ballymena and visited the family only once, when she was eleven. Like Kieran, she described the experience of meeting the family and their neighbours in very negative terms. We stayed with my mum’s mum, my gran. Her mum lived to be ninety something, quite old on that side, then we got dragged round to Uncle Jack, Uncle Stanley, things like that.

Linda gave a graphic description of the hostility she experienced, which continued to influence her feelings about visiting her relatives: I am quite intrigued, but the trouble keeps me from wanting to go to Northern Ireland. We didn’t have a nice visit when we were there. Although we were staying with my gran, the kids treated us as outcasts, and we were stoned on the way round to the shops. I wouldn’t want to take my kids.

The issue of their English accents, often remarked on by second-generation children visiting all parts of Ireland, was accentuated for those going to the North. Rachel, whose parents were from County Tyrone, was asked: Interviewer: What did you make of these visits? Rachel: We were very aware of how we spoke, that was a big thing, it was like I don’t want to open my mouth. That is all I can remember ‘Oh God I can’t talk, I sound so English’, but I can’t really remember. My biggest memory was my accent. Interviewer: Did you try to modify it or not speak too much? Rachel: Not speak too much unless we were together. We were such a close family we could appear to be quite rude really when we were together at functions. When my brother got married, we don’t feel the need to speak to others and include people, we have always had each other. It is awful, but we don’t need to try to make friends. Probably we half got away with it by sticking together and talking amongst ourselves.

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Mairead, who was raised in Manchester, with a Catholic mother from Lisburn, also had frightening memories of threatening behaviour and bombings. For me it was completely different to what my friends were experiencing. We’d go for the summer months as mum and dad were off as they were teachers. I remember being there for the twelfth of July,4 and not knowing what was happening the first time. This was when nan and grandad were in Lisburn which is predominantly Protestant. I remember lying upstairs in bed, the bar was closed obviously, but there was mesh on the windows. The bar was a couple of doors down from the church. The Orangemen would walk down and stop outside the church and play. They’d march a bit further down and stop outside the bar and play, you’d hear them banging on the gate and stones being thrown. At first I didn’t have a clue, I was only young, but then the more you learn about it, the more bitter you become.

Mairead saw this as a duty visit to family, contrasting it with renting a holiday cottage in Donegal. That was a proper holiday then, because I didn’t know anyone and that was like going on holiday, but going to Lisburn, you were getting away from England, but it wasn’t classed as a holiday. We were just living the way everyone else lives, and had a bit of money and that was it.

These visits exposed children to the realities of their parents’ backgrounds. They illustrate the importance attached to keeping in touch even in very risky situations. The children were being introduced to ways of life which were far removed from those they encountered, or even heard about publicly, in England. Censorship meant that everyday life in Northern Ireland was not portrayed in the media, which simply reported bombings and shootings with very little explanation or sympathy for those caught up in violent incidents. Such politicization of children was graphically underlined in Patrick Maguire’s memoir My Father’s Watch, written with the help of novelist Carlo Gébler and subsequently given global coverage in the 2009 film with the same title. Patrick was the youngest member of the ‘Maguire Seven’, who were wrongly convicted of being accessories to the Guildford pub bombings in 1974. The memoir describes the excitement of entering what was effectively a war zone in the 1970s. In Belfast one thing was very interesting and I was impatient to see it. . . A line of British soldiers was moving down the street, guns out, the last man walking backwards, guarding the others from attack. Lovely. Then I saw something even better: a Saracen armoured car. It was big and green

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Patrick explained his ignorance of the political background to the conflict. I didn’t know any of this because we didn’t talk about it at number forty three Third Avenue [Harrow, West London]. I had no idea, as Uncle Hugh drove us to his house that morning, what Belfast and Northern Ireland were going through or why. I was eleven. I was off school and I was on holiday. I was going to see my uncles, aunts and cousins. That was all I cared about. (Maguire, 2009: 58)

But the family connections drew him into the conflict. His cousins and their friends threw stones and bottles at the Saracens and challenged him to join them. ‘How come you don’t throw anything?’ This was one of my cousins’ friends. ‘Is it because you’re a Brit?’

A more serious consequence was later interrogation by the Special Branch of the police under suspicion of terrorist activity. His Belfast family was assumed to link him directly with the IRA and provide evidence of his involvement in planning bombings in Britain (Maguire, 2009: 334). Like Mairead, Patrick drew a distinction between these family visits and ‘holidays’. Now we were settled, my parents started saving, and once there was enough we had a holiday, the first we ever took. We went to Margate. (Maguire, 2009: 11)

All these accounts illustrate the intersections of private family memories and public political events for second-generation Irish children. Their English ‘homes’ placed them in a distinctive and potentially dangerous position when their accents were heard on the streets. Assumptions were made about their identities and allegiances which paralleled those their parents experienced in England at times of IRA bombing campaigns.

Conclusions Childhood visits to Ireland were remembered very vividly. For most secondgeneration people who had made such visits they were a positive experience which was linked with idealized memories of childhood – long sunny days, loving acceptance by close-knit families, adult responsibility for the work involved, and above all freedom to roam which contrasted with the urban

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confinement of life in England. As Joe Moran (2002: 171, 172) argues, childhood nostalgia is not simply related to ‘dominant narratives of class, gender, nation and the family’, although these are important, but is also ‘a sentiment that resonates with our own deepest longings for identity, security and belonging’. In the case of diasporic populations, there is the added factor of a ‘homing desire’ (Brah, 1996) which is transmitted to later generations. Caitríona Ní Laoire (2011: 1258) highlights the extra national dimension given to ‘innocent Irish childhoods’ drawing on ‘romantic and primordial images of Ireland’. These positive associations led to ongoing relationships in adulthood. People re-created for their own children, the third generation, the experiences they had enjoyed themselves (King et al., 2009: 23). John O’Farrell (2005), a travel journalist for The Observer newspaper, reported that ‘we did not go to Ireland that much when I was a child’. However, he later explains: ‘But since I have had children of my own I have been to the Republic every year. You have to give your children some sense of heritage and I’m buggered if we’re spending three weeks in Maidenhead every August.’ John Walsh also introduced his children to Athenry, County Galway, but with some trepidation: I needn’t have worried. The minute Sophie, my eldest daughter, met her cousins, Annabel and Giles, she was sold . . . The butcher, John-Joe Brady, greeted the children; ‘Hi Annabel. Hello Giles. And who is this little girl? Don’t tell me let me guess. You’re John’s daughter, is that right? I heard he was in town.’ (Walsh, 1999: 244)

For some third-generation children this has even led to a move to live in Ireland. In his interview for the Irish 2 Project, Banbury participant Niall explained that his son enjoyed his visits so much that he seriously considered working there: Mark is an apprentice electrician. He has just started, but he said last week ‘Would you mind if I went over to Ireland to see Uncle Frank and stay with him?’ I said ‘Why?’ He said ‘I want to.’

Such ties help to explain the significant proportion of UK-born migrants into Ireland between 1992 and 2009, about 10 per cent of the total compared with 15 per cent who were Irish-born returners (Central Statistics Office, 1992–2009). While some were younger children living within families, others were clearly independent adult migrants choosing a way of life they had experienced at first hand. However, the difference between the ‘everyday reality’ of living in Ireland and ‘life on holiday’ might provide a sharp jolt as GreekCypriots found (King et al., 2009: 20). Moreover, not all emigrants to England retained strong family ties in Ireland. For a myriad of reasons the links had

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been broken. These included the high cost of travel for large families whose income was low, the premature death of parents and the emigration of whole families so that there was no ‘homeplace’ to go back to. The importance of childhood holidays may assume a particularly significant role in defining identities in later life. It can be used by secondgeneration Irish people to explain important choices in their lives. For example, Prime Minister Tony Blair used the trope in the opening paragraphs of his historic speech to the Irish Parliament on 26 November 1998 at the time of the Good Friday Agreement. He established his claim to an Irish identity, and thus to a personal investment in – and, by implication, contribution to – the success of the Peace Process by a detailed description of the idyll: We spent virtually every childhood summer holiday up to when the troubles really took hold in Ireland, usually at Rossnowlagh, the Sands House Hotel, I think it was. And we would travel in the beautiful countryside of Donegal. It was there in the seas off the Irish coast that I learned to swim, there that my father took me to my first pub, a remote little house in the country, for a Guinness, a taste I’ve never forgotten and which it is always a pleasure to repeat (Blair, 1998).

The impact of childhood summers in Ireland was noted in other career paths. Reviews of Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane commented on this influence on his writing: Although second generation Irish, McDonagh’s childhood summers spent in the ‘old country’ clearly weren’t just long lazy days at the seaside. His feel for the linguistic idiosyncrasies of the Connemara dialect are spot on. (Coyle, 2009)

Kevin Rowland, lead singer of Dexy’s Midnight Runners, explained how family visits to Ireland underlined his sense of Irishness and contributed to his musical style (Campbell, 2011). Similarly the national allegiance of Seamus McDonagh, born in Yorkshire of Irish parents, who subsequently played football for Ireland, has been linked with childhood holidays spent there (Holmes and Storey, 2004: 97). Transnational family networks across generations reinforced in childhood have both personal and public ramifications in many different arenas. What might appear to be a private matter of leisure, social obligation and/or childcare may also have wider implications for national allegiances, political awareness, economic coping strategies and cultural capital in both nations. Far from ignoring boundaries, ‘transnationalism draws attention to what it negates – that is, the continued significance of the national’ (Pratt and Yeoh, 2003: 161). National differences and interdependencies are highlighted

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through personal experiences of specific locations. Childhood is a central aspect of the process, both for the migrant parents whose main memories relate to places they knew as children and for the next generation which establishes ties to the same places and people. As Peggy Levitt points out: ‘Whether individuals ultimately forge or maintain some kind of transnational connection, at some point in their lives, largely depends on the extent to which they were brought up in transnational spaces’ (2009: 1230).

Notes 1 This project, ‘The Second-Generation Irish: A Hidden Population in Multi-ethnic Britain,’ was funded by an ESRC grant (R000238367) 2000–2, and directed by Professor Bronwen Walter. Co-researchers were Professor Mary J. Hickman, Dr Joseph Bradley and Dr Sarah Morgan. Fieldwork locations were Banbury, Coventry, London and Manchester in England, and Strathclyde in Scotland. 2 Counties include Kerry, Limerick, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal. 3 Pseudonyms have been given to the participants and others mentioned in their accounts. 4 This is an annual Protestant celebration of the victory of William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Members of the Orange Order and Protestant marching bands stage parades throughout Northern Ireland.

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Hickman, M.J. and B. Walter (1997) Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain. London: Commission for Racial Equality. Hickman, M.J., S. Morgan and B. Walter (2001) Second-Generation Irish People in Britain: A Demographic, Socio-economic and Health Profile. London: Irish Studies Centre, London Metropolitan University. Hillyard, P. (1993) Suspect Community: People’s Experience of the Prevention of Terrorism Act in Britain. London: Pluto Press. Holmes, M. and D. Storey (2004) ‘Who are the boys in green? Irish identity and soccer in the Republic of Ireland’, in A. Porter and D. Porter (eds) Sport and National Identity in the Post-War World. London: Routledge, 88–104. Hopkins, Ruth (2007) ‘From Netherlands Radiotelier documentary “In my father’s Ireland”’. Available online at www.netreach.net/~steed/ruth_ hopkins_transcript.html. Accessed 29 October 2010. King, R., A. Christou and J. Teerling (2009) ‘Idyllic times and spaces? Memories of childhood visits to the parental homeland by second-generation Greeks and Cypriots’. Working Paper 56, University of Sussex. Available online at www.sussex.ac.uk/migration/publications/workingpapers. Accessed 4 October 2011. Lentin, R. and R. McVeigh (2006) After Optimism? Ireland, Racism and Globalisation. Dublin: Metro Éireann Publications. Levitt, P. (2009) ‘Roots and routes: understanding the lives of the second generation transnationally’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35:7, 1225–42. MacLaughlin, J. (1997) Location and Dislocation in Contemporary Irish Society: Emigration and Irish Identities. Cork: Cork University Press. Maguire, P. (2009) My Father’s Watch. London: Harper Perennial. McCarthy, P. (2000) McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Moran, J. (2002) ‘Childhood and nostalgia in contemporary culture’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 5:2, 155–75. Morrison, B. (2003) Things My Mother Never Told Me. London: Vintage. Moving here: migration histories. Online resource. Available at www.movinghere.org.uk/galleries/histories/irish/growing_up/growing_up. htm p.2. Accessed 19 February 2010. Ní Laoire, C. (2008) ‘Complicating host–newcomer dualisms: Irish return migrants as home-comers or newcomers?’, Translocations: Migration and Social Change, 4:1, 35–50. Ní Laoire, C. (2011) ‘Narratives of “Innocent Irish childhoods”: return migration and intergenerational family dynamics’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37:8, 1253–71. O’Farrell, J. (2005) ‘The family secret’, The Observer Escape 29 May, p.8. Pratt, G. and B. Yeoh (2003) ‘Transnational (counter) topographies’, Gender,

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Place and Culture, 10:2, 159–66. Vertovec, S. (2001) ‘Transnationalism and identity’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27:4, 573–82. Walsh, J. (1999) The Falling Angels: An Irish Romance. London: Flamingo. Walter, B. (2008) ‘From “flood” to “trickle”: Irish migration to Britain 1987–2006’, Irish Geography, 41:2, 181–94. Walter, B., S. Morgan, M.J. Hickman and J. Bradley (2002) ‘Family stories, public silence: Irish identity construction amongst the second-generation Irish in England’, Scottish Geographical Journal, 118:3, 201–17.

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2 ‘Two Irelands beyond the sea’: exploring long-distance loyalist networks in the 1880s William Jenkins

As obvious as it may seem to state that networks exist at different scales from the local to the transnational and global, it is the relations and intersections between such networks, the way that they connect places, and the consequences that result from their activity that are of interest here. These consequences are many, but are treated in this chapter in the context of Irish emigration to North America and how overlapping forms of identity and ‘groupness’, based not only on variables such as ethnicity, nationality and religion but also the various territorial imaginings associated with them, were moulded, practised and revised in ongoing fashion (for critical takes, see Brubaker, 2002; Yans, 2006). I will argue in turn that these networks were important for structuring popular understandings of social and (geo)political relations in particular places and the power struggles that often underlay these. While the chapter’s general context is that of Protestant Irish emigration to Canada in the nineteenth century, it focuses on a political tour undertaken at the time of the first Irish Home Rule Bill (1886) in order to explore the North Atlantic as a space for loyalist network-building that connected the politics and identities forged within Canadian localities with those in Ireland and mainly in its northern province, Ulster. The tour, that took in both Canada and the United States, was undertaken by two representatives of the newly minted Ulster Loyal and Anti-Repeal Union (ULARU): Rev. R.R. Kane, an Anglican minister from Belfast, and George Hill Smith, an Armagh barrister. Kane, an unyielding defender of Protestantism and the Act of Union that bound Ireland and Britain, was the star attraction with Smith brought along to provide legal perspectives on the Irish land question. Kane and Smith’s mission was to bring Ulster-centric critiques of home rule to a wider audience and, given the

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patterns of out-migration from Ulster to Canada from the 1820s, these two Ulstermen had every reason to expect a sympathetic reception there in much the same way that Charles Stewart Parnell found the largely Catholic Irish immigrants of American cities a key bedrock of support on his fundraising mission of 1880.1 While Parnell’s tour undoubtedly fostered a nationalist ‘self-awareness throughout the diaspora’, the nuts-and-bolts arrangements of venues were taken care of by the pre-existing inter-city network of Clan na Gael, the main proponents of physical force (Fenian) Irish nationalism in the United States at that time (O’Day, 2005). As we shall see here, the Protestantonly Orange Order fraternity performed a similar function for the Kane and Smith tour in a way that rallied not only loyalist sympathizers, but also those who recognized their duties as members of an ‘Orange diaspora’ and acted accordingly (MacRaild, 2005a). This chapter thus presents a more nuanced picture of the cartography of ‘Irish diasporic space’ in North America by considering the Canadian and loyalist contexts (on diasporic space, see Brah, 1996). Other scholars have set their analytical sights on the social, cultural and political networks forged in the North Atlantic from the seventeenth century onwards. Such networks mattered not only for their ability to connect people and places on either side of the ocean but also for doing so, according to Miles Ogborn, through ‘particular forms of action understood as collaboration or resistance’ (Ogborn, 2008: 8). The undertakers of such actions were a varied group, including soldiers, merchants, missionaries, colonial administrators, sailors, pirates, labourers, pioneer settlers, slaves and others. Political news, ideas and demands transmitted through newspapers, texts, private correspondence and legal petitions also circulated within the Atlantic world, touching audiences on either side and structuring popular (and, to some degree, hegemonic) understandings of ‘big’ issues such as capitalism, imperialism and civilization. These networks were, in other words, shot through with relations of power. Clergymen with formidable reputations as orators also played important roles in the building of transnational networks that sought to mould and uphold certain outlooks on religion, politics and culture. Clerics accustomed to travel and mission circuits were especially aware of the role of individual performance in communicating messages with force and conviction. For several decades prior to the 1880s, Protestant Ulster knew all about preachers such as the Presbyterians Rev. Henry Cooke and Rev. ‘Roaring’ Hugh Hanna, men who freely mixed politics with religion when suspecting the latter to be unduly influenced by the former. By the mid 1880s, the verve possessed by Rev. R.R. Kane as a speaker, and the public role he commandeered in Belfast’s struggle against home rule, elevated his reputation to a position comparable to Cooke and Hanna in the Ulster public imagination.

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The political tour undertaken by Kane and Smith illustrates Ogborn’s above point in that its message resisted Irish nationalism while defending collaboration in the wider project of a global Britishness where Ireland and Canada occupied significant nodes. Theirs was a project that might be termed ‘long-distance loyalism’, and bound within it were assumptions about Protestantism and imperialism. Yet if so-called loyalist/unionist identities were to be promoted in Ireland at this critical political juncture, the efforts of ULARU to elicit sympathy in wider transnational arenas benefited from the collaboration of existing organizational forms. And so it was that Canada’s Orange Order, an organization created largely by Irish immigrants, provided the key transatlantic network used to articulate reasons why a Dublin Parliament threatened not only Protestants in Ulster but also the very foundations of empire. By presenting themselves as loyal, Orange Irish immigrants and their descendants proved instrumental in fashioning pro-imperial British subjectivities in Canada, shaping an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1991) of English-speaking Protestants that often pitted themselves against FrenchCanadian Catholics, especially in debates over public schooling. This was especially true in the central Canadian province of Ontario, the focal point of the Kane and Smith tour, where over 900 Orange lodges had been established by 1870, the year that the Orange Triennial Conference was held in the provincial capital, Toronto (Houston and Smyth, 1980: 38). The Order was no longer seen as simply an ‘Irish’ organization in Canada, as the English-, Scottish- and Canadian-born became attracted to its ranks. While this chapter illuminates the nature of these relatively neglected networks linking (mostly long-settled) Irish immigrants in Canada and the politics of their homeland in the mid 1880s, it also aims to amplify Donald MacRaild’s (2005a, 2005b) notions of the interplay between ‘Irish Protestant’ and ‘Orange’ diasporas alongside Jessica Harland-Jacobs’s more specific contention that the ‘history of the [Orange] Order’s role in countering the Home Rule movement and bolstering Ulster Unionism . . . should . . . be approached with both the Atlantic and the global in mind’ (Harland-Jacobs, 2008: 41). The idea of a ‘home-ruling’ Ireland gained political momentum with the formation of the Home Government Association and the publication of Isaac Butt’s Home Government for Ireland, a document that cited the Canadian Confederation of 1867 as a possible model (Toner, 1989). While the home rule movement had gathered significant steam by the mid 1870s, it had by then primarily become, for R.V. Comerford, a vehicle for the ‘assertion of Irish catholic identity’ (Comerford, 1985: 197). The federalist idea at the heart of the idea was not, as Alvin Jackson wryly noted, ‘the object of much passionate yearning’ (Jackson, 2003: 35). Geographically, Ulster had remained largely impervious to the home rulers’ influence until the early 1880s when Parnell

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had taken control of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), the electoral franchise had become widened and British Prime Minister Gladstone had declared his support for the measure. Ulster was now a region to be politically conquered by the IPP and in the general election of 1885, it entered thirteen candidates there, ten of them hailing from the southern counties (Hepburn, 1996: 148). Home rule, now seen by increasing numbers of Ulster and Irish Protestants as inextricably bound up with the idea of a rejuvenated Catholic Irish nation, thus constituted a distinct threat to those anxious to maintain the Act of Union. Many Ulster Protestants, and notably the Orange Order, were in the vanguard of action taken to preserve the union, but just as Irish nationalism was not something made purely ‘at home’, so too were networks of loyalist actors extending beyond Ireland itself (see also Brown, 1966; Jackson, 2009; Kelly, 2005; Mulligan, 2002). The Ulster Loyal Anti-Repeal Union was established in January 1886 to highlight the province’s special interest alongside that articulated by the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union (ILPU), formed by southern Irish landed interests the previous May (Jackson, 2001: 120; Savage, 1961: 195). Rev. R.R. Kane was one of the founding leaders of the new northern network, but he was also at the head of another, being County Grand Master of the Orange Order in Belfast. Assuming the duties of treasurer was James Henderson, owner of the Belfast News Letter and the Belfast Weekly News, a publication that ‘provided a vital conduit for communication between diasporic lodges and the homeland of Ireland’ (MacRaild, 2006: 57). The president, Lord Ranfurly, represented the hand of the Ulster landed gentry in the new entity. Unlike the ILPU but like the Orange Order, the ULARU defined its constituency in strictly confessional terms. Unlike the Orangemen, however, the ULARU was never a mass organization. Its aim was to defend a loyal Protestant identity in Ulster and to do so with a loud and confident voice, and its nonpartisan character distinguished it from the Tory group then being organized in the House of Commons under the leadership of Col. Edward Saunderson (Jackson, 1989). In the months preceding the vote on the Home Rule Bill, the ULARU looked for fertile ground to spread its message. A lecture and pamphlet campaign was undertaken in England, Wales and Scotland, with Kane speaking at a number of English meetings. He was not the only clergyman to involve himself in such activity. Among others, the firebrand Hanna had been at the forefront of the Scottish campaign and was initially mooted to join Kane in the Canadian mission (Belfast News Letter, 1886b).2 While the results of the British campaign were uneven, Canada seemed to offer greater promise as the migration links forged between Ulster and the new Dominion were now well known. Moreover, Ulster loyalist opinion regarded the emigrants as having played a pivotal role in settling and developing what the Belfast

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Evening Telegraph (1886) termed ‘that prosperous Colony’, a tellingly inaccurate political description almost twenty years following Confederation. No doubt sharing similar views, Hanna later admitted his likely disappointment ‘if they did not receive a good sum from Canada’, stating that while Kane and Smith ‘went over not to beg’, future North American tours would be unlikely ‘if the society did not receive an ample subscription’ (ibid.). The anxiety about being possibly seen as ‘beggars’ was an unsubtle reference to prevailing myths of Protestant self-help, industry and thrift that also distinguished the ULARU’s initiative from what it regarded as the ‘cap-in-hand’ approach of Parnell and the network of National League branches that had sprung up across North America. The above Telegraph report referred to the United States as ‘that happy hunting ground of [nationalist] Irish political mendicants’, for instance (ibid.). In Canada, the Orange propensity to offer assistance was an added advantage, and something that was likely missing on occasion as the ULARU campaigners made their way across England and Scotland, given the uneven geography of Orangeism within Britain and the fact that in parts of England, at least, the Order was more ‘an expression of Irishness’ rather than the main vehicle of a ‘proud pan-Britishness’ (MacRaild, 2005a: 70). Ulster-born settlers in Canada were in any case kept abreast of ongoing developments in their province of birth, not only through personal correspondence but also through newspapers.3 There certainly was much scope for a transatlantic traffic in newspapers. Although tens of thousands of Protestants of different denominations and from all parts of Ireland had settled in rural and urban Ontario in the decades between Waterloo and the Irish potato famine, most of these originated in Ulster (Akenson, 1984; Houston and Smyth, 1990; Jenkins, 2008). While this immigration slowed down in the post-Famine decades, the linkages forged between Ireland’s northern province and Ontario were lasting. A correspondent covering the 1872 Canadian tour of Ulster Orange delegate and Westminster MP William Johnston for the News Letter remarked, for example, how Henderson’s Belfast Weekly News was ‘highly appreciated here by North of Ireland Orangemen’, while in June 1886, the Co. Antrim-born secretary of the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society in Ottawa, Samuel Thompson, identified himself to the News Letter as ‘a reader of your valuable paper, which I receive from my aged mother’ (Belfast News Letter, 1872a, 1886a). Here, then, is some evidence of the transatlantic flow and consumption of two Ulster newspapers whose pages conveyed political viewpoints supportive of Orangeism and loyalism, while also shaping impressions of the progress of Ulster immigrants in Canada, and ‘Orange Ontario’ in particular. Unsurprisingly, Henderson’s News Letter (along with the Belfast Evening Telegraph) closely followed the progress of the Kane and Smith tour, scripting supportive editorials about it

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and printing positive accounts of meetings from like-minded Canadian organs such as the Toronto Mail and that city’s weekly Orange paper, the Sentinel.4 As with their counterparts in the United States, the prospect of political reform in Ireland had not passed Canadians by prior to 1886. Indeed, the argument that Ireland was merely seeking a similar form of home rule as was granted to Canada in 1867 would be consistently rehearsed by Irish nationalists throughout the late Victorian era and beyond. Parnell visited Toronto and Montreal in 1880 and grass-roots activity led to the founding of Land League branches in these cities the following year; by mid decade, these had become National League branches. The Irish question was also discussed at the highest levels, with eighteen speeches delivered on it in the Dominion Parliament in 1882, twenty-seven in 1886 and forty in 1887 (GrobFitzgibbon, 2003: 3). In 1882, a resolution calling for home rule in Ireland was approved by both major parties in the house and transmitted to the Queen, though the Colonial Minister’s reply ‘told them that they had no right to address the Queen on such Imperial matters and that they should mind their own business in the future’ (Grob-Fitzgibbon, 2003: 6).5 Resolutions moved in 1886 and 1887 were also passed, though Orange-Conservative members of the Canadian Commons were not slow to voice their opposition. The cry against Irish home rule in Canada, though, had a longer lineage that also extended beyond the Ottawa Parliament, and here too the Orange network was crucial. William Johnston witnessed (and no doubt inspired) cries of ‘No Home Rule’ on his tour of 1872 while accounts of violent Land League activities in Ireland in the early 1880s informed leading Toronto Orangemen’s declining of invitations to meetings of the ‘loyal’ Land League branch in the city (Belfast News Letter, 1872b; Globe, 1881). Little wonder, then, that long-established Irish Orangemen in ‘the Belfast of Canada’ were in the vanguard of the Canadian response to the developing Irish unionist/loyalist movement in early 1886. In early March, posters stating ‘The Empire is in Danger’ were placed around the city to announce the inaugural meeting of those opposing Gladstone’s bill (Globe, 1886). The meeting in Temperance Hall was allegedly so crowded that ‘thousands’ could not gain admittance, and Ulstermen were especially notable on the platform (Toronto Mail, 1886a). Co. Down-born Warring Kennedy (later to become Mayor) presided, and the Toronto Mail noted the presence of (Co. Leitrim-born) Sentinel editor John Hewitt and (Co. Fermanagh-born) Methodist minister, Dr. John Potts. Expressing standard affections for Queen Victoria and the Governor-General, Kennedy argued that ‘Home Rulers had not definitely declared what they wanted’, adding that ‘under the British flag the greatest liberty in the world today was enjoyed’; Potts and another colleague subsequently echoed the ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’ message before retiring ‘amidst loud cheering’ (ibid.).

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This was more than simply an occasion for talk, however. A Union Defence Fund for ‘the loyalists of Ireland’ was established. Hewitt remarked that while the Land League in Toronto had sent $1300 to Parnell, they would send ‘tens of thousands of thousands of dollars to help their brethren in the struggle’, with public school inspector and fellow Orangeman James Hughes adding that ‘most of the money that was used in Ireland to persecute the Protestants came principally from the United States’ (ibid.). Toronto’s antihome rule agitation was thus operating within a number of overlapping geographical and discursive circuits that involved Irish migrants. The Orange circuit was most apparent, operating at both transatlantic and local levels, and the Kane and Smith tour would illuminate its regional-scale operations through its Canadian itinerary. The agitation was, however, also informed by the actions of Irish nationalists and their immigrant supporters within and beyond the boundaries of Britain’s empire. With the Fenian Raids of 1866 anything but forgotten and their more recent dynamite campaign in London also easily recalled, the American Irish were perceived by Canadian Orangemen and others not only as key funders of Parnell’s party but also as having more than a few Fenians lurking within their ranks, even though few Irish in the United States supported the dynamiters. The militants south of the border nonetheless appeared as familiar bogeymen in arguments that home rule would be merely a stepping-stone towards an Irish republic. Given the prominence of Irish-born members of Orange lodges in shaping resistance to Irish home rule in Toronto, it is not surprising that their city would be the place for Kane and Smith to give their maiden address in North America. Before that happened, however, the Home Rule Bill was defeated on 8 June by 341 votes to 311 in the Commons at Westminster. Belfast was then scarred by rioting during the succeeding four months that left 32 people dead and 371 injured (Hirst, 2002: 174). Rev. Kane, the evangelical minister of Christ Church, was at the centre of a close-knit community of working-class Protestantism and Orangeism in the city’s Sandy Row neighbourhood. An Orange hall erected there in 1868 had become home to twenty or so lodges within a decade, for example (Hirst, 2002: 129). As Protestant rioters battled the constabulary whose ranks they believed had been reinforced to quash their protests against home rule, Kane joined their street marches alongside the militant Hanna while voicing the ‘no surrender’ mantra of Orangeism. This was no less than Sandy Row Protestants expected, with Kane following in the tradition of previous Christ Church ministers such as Dr. Thomas Drew, a celebrated mid century ‘anti-Romanist’, and Rev. Gaunt, a fellow Orangeman (Hirst, 2002: 44, 127; see also Doyle, 2009). Given such a sectarian atmosphere, the confessional exclusivity of the ULARU and his own awareness of the reach of Orangeism beyond Ireland, Kane likely expected to find in Canada a sense of Protestant triumphalism that would

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warmly receive the populist sectarian lens through which he viewed Irish affairs. In late July, the ULARU passed a resolution to dispatch a deputation to Canada and the United States (Belfast News Letter, 1886b). Rev. Kane undoubtedly learned much about Canada from the peripatetic Belfast parliamentarian and Tory populist William Johnston, who was also married to a daughter of Rev. Drew. The status of both as high-ranking Orangemen also invited contact with their Canadian counterparts who occasionally returned to ‘the old country’ on behalf of the loyal organization. In November 1885, for instance, a ‘céad míle fáilte’ was proclaimed by Kane when he and Johnston hosted such returnees in Belfast after the latter had attended the Edinburgh triennial meeting.6 At least two of these were Ulstermen: William Johnson, the Co. Antrim-born Grand Master for Ontario East and William J. Parkhill, the Co. Tyrone-born Grand Master for British America. Johnson reminded his Belfast audience that he and his colleagues ‘were the descendants of the men who had fought in their little island, and they were ready to shoulder their muskets to come to Ireland and help them, as they were to come to Canada and help them’ (Belfast News Letter, 1885). Parkhill was a lumber merchant with extensive forestry holdings in Simcoe County, north of Toronto, where he resided (Illustrated Historical Atlas, 1881: 18). Building a reputation in local Conservative and Orange circles, he was acclaimed as a member of the Ontario legislature in 1878, remaining there until 1883; he had also returned to Ireland at least once before, as a delegate of the Ontario West Grand Lodge in 1876. Johnson had a gents’ furnishings business in the small city of Belleville, east of Toronto, where Orange lodges were reported to have ‘a firm foothold’ alongside similar outlets for the Masons and Oddfellows (Illustrated Historical Atlas, 1878a: iii). These two men’s lives illustrated the Ulster and Orange stamp on rural and small-town Ontario, and their contribution to the shaping of the Kane and Smith itinerary would prove significant, knowledgeable as they were of the geography of Orange Canada in particular. Kane and Smith left Derry on 28 August and reached Quebec City on 6 September, spending almost two months in eastern Canada and the United States. Altogether, just under thirty meetings were held, with Kane delivering nine additional sermons.7 The role of the Canadian Orange lodges quickly became clear, as upon reaching Quebec, the visiting Ulstermen were met by a deputy of Parkhill who relayed them to Toronto, following a night in Montreal (Belfast News Letter, 1886h). Ontario was to dominate the Canadian leg of the tour, an unsurprising move since it was by 1871 home to threequarters of Protestants of Irish birth and ancestry in the Dominion while also being the epicentre of North American Orangeism (Houston and Smyth, 1980; 1990: 226). William Johnson later wrote to the News Letter explaining that before the arrival of Kane and Smith, a Toronto meeting consisting of

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‘committees appointed by the Toronto Loyal and Patriotic Union and the Grand Orange Lodge of British America’ had arranged the itinerary that would include some of the principal cities and towns of the province of Ontario, as well as . . . some rural sections where the proximity of several railways would enable large numbers to attend. At each of these places one or more influential gentlemen were written to, requesting them to organize local committees to arrange for holding public meetings, and to get the people interested in the arrival of the delegates. (Belfast News Letter, 1886i)

The tour could evidently have gone on for much longer than it did. Requests to speak were reputedly declined from at least forty other locations and expenses were ‘nearly all furnished by local organizations’; George Hill Smith later reported contributions of some $20,000 for the ULARU (Belfast News Letter, 1887a). It is likely that many of these ‘local organizations’ were Orange lodges, though the possibility of prominent Orangemen and other supporters personally bankrolling some appearances cannot be ruled out. Kane and Smith were careful not to single out the Order with providing financial assistance alone, as the trip had to be seen as more than simply an ‘Orange mission’. Nevertheless, delegates from Loyal Orange Lodge No. 241 were on hand to greet Kane and Smith when they returned to Belfast on 2 November (Belfast News Letter, 1886g). Although this chapter concentrates on the Canadian portion of the trip, it is worth mentioning that the four American cities visited by Kane and Smith (Philadelphia, Brooklyn, New York and Boston) had an Orange presence as well as significant numbers of Catholic Irish immigrants. New York, of course, had suffered Orange and Green riots in the summers of 1870 and 1871 (Gordon, 1993). Seventeen years later, some Fenian sympathizers were present among the crowd of 3500 or so at the Boston meeting, chaired by the Grand Master of Massachusetts, though no violence resulted (Belfast News Letter, 1886h). The research of Houston and Smyth indicates American Orangemen to have been overwhelmingly Irish-born and, by 1897, twentythree lodges were present in both Boston and Philadelphia with nineteen in New York (Houston and Smyth, 1984: 203). The American lodges thus seem to have taken up from where their Canadian brethren left off once Kane and Smith crossed the border. Before that occurred, however, the route taken by Kane and Smith throughout Ontario followed the province’s Protestant Irish settlement geography that also corresponded closely with Orange lodge locations (see Figure 2.1).8 Speeches given in the cities of Toronto, Hamilton, St. Catharines, London, Ottawa, Kingston and Belleville were balanced by affairs staged in less populous places such as Beeton, Delaware, Millbrook,

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Shelburne, Walkerton, Clinton and Listowel (Belfast News Letter, 1886h). Attendances often numbered in the thousands. With individuals of Irish Protestant birth and ancestry to be found in many corners of the province besides the well-known settlement cores around Peterborough and the southern part of Simcoe County (Parkhill’s backyard), it was not hard to find local figures of Irish background to convene meetings, and oftentimes these were Ulster-born and officers of local Orange lodges. Furthermore, political messages about loyalism were already familiar to the residents of the Canadian cities, towns and villages visited by Kane and Smith, even if this time it concerned the Irish variety. A sense of ‘loyalty’ focused on crown, empire and the values of the Protestant ‘British constitution’ had been long ingrained in Ontario since the Upper Canadian era when American loyalists fled north during the revolution, and the immigration of Protestants from mostly Britain and Ireland in the decades following Waterloo would promote and defend this idea of loyalty at the grass-roots level. For David Mills, loyalty became ‘the central political idea in Upper Canada during the first half of the nineteenth century’ and the basis ‘not only of political legitimacy but also of acceptance into the wider provincial society’ (Mills, 1988: 5). It had, in other words, become all but hegemonic, and despite early objections about their capacity for rowdy behaviour, loyal Orange lodges gained some social and political legitimacy in this environment where debates over the meaning of loyalty (and disloyalty) were often public and articulated in street parades, newspaper editorials and election addresses. The key organizer of the Orange institution in Upper Canada, Co. Wexford-born Ogle Gowan, stressed the loyal values espoused by newly arriving immigrants from Britain and Ireland in the 1830s as well as the significance of the ‘British connection’. As David W. Miller has noted, Orange conceptions of the ‘British Constitution’ were situated in the Bill of Rights in 1688 and emphasized Protestantism (Miller, 1978: 62, 91). This chimed with the rhetoric delivered by Kane and Smith half a century later, though this is not to say that the Canadian Orangemen’s appetite for public declarations of loyalty to the British crown were always approved of by the authorities, as the controversial visit of the Prince of Wales in 1860 attested (Radforth, 2007). In general, however, nobody communicated ‘crown and empire’ principles with the conviction and spectacle offered by the Ontario lodges. The Canada- and Ireland-specific conceptions of loyalty thus combined with the trans-imperial discourse of ‘British liberties’ to structure rationales for why British imperialism had been a force for good in the world. They also found their place in the Orange wings of the Conservative parties active in both locations. What had conferred ‘civic and religious freedoms’ under ‘the British flag’ in one place would faithfully do the same in another. Networks thus did more than simply connect places – they structured localized under-

- Sept. 23

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Millbrook - Sept. 29

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Beeton - Sept. 17

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Figure 2.1 Map of the places visited by Kane and Smith in September–October 1886 and their correspondence with townships with significant numbers of Protestant Irish birth or ancestry. (Township data taken from Houston and Smyth, 1990:232)

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standings about imperial geopolitics and power relations. But if Irish loyalists in North America were positioned as ‘lovers of liberty’, the same essentialist rhetoric had long been put forth about their nationalist countrymen through networks of a similar character. For the more militant-minded Irish nationalists especially, Canadian Confederation was seen alongside American independence as a moment of release from the hegemonic grip of Britain’s empire. When seen through the normative lens of a world composed of free nations, the successful adaptation of ‘liberty-loving’ Irish nationalists in a North American republic and ‘free’ dominion alike was enough to argue for the granting of similar liberties to the Irish in Ireland. Kane and Smith’s tracing of Orange Ontario thus overlapped closely with the rural and urban geography of Ulster Canada. Although the icon of King William III does not appear to have featured much in their public speeches, the presence of Orange dress, decoration and performance was observable throughout the tour and often before Kane and Smith reached their intended venues. Visits to lodges were also scheduled. In Peterborough, the visitors were received at the railway station by a procession of several lodges and a band that struck up ‘God Save the Queen’. Upon arrival at the hall, they saw flags with the mottoes ‘British Connection’ and ‘Queen and Constitution’ placed along the gallery rails (Belfast News Letter, 1886d). Lectures in places like these gave locals one additional opportunity to highlight their (and Ontario’s) British identity, something that was part and parcel of Orange get-togethers and election meetings as well as other occasions. Approaching the village of Beeton in southern Simcoe County, the delegates reported: ‘Every house on the roadside as we passed along displayed its Union Jack. Arches spanned the road here and there with such devices as “Welcome to the Ulster Loyalists” and “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”’ (Belfast News Letter, 1886h). This was the public expression of ‘loyal Ontario’ that echoed not only the annual ‘Glorious Twelfth’ and countless instances of local socializing but also the experiences of William Johnston in 1872. Upon arrival in the Lake Ontario town of Port Hope, for example, Orange delegate Johnston was no doubt taken by two banners emblazoned on the town hall that read ‘Welcome, Brother Johnston, to the Protestant town of Port Hope’ and ‘The Protestant Religion and British Connection we will Maintain and No Surrender’ (Belfast News Letter, 1872a). These triumphalist slogans were not simply statements of local numerical supremacy and socio-political power (Port Hope also had a district known as ‘Protestant Hill’); they also evidenced a discourse of loyalty based on one way of envisioning Britain’s empire and Canada’s place within it, and how the network of Orangeism contributed to both the public exposure and the intergenerational endurance of that discourse (for Port Hope’s ‘Protestant Hill’, see Illustrated Historical Atlas, 1878b: v).

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The banners observed by Kane and Smith and the audiences they addressed no doubt gave them added confidence when delivering their opinions about Ireland’s future course. While a News Letter editorial about their finding that ‘the Protestants of the Dominion are chiefly Ulstermen’ revealed more about its assumptions of their audiences than anything else, its comment of there being ‘two Irelands beyond the sea’ was more on the mark, echoing the two lecturers’ refrain of there being ‘two Irelands’ at home, an expression coined by Col. Edward Saunderson in a pamphlet published in 1884 (Belfast News Letter, 1886c; Miller, 1978: 110). The ‘two Irelands’ distinction was not entirely geographical, and referred largely to questions of loyalty and governing ability that in turn invited more insidious forms of myth-making. In Kingston, Kane related his belief that there were ‘two classes of Irishmen; one was loyal, intelligent, industrious, thrifty and prosperous; these were Protestants. The other class are turbulent, disaffected, idle, thriftless, superstitious, and therefore slaves of priests; ignorant, and therefore tools or adventurers’ (Belfast News Letter, 1886e). He did not need to state explicitly the religious identity of the latter. With his maiden speech in Toronto exalting the imperial deeds of Irishmen such as Wellington and Sir Garnet Wolseley, George Hill Smith feared that ‘a separate Parliament . . . would put us in the power of men who have been the law-breakers of the past’ (Toronto Mail, 1886b). Referring to Parnell’s well-known ability for maintaining discipline within the IPP, Smith opined later in Belleville that a future Irish Parliament ‘would be composed of 168 machine men, and have but 88 intelligent men on the opposite side’ (Belfast News Letter, 1886f). The manufacturers of the gallery banners no doubt agreed, and few readers of Kane and Smith’s Canadian speeches published in the News Letter and Telegraph would have registered much surprise. They had heard it all before. Canada’s potential to offer useful parallels with Ireland did not end with Ontario, as the cultural landscape of French Canada reinforced Rev. Kane’s arguments of the likely disaster that would result were Catholics put in a position to govern Ireland. Though spending little time in Quebec on the tour, the structure of Kane’s logic would not be disrupted as he described it as ‘a bankrupt province’, ‘a heavy drag on the vigorous freedom-loving Dominion’ where ‘an expensive ecclesiastical system burdens the unfortunate people to the very ground’. The minority Protestant community of Montreal was described as ‘plucky and determined’ (Belfast News Letter, 1886j). With Kane and Smith received by the son of the Anglican bishop during their brief sojourn in Montreal, it seems likely that the ‘errors of Romanism’ and the virtues of loyalty in shaping the local economy and society alike were among the matters discussed (New York Times, 1886). In any case, Kane would not be the last to juxtapose the south of Ireland and Quebec as troublesome elements within the empire and/or as places where Catholicism threatened to undermine the authority of the state (Jenkins, 2007).

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On the whole, the tour of Kane and Smith sought to deliver a different message about what home rule might entail for Ireland, and in this sense the transatlantic Orange networks forged over several decades acted as the ideal local organizational support. Beyond the axis of loyal Orangeism, however, there is little evidence of a wider meaningful support base receptive to the Ulstermen’s message. Though taking joy in visiting what he called ‘our fellow imperialists and citizens in Canada’, Kane would be disappointed by the passing of another pro-home rule resolution by the Canadian Commons in 1887; no doubt he wondered alongside Belfast’s News Letter about ‘why the Dominion House of Commons should be so disposed to interfere in the affairs of this country’ (Belfast News Letter, 1886j, 1887b). To do so, of course, would have required a stark revision of his concept of ‘imperial fellowship’ and a concession that support for some measure of self-government in an Ireland that remained within the empire was more politically palatable in Canada than the Ulster loyalists’ alternative. There were limits to the extent to which Canadian Tories could endorse this alternative beyond the party’s Orange wing. Given their exposure to only selected elements within Canada’s social and political landscape, Kane and Smith did not return to Belfast any less committed to the loyalist cause than when they left, and the message was not lost on some of their influential listeners who went on to defend Ulster’s unionists and Britain’s empire alike in later decades. One such listener, present at one of Kane and Smith’s Toronto gatherings, was Rev. William Patterson, a young Co. Londonderry-born Presbyterian preacher serving at a Toronto church named after Henry Cooke. Patterson was not only something of a networker in terms of promoting an ecumenical Protestant culture in Toronto, but also a passionate denouncer of ‘Rome rule’ in both Ireland and Canada. Remaining at Cooke’s Church until 1901, this mobile minister returned to Belfast in 1911 following a spell in Philadelphia. In 1913, with unionist opposition to the third Home Rule Bill on the rise, Patterson was welcomed back and he delivered a characteristic lecture on ‘Romanism in Ireland and the Home Rule Situation’ before returning to Cooke’s more permanently in 1915 (General Assembly, 1982: 184; Sentinel, 1913). Finally, Patterson took his place alongside leading Orangemen on the committee that received the ‘Ulster Protest Delegation’ in the city in 1920, a group which included the three so-called ‘fighting parsons’ from Belfast: Revs. Louis Crooks, Wesley Maguire and William Corkey (Sentinel, 1920). While Rev. R.R. Kane passed away in 1898, he was not lacking for successors in both Ulster and Canada when attempts to bring the issues of home rule and partition to a solution came to a head in Ireland between 1914 and 1921. As a clergyman and Orangeman, Kane’s efforts to forge long-distance loyalism in the mid 1880s would be repeated in Canada decades later, helped by the

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continued expansion of the Orange network there. The unionist message, with its Manichean loyal/disloyal rhetorical structure intact, continued to be transmitted not only through transatlantic visitations but also the support of one of Toronto’s more colourful dailies, the Evening Telegram (Jenkins, 2007, 2010). This chapter has illustrated the significance of networks and networking in the context of connecting distant settlements of Irish migrants with the shifting political contexts of the homeland. It has also illuminated what David Featherstone terms more generally ‘the generative relations between placebased struggles and transnational networks’ (Featherstone, 2007: 433). Irish loyalism/unionism had a history and geography that extended beyond the island, and it was one in which clerical as well as lay figures challenged the rhetorical and financial power of the nationalist ‘Greater Ireland’ (Mulligan, 2002). With the ULARU’s raison d’etre being the defence of Protestant Ulster, they found through the pre-existing network of Orangeism a receptive audience in Ontario, where the nearest thing to an ‘Ulster-Orange’ diasporic axis was to be found. Immigrants, letters, promotional literature and newspapers had clarified this network for decades (Harland-Jacobs, 2008; Houston and Smyth, 1990). But while the message of Kane and Smith was clearly focused on Ulster and Ireland, it also reaffirmed the hybridized British, Irish and Canadian subjectivities of their audiences of Irish birth and ancestry. Examination of their 1886 tour has also shown how these Irish Protestant immigrants, many of them long-settled in the Dominion, not only retained interest in the land of their birth through visible opposition to home rule but also had these viewpoints (celebratory of empire, the British connection and Protestantism) in turn inform and structure their Canadian loyalty narratives in a way that, among other things, mitigated rapprochement with ‘Romeruling’ French Canada into the twentieth century. The rhetorical and ideological arguments advanced by Kane, Smith and their allies on either side of the Atlantic, in other words, had lasting effects and consequences.

Acknowledgements I would like to express gratitude to Sean Farrell, Kerby Miller and David A. Wilson for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. I acknowledge also the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the cartographic skill of Carolyn King, Department of Geography, York University; and the research assistance of Jeremy Kowalski.

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Notes 1 Parnell travelled 16,000 miles in the United States and Canada and spoke in more than 60 cities to raise funds for famine relief and tenant agitation while promoting the cause of Irish nationalism. He raised approximately £60,000 for famine relief and a further £12,000 for the Land League (Lyons, 1977: 108) 2 Revs A. Lockett Ford of Bessbrook and N. Foster, rector of St. Mary’s College in Belfast, were at least two other clergymen involved. See, for example, Belfast News Letter reports of meetings in Buckingham and Newport Pagnell on 14 and 25 June 1886. 3 For the role of personal correspondence, see Houston and Smyth (1990). 4 The full title of the newspaper was the Sentinel and Orange Protestant Advocate. 5 Lyne and Toner (1972: 53) also suggest that the pro-home rule motion, moved by Nova Scotia Conservative John Costigan, may have been a ploy ‘to forestall a more radical motion from the [Liberal] opposition’. 6 Kane had a well-known fondness for the Irish language, something quite untypical of those who shared his political convictions. 7 Different numbers of meetings were reported in the Belfast News Letter, for example, twenty-seven (1 November 1886), twenty-eight (2 November 1886) and twenty-nine (4 November 1886). 8 Houston and Smyth (1990: 232) map the 1871 Irish ancestry census data in Map 7.11.

References Akenson, D.H. (1984) The Irish in Ontario: A Study in Rural History. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso. Belfast Evening Telegraph (1886) ‘The Loyalist Delegates in Canada’, 4 October. Belfast News Letter (1872a) ‘Mr. William Johnston, M.P., in Canada’, 10 August. Belfast News Letter (1872b) ‘Welcome to William Johnston, Esq., M.P.’, 28 September. Belfast News Letter (1885) ‘Welcome to the Canadian Delegates’, 8 November. Belfast News Letter (1886a) ‘Help from Canada’, 10 June. Belfast News Letter (1886b) ‘Ulster Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union’, 24 July. Belfast News Letter (1886c) ‘Editorial’, 29 September. Belfast News Letter (1886d) ‘The Loyalist Campaign in Canada’, 22 October. Belfast News Letter (1886e) ‘The Loyalist Campaign in Canada’, 25 October. Belfast News Letter (1886f) ‘The Loyalist Campaign in Canada’, 26 October. Belfast News Letter (1886g) ‘The Loyalist Deputation to America’, 2 November. Belfast News Letter (1886h) ‘The Ulster Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union’, 10 November.

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Belfast News Letter (1886i) ‘The Delegates of the Ulster Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union’, 17 November. Belfast News Letter (1886j) ‘America’s Answer to the Loyalist Delegates’, 18 December. Belfast News Letter (1887a) ‘The Loyalist Cause in America’, 1 July. Belfast News Letter (1887b) ‘Editorial’, 29 April. Brah, A. (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London and New York: Routledge. Brown, T.N. (1966) Irish-American Nationalism 1870–1890. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott. Brubaker, R. (2002) ‘Ethnicity without groups’, Archives Européenes de Sociologie, 43, 163–89. Comerford, R.V. (1985) The Fenians in Context: Irish Politics and Society, 1848–82. Dublin: Wolfhound Press. Doyle, M. (2009) Fighting Like the Devil for the Sake of God: Protestants, Catholics and the Origins of Violence in Victorian Belfast. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Featherstone, D. (2007) ‘The spatial politics of the past unbound: transnational networks and the making of political identities’, Global Networks, 7, 430–52. General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (1982) A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 1610–1982. Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland. Globe (Toronto) (1881) ‘The Irish Land League’, 2 March. Globe (1886) ‘The Empire in danger’, 9 March. Gordon, M.A. (1993) The Orange Riots: Irish Political Violence in New York City, 1870 and 1871. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Grob-Fitzgibbon, B. (2003) ‘The curious case of the vanishing debate over Irish Home Rule’, paper presented to the Second British World Conference, Calgary, June. Harland-Jacobs, J. (2008) ‘“Maintaining the connexion”: Orangeism in the British North Atlantic world, 1795–1844’, Atlantic Studies, 5, 27–49. Hepburn, A.C. (1996) A Past Apart: Studies in the History of Catholic Belfast, 1850–1950. Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation. Hirst, C. (2002) Religion, Politics and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Belfast: The Pound and Sandy Row. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Houston, C. and Smyth, W.J. (1980) The Sash Canada Wore: A Historical Geography of the Orange Order in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Houston, C. and Smyth, W.J. (1984) ‘Transferred loyalties: Orangeism in the United States and Ontario’, American Review of Canadian Studies, 14, 193–211.

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Houston, C. and Smyth, W.J. (1990) Irish Emigration and Canadian Settlement: Patterns, Links, and Letters. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Counties of Hastings and Prince Edward, Ontario (1878a) Toronto: H. Belden & Co. Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Counties of Northumberland and Durham, Ontario (1878b) Toronto: H. Belden & Co. Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of Simcoe, Ontario (1881) Toronto: H. Belden & Co. Jackson, A. (1989) The Ulster Party: Irish Unionists in the House of Commons, 1884–1911. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jackson, A. (2001) ‘Irish unionism, 1870–1922’, in D.G. Boyce and A.O’Day (eds) Defenders of the Union: A Survey of British and Irish Unionism since 1801. London and New York: Routledge, 115–36. Jackson, A. (2003) Home Rule: An Irish History 1800–2000. New York: Oxford University Press. Jackson, D.M. (2009) Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule in Edwardian Britain. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Jenkins, W. (2007) ‘Views from “the Hub of the Empire”: loyal Orange lodges in early 20th century Toronto’, in D.A. Wilson (ed.) The Orange Order in Canada. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 128–45. Jenkins, W. (2008) ‘Ulster transplanted: Irish Protestants, everyday life and constructions of identity in Late Victorian Toronto’, in M. Busteed, J. Tonge and F. Neal (eds) Irish Protestant Identities. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 200–20. Jenkins, W. (2010) ‘Homeland crisis and local ethnicity: the Toronto Irish and the Evening Telegram, 1910–1914’, Urban History Review, 38, 48–63. Kelly, M.C. (2005) The Shamrock and the Lily: The New York Irish and the Creation of a Transatlantic Identity, 1845–1921. New York: Peter Lang. Lyne, D.C. and P.M. Toner (1972) ‘Fenianism in Canada, 1874–84’, Studia Hibernica, 12, 27–76. Lyons, F.S.L. (1977) Charles Stewart Parnell. New York: Oxford University Press. MacRaild, D.M. (2005a) Faith, Fraternity and Fighting: The Orange Order and Irish Migrants in Northern England, c.1850–1920. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. MacRaild, D.M. (2005b) ‘Networks, communication and the Irish Protestant diaspora in northern England, c.1860–1914’, Immigrants and Minorities, 23, 311–38. MacRaild, D.M. (2006) ‘“Diaspora” and “transnationalism”: theory and evidence in explanation of the Irish world-wide’, Irish Economic and Social History, 33, 51–8.

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Miller, D.W. (1978) Queen’s Rebels: Ulster Loyalism in Historical Perspective. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Mills, D. (1988) The Idea of Loyalty in Upper Canada 1784–1850. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Mulligan, A. (2002) ‘A forgotten “Greater Ireland”: the transatlantic development of Irish nationalism’, Scottish Geographical Review, 118, 219–34. New York Times (1886) ‘An Orangeman’s views’, 8 September. O’Day, A. (2005) ‘Imagined Irish communities: networks of social communication of the Irish Diaspora in the United States and Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’, Immigrants and Minorities, 23, 415–17. Ogborn, M. (2008) Global Lives: Britain and the World, 1550–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Radforth, I. (2007) ‘Orangemen and the crown’, in Wilson (ed.) The Orange Order in Canada, 69–89. Savage, D.C. (1961) ‘The origins of the Ulster Unionist Party, 1885–6’, Irish Historical Studies, 12, 185–208. Sentinel (1913) ‘Passwords’, 7 August. Sentinel (1920) ‘The Ulster delegates in Toronto February 12’, 29 January. Toner, P.M. (1989) ‘The Home Rule League in Canada: fortune, Fenians, and failure’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 15, 7–19. Toronto Mail (1886a) ‘Empire in danger’, 9 March. Toronto Mail (1886b) ‘The Loyalist cause’, 10 September. Yans, V. (2006) ‘On groupness’, Journal of American Ethnic History, 25, 119–29.

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3 Migrant integration and the ‘network-making power’ of the Irish Catholic Church Breda Gray

Introduction In this chapter I discuss the Irish Catholic Church as both a bureaucratic hierarchal institution and transnational network that promotes migrant integration and welfare via ‘network-making power’ (Castells, 2009, 2011). The Catholic Church has always channelled flows of religious values, information and people. However, my focus here is on the network-making power of the Irish Catholic Church in shaping the meanings of migration, policy development and civil society responses to (em/im)migration. The discussion relates mainly to the decade prior to and the decade after the turn of the twenty-first century – a time of welfare state retrenchment, marketization of service provision and a turn to faith-based organizations in the project of migrant integration (Beaumont, 2008; Office of the Minister of State for Integration, 2008). A network approach to religious organizations is seen by Ebaugh as ‘a lens that views them not as discrete, homogenous entities but rather as a web of intersecting institutional and individual networks through which religious ideas, values, norms, memory, and practices flow’ (in Meyer et al., 2011: 244). In a discussion of religious non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as ‘a new breed of religious actors shaping global policy’, Berger notes that unlike secular organizations, which build ‘resource and support networks from the ground up’, religious organizations, including Christian churches, by virtue of their longstanding global presence, have given rise to and have access to extensive networks (2003: 20). As such, religious networks are identified as well placed to capitalize on the apparently extended significance and capacity of networks in a global age. In the case of the Catholic Church, Casanova

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(1994; 2005) and others emphasize its transnational organizational structure as particularly enabling in the development and maintenance of transnational networks. This chapter begins by discussing the complex negotiation of national and transnational frames of reference within the Catholic Church and how these dynamics are configured with reference to church teaching on ministry to migrants. This is followed by two sections on the Irish Catholic Church, first, as a sending and secondly, as a receiving church. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the church’s network-making power in shaping meanings of and responses to (em/im)migration through its own transnational network but also as a node in a wider network organized around the goal of migrant integration.

National and transnational Catholic Church dynamics Casanova points to the complex historical dynamics between national and transnational dimensions of the Catholic Church which can be understood in relation to the Westphalian ‘system of sovereign nation-states that emerged in early modernity and eventually replaced the system of medieval Christendom’ (2005: 90). He argues that with the rise of the nation-state from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the transnational dimensions of Catholicism ‘from the transnational papacy to transnational religious orders’ diminished substantially (Casanova, 2008: 114). However, since the end of the nineteenth century, Casanova notes a ‘reemergence and reconstruction of all the transnational dimensions of Catholicism on a new global basis’ as Catholicism is ‘reconstituted as a new transnational and de-territorialized global religious regime’ (ibid.). An important event leading to the expansion of church networks locally and globally was Vatican II (1962–65), which brought about a shift in the public focus of the church from the state to civil society (Casanova, 1994). The recognition of democracy, human rights (Pacem in Terris, 1963) and religious freedom (Dignitatis Humanae, 1965) in Vatican II meant that the church began to address itself to individuals as members of humanity based on the universal human values of life and freedom. Catholics were called upon to take a public role in movements for social justice via civil society activism (Casanova, 1994). These shifts are important when considering the network-making power of the church, rendering it free to partner with other institutions and groups in pursuing particular agendas locally and globally as, for example, in the taking up of permanent-observer status within the United Nations.1 Noting the contemporary significance of transnational religious organizations, Levitt suggests that ‘[t]he Catholic Church [is] . . . the “jewel in their

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crown”’ (2003: 118). She supports this view by pointing to the spread of ‘[w]orkers around the world, at all levels of the organization’ and the effective engagement of migrants in ‘extending and customizing this powerful, wellestablished corporate structure’ (ibid.). Levitt uses the term ‘social remittances’ to refer to the cross-border exchange of norms, practices, identities and social capital that such transnational practices facilitate (ibid.). Although the case is well made for the Catholic Church as a transnational institution, it is also legitimate to speak of a national or ethnic church. Indeed, the church works simultaneously as transnational insofar as it ‘transcends any particular national society and a national institution deeply embedded in the different histories and structures of particular countries’ (Casanova, 1994: 70; emphasis added). For administration purposes, the Catholic Church is divided into territorial districts but it is also ‘divided by the nationality or the language of the faithful rather than simply their place of residence’ (Fitzgerald, 2009: 73). This recognition of national territorial and dispersed ethnic manifestations of the universal church is perhaps most evident in the teaching and regulations of the church with regard to migration. For example, the most recent Instruction, Erga migrantes caritas Christi (EMCC) (2004) stresses the responsibility of the local territorial church to assist immigrants while simultaneously emphasizing the preservation of their cultural, linguistic and ethnic identities. To facilitate this, ‘[c]hurches of departure and of arrival’ are called upon to ‘establish an intense collaboration with one another’ (EMCC, II.67). In the context of migration then, the church recognizes that faith and religious practice are culturally mediated and transnationally negotiated. The Irish Catholic Church is transnationalized by its cross-border structures on the island of Ireland, a national history of (em/im)migration, missionary work and ministry to the Irish abroad, as well as universal church teaching on ministry to a mobile flock. However, my focus in this chapter is on the work of the Irish Catholic Church with emigrants and immigrants as a network and as part of a network. The discussion is shaped mainly by the operation of network-making power in relation to the Republic of Ireland and to a lesser extent in relation to receiving states. Accounts of its manifestations as a sending and receiving church in the two sections that follow form the basis for a broader discussion, in the final section of this chapter, of church network-making power in recent decades.

A sending church The presence of the Irish Catholic Church outside of Ireland has a long history including the Irish monastic movement in the sixth century, the founding of Irish colleges in Europe in the sixteenth century, migrations to

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North America in the seventeenth century and missionary work in Africa, Asia and South America since the early nineteenth century (Murphy, 2000: xviii). However, I begin in the nineteenth century, when it responded most ambitiously to the diasporization of its flock and when international missionary societies were established in Ireland to help meet the expanding needs of the British Empire (Cooke, 1980). The expansion in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries of seminary education contributed to Ireland becoming ‘a mother country of many millions in “Ireland’s spiritual empire”’ in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Corish, 1985: 237–8). These seminaries were scattered around the country and included St. Kieran’s, Kilkenny (1783), St. Patrick’s, Carlow (1793), St. Patrick’s, Maynooth (1795), St. John’s, Waterford (1807), St. Peter’s, Wexford (1819) and St. Patrick’s, Thurles (1837) (Cooke, 1980). All Hallows College, established in 1842, became the main institution for the training of Irish priests to work with the Irish diaspora in the English-speaking world (Kiggins, 1991). For some nuns wishing to work abroad, St. Brigid’s Missionary School, Kilkenny (1884–1958) provided training for convents primarily in Australia, New Zealand and the United States (Yeates, 2009). In different ways, the Catholic Churches in Britain, English-speaking Canada, Australia and New Zealand were all shaped by Irish episcopal appointments and the large number of immigrant Irish priests and nuns (Gilley, 1984). For example, of the sixty-nine bishops in the USA in 1886, thirty five were Irish-born or of Irish ancestry, so that the Irish, because they spoke English, ‘monopolized the right to define the church in American terms’ (Shannon, 1963: 136). The work of Irish Catholic clergy and religious in ministry and establishing schools in North America and Australia also promoted Irish culture and identity within these sections of the diaspora (Daly, 2008). However, the positioning of the Irish Catholic as ‘the other’ of the British Protestant citizen meant that Irish Catholic clergy struggled to negotiate a space for themselves both within the church in Britain and British society (Fielding, 1993; Hickman, 1995). Although accounts of Irish church diaspora work tend to focus on male clergy and religious, the work of nuns was also significant. For example, Irish nuns are estimated to have comprised about 10 per cent of the total number of nuns in the USA in 1914 and established schools, orphanages, hospitals and hospices there and around the world (Yeates, 2009). They were also responsible for considerable social remittances to Ireland as, for example, in their contribution to establishing and training a religious nursing labour force in Ireland (ibid.). In this way, the Catholic Church was central to a ‘global care chain’ with nursing migration travelling in ‘both directions, both into and out of Ireland’ (ibid.: 12).

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Emigrant welfare and integration – the responsibility of church or state? In the decades following independence, the migratory flow from Ireland was mainly to Britain and ‘[b]oth civil servants and politicians alike believed that the problems which Irish migrants encountered in Britain were the preserve of their spiritual leaders, not the Irish state’ (Delaney, 2000: 68). The church focused on the moral danger to young women migrants in particular and, in response to this and wider concerns about emigrant welfare, the Archbishop of Dublin established the Catholic Welfare Bureau incorporating an Emigrants’ Section in 1942 (ibid.). The Irish Episcopal Conference for Emigrants (IECE) (re-titled the Irish Episcopal Commission for Emigrants in 1971 and the Irish Episcopal Council for Emigrants in 2008) was set up in 1957 along with the Irish Emigrant Chaplaincy Scheme, which was to support migrants through chaplaincy services, pre-emigration advice, lobbying governments, research and proclaiming the faith (IECE, 2012; O’Shea, 1995; see Table 3.1). Chaplains, perhaps most famously Fr. Eamonn Casey, arriving in Britain in the 1960s, soon found themselves responding to emigrant living and working conditions, especially homelessness and inadequate housing provision (Kennedy, 2007). So although the hierarchal church, via bishops’ pastoral letters, focused on emigration in terms of a ‘“leakage” of faith’ (Fuller, 2002: 44), the emigrant chaplaincy identified and responded to broader social support needs among migrants, engaging British state agencies in the process. Missions to building sites and hotels and Irish Centres staffed by chaplains were established across Britain. However, the development of the Catholic Housing Aid Society by Frs. Casey and Byrne gained mainstream status, later becoming the housing and homelessness charity ‘Shelter’ (IECE, 2012). Indeed, the successes of the Irish Catholic Church in shaping welfare provision for Irish migrants in Britain ensured its continuing influence in Irish migrant integration there. The chaplaincy was also central in developing services for Irish Travellers in the 1960s (O’Shea, 1985). Another chaplaincy initiative involved the establishment of Irish Centres through which a range of welfare, support and justice programmes were developed (IECE, 2012; see Table 3.1). Alongside the Irish Episcopal Conference and the chaplaincy, the Oblate, Augustinian and Sisters of Charity orders played a central role in the development of these Centres (see Table 3.1). From the perspective of the Irish state, emigrant welfare continued to fall within the domain of the Irish Catholic Church with only minimal state interventions, such as the establishment of COWSA (Committee on Welfare Services Abroad) to support young emigrants in the early 1970s (Walter et al., 2002). This was replaced in 1984 by a London-based DÍON Committee (Díon meaning roof or shelter) with a small amount of funding to support vulnerable Irish migrants in Britain, most of which went into supporting church-initiated services (ibid.).

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Table 3.1 Irish Catholic Church responses as a sending church Organization

Founded Scope

Irish Episcopal 2008 Commission for the Care of Migrants (IECCM)

Established by

Hierarchal Church The umbrella body for the Irish Irish Bishops’ Episcopal Council for Emigrants Conference (IECE) and the Irish Episcopal Council for Immigrants (IECI).

Irish Chaplaincy Australia, Sydney

2001

Spiritual and pastoral support Irish Bishops’ for Irish emigrants in the Sydney Conference area Director Rev. Tom Devereux OMI

Irish Apostolate USAa

1997 [1985]

Outreach centres in areas with significant Irish populations. Operates under the auspices of the Bishops (IECE)

Irish Bishops’ Conference

The Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO)

1985

A sub-committee of IECE – works for all Irish prisoners abroad

Irish Bishops’ Conference

Irish Episcopal Council for Emigrants (IECE)b

2008 [1971/ 1957]

Response of the Bishops’ Conference to the needs of Irish emigrants prior to and following departure.

Irish Bishops’ Conference. Instigated by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid

Irish Chaplaincy in Britain

1957

Operates under the auspices of Irish Bishops’ IECE. Supports vulnerable Irish Conference in Britain (particularly Travellers and older people)

Crosscare Migrant Project, Dublinc

2007 [1987/ 1942]

Rights-based services for emigrants, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers

Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid

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Church-initiated or -supported (Diocesan and Religious Orders) projects: Britaind Immigrant 1996 Provides culturally sensitive Supported by Counselling and counselling for people of Irish Chaplaincy Psychotherapy (ICAP) Irish origin in Britain (London and Birmingham) NOAH Enterprise, Luton

1987

Young immigrants and homeless Sr. Eileen O’Mahony, Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul

Hammersmith Irish Welfare Bureau (now Irish Cultural Centre)

1967

Support for immigrants on arrival (IECE, 2012)

Augustinian Order

Irish Travellers Outreach, 1966 England

Outreach support to Travellers

Fr. Eltin Daly Oxford – Apostolate to Travellers in West Midlands; Outreach Fr. Joe Browne

Irish Community Care, Merseyside

1962

Supporting vulnerable Irish and Irish Traveller communities

Voluntary Welfare Committee. Run by Sisters of Charity early 1970s early 1980s

Irish Welfare & Information Centre, Birmingham

1957

Welfare and information services Oblate Order and drop-in centre. (Fr. Joseph Taffe Pastoral Support and 1979 until 1996) Opportunities Project

London Irish Centre (Camden)

1955

Advice services and pastoral care Fr. Tom to the Irish community in MacNamara London (seconded from Westminster Diocese) Oblate Order mid 1960s (IECE, 2012)

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Table 3.1 (contd.) Organization

Founded Scope

Established by

Church-initiated or -supported (Diocesan and Religious Orders) projects: USAd Chicago Irish Immigrant nd Irish immigrants and Irish Support Americans in the Chicago area Irish Immigration Pastoral Center San Francisco

nd

Irish immigrants in the Bay Area

Seattle Immigration Support Group

nd

Irish immigrants in Western Washington state

Irish Student Outreach Center, Ocean City

nd

Outreach to Irish students on J-1 visas

Irish Immigrant Outreach 2008 Program, Baltimore

Welcome new immigrants in the area

New York Irish Center, Jackson Avenue, Queens

2004

Information, resources and social activities

Irish Outreach – San Diego

1999

Provides resources and information for new immigrants

Project Irish Outreach, Aisling Irish Center, Yonkers, New York

1997

Social service entitlements, medicaid and medicare information/referral, addiction services; crisis intervention and pastoral counselling

Project Irish Outreach – based at the Catholic Center mid-town Manhattan

1997

Located in Department of Immigration Services at the mid-town Catholic Center

Fr. Colm Campbell, Diocesan Priest, Down and Connor; Former Director of Irish Apostolate USA

Social Worker Sr. Christine Hennessy

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Irish Immigrant Service of Milwaukee

1992

Immigration support

Irish Immigration Pastoral Center, Dorchester, Boston

1987

Immigration support

63

Fr. Dan Finn; Fr. Sr. Veronica. Dobson; Fr. John Ronaghan

Church-initiated or -supported (Diocesan and Religious Orders) projects: Australiad Irish Australian 2001 To provide welfare for the needy Catholic Church Welfare Bureau in the Irish community has helped by Bondi Beach, Sydney leasing premises and chaplaincy Notes: a Formerly Irish Chaplaincy in USA (1985). b This was first established as the Irish Episcopal Committee for Emigrants (1957) and later as the Irish Episcopal Commission for Emigrants (1971). c This is a project of the Social Care Agency of the Dublin Archdiocese. It was first established as the ‘Emigrant’s Section’ of the Catholic Social Welfare Bureau (1942) and later as ‘Emigrant Advice’ (1987). d All partly funded by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs ‘Emigrant Support Programme’ in 2011.

These church-initiated and church-run services worked alongside an expanded and professionalized Irish NGO sector when another wave of Irish emigrants arrived in Britain in the 1980s (IECE, 2012). As well as supporting and running such services, chaplains continued to provide pastoral and social support. Some, such as Fr. Bobby Gilmore, engaged in political lobbying regarding miscarriage of justice cases, in particular the Birmingham Six case, using extensive institutional church and political networks globally, but particularly in the USA. Again in this decade, individuals such as Fr. Gilmore, criticized the absence of Irish state support for a new generation of emigrants (ibid.). By 1999 it was estimated that the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain (ICB) employed 150 full-time and 20 part-time staff, and had 659 lay volunteers (Harvey, 1999). The first lay Director of the ICB was appointed in 2008 and now manages fourteen staff and approximately forty volunteers to provide support services to three groups of Irish emigrants that are seen as most vulnerable today: Irish Travellers, Irish prisoners and Irish older people (ICB website, 2011). The multifaceted chaplaincy response to Irish communities in Britain was looked to in the United States in the mid 1980s when many young Irish were entering as undocumented migrants, and in Australia in the 2000s, when many who arrived outstayed their visa term (IECE, 2012). The Irish

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Apostolate USA, originally established in 1987 as the Irish Chaplaincy in the USA, involves ‘a collaborative effort of the sending and receiving Churches’ to respond to Irish immigrant needs across the United States (Irish Apostolate USA website). In an interview with Peggy Levitt in the early 2000s, the Director emphasized its role as ‘the Irish government’s point of contact with the emigrant community in the US’ (Levitt, 2004: 8): In the early 1990s I went back to Ireland to talk with government officials. I told them that these people are not American citizens, they still need help, without citizenship or a green card they are very vulnerable. If the Church does not help them, they will be in bad shape. I said to make no mistake, the Irish Church officials working out there (in the United States) are not there working for the American government or the American Church but for the Irish Church and government. (ibid.: 7)

As an umbrella organization, the Irish Apostolate USA adopts a transnational liaison role with the Irish Bishops’ Conference, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Irish government, other Catholic organizations and other immigration entities (Irish Apostolate USA). In 2011, there were Irish Chaplains in Boston, San Francisco and Chicago, as well as outreach programmes in New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Milwaukee, San Diego, Baltimore and, during the summer months, in Ocean City, Maryland. Throughout the twentieth century, church calls for the Irish state to take responsibility for its citizens abroad met with little success. As in Italy, the activism of the Irish church in relation to emigration became ‘a form of substitute for failing public action’ (Itçaina, 2006: 1477). However, towards the end of the century, an IECE report documenting the position of vulnerable emigrants in some detail provided evidence of the need for a comprehensive state-funded service infrastructure for emigrants and called on the government to act (Harvey, 1999: 67). Published at a time when the state had made commitments to recognize the diaspora under the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, the government response to the report was to appoint a Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants in 2001. While the Task Force reported promptly, the tardiness of the state in implementing the Task Force recommendations (Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants, 2002) was actively challenged by the IECE. Moreover, the IECE mobilized links to church groups (the Conference of Religious in Ireland and Society of St. Vincent de Paul were part of the community and voluntary pillar of partnership) and sympathetic individuals, to ensure that state commitments were written into the Social Partnership Agreement (Sustaining Progress, 2003–2005). The eventual establishment of the Irish Abroad Unit (IAU) in the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2004 marked a decisive transfer of respon-

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sibility for emigrants and the diaspora from the church to the state, but many of the state-funded services in the diaspora are now contracted out to churchled or church-initiated organizations. Thus the ideas, visions and projects of Irish Catholic Church networks generated programmes that shaped state and civil society responses to emigrant welfare and continue to influence emergent Irish state policy with regard to those in the diaspora who are identified as ‘vulnerable’. Moreover, with the shift to ‘contracting out’ service provision to third parties in the 2000s, church-based organizations participated successfully in the marketplace for contracted services (I return to this topic in the chapter’s concluding discussion). As a sending church therefore, the Irish Catholic Church laid down an ethnically identified global network of people, migrant pastoral practices and civil society organizations that could be mobilized in new ways as migration patterns reversed. In the following section I turn to the role of the church as a key civil society actor in shaping the meanings of immigration, especially with regard to ‘vulnerable’ migrants, and consider the strategic networks forged by church actors in responding to these migrants.

From a sending to a receiving church The religious structure of the Republic of Ireland as predominantly Catholic with declining minority denominations has been remarkably consistent over time (Gillmor, 2006). However, ‘the 1991–2002 intercensal period marked a striking reversal of the preceding trend in the minority religions sector, with a growth of 60.6 per cent in only eleven years’ (ibid.: 112). By 2006, ‘the numbers claiming a religion other than Roman Catholic or Church of Ireland had trebled in 15 years’ (Macourt, 2011: 39). The evangelical sector grew considerably, but the two fastest-growing religions, and with the highest proportions of immigrants, were ‘Orthodox [Greek, Russian and Coptic] and Islam’ (Gillmor, 2006: 113; Macourt, 2011). However, over 80 per cent of Polish, Filipino and Lithuanian and over 50 per cent of US and French immigrants in Ireland in 2006 were Catholic, with Roman Catholicism being the religion of 26 per cent of Nigerian immigrants (Central Statistics Office, 2008). By 2011, the Catholic Church had also became host to some seventy Catholic chaplaincies involving communities from countries such as Brazil, Nigeria, France, Philippines, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland (Gray and O’Sullivan Lago, 2011). The Catholic Church response to immigrants has been uneven, with only isolated instances of an assertive outreach to new communities in parishes (O’Mahony and Prunty, 2007). However, church actors have been central in the development of migrant integration support services.2 The establishment of these support services has been enabled by the unique position of the

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church among civil society actors in having access to buildings and the capacity to organize and mobilize volunteers. Church actors were also able to seek seed-funding through religious orders and other sources to initiate projects which, in the absence of state funding, were subsequently able to attract funding from the two philanthropic funding sources for immigrant services in Ireland: Atlantic Philanthropies and the One Foundation. Although immigrant and minority ethnic-led organizations are involved in a wide range of activities on behalf of migrant and minority ethnic groups, the lack of ‘a longstanding infrastructure of policy and practice in relation to ethnic diversity’ in the Republic of Ireland hinders their ability to develop ‘the social and economic capital necessary both to achieve sustainability and to function strategically’ (Feldman et al., 2005: 6). This underlines the advantageous position of mainstream organizations, including the Catholic Church, insofar as they are familiar with local institutions as well as the ‘movers and shakers’ in the community and can, therefore, build alliances to achieve political influence. Often it is precisely because of the advantageous position of the church that some church-initiated/-run organizations are seen as appropriating the agendas and activities of migrant-led groups (see Cullen, 2009; Lentin, 2012: 53–5). Tensions between the solidaristic initiatives of members of an existing institutional church organization and the efforts of migrant groups to establish their own spaces and voices are hard to avoid given differential access to local resources, knowledge and legitimacy. For example, Luke Bukha, who launched the migrant-led Anti-Racism Network Ireland in 2010, suggests that ‘to survive, the immigrants sometimes have to speak for themselves’, and points to ‘religious groups and some of the institutions [showing] a condescending attitude . . . no matter what you do, you are not good enough, you still need a local indigenous person to be your spokesperson’ (in Lentin, 2012: 67). Such tensions reveal the continued framing of space, rights and entitlements in terms of culture, citizenship and ‘indigenous knowledge’ which, among other factors, enabled the exercise of church network-making power in the project of migrant integration. However, even powerful institutions and networks need partnership with other networks to fully exploit their situation in the network society (Castells, 2009). Church networking with states, funding foundations, migrant-led groups, NGOs and other civil society associations in Ireland, the diaspora and beyond is evident in the diversity of church responses to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers (see Tables 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4). In some cases, coalitions with secular networks render church involvement invisible, especially when there is an alignment of aims across the network programmes, for example in human rights-based activism. However, there are limits to such alignment, especially with regard to reproductive rights and sexuality which are notable by their absence in debates about migrant integration in Ireland (and the diaspora).

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Table 3.2: Responses of the hierarchal Irish Catholic Church as a receiving church Organization

Founded

Scope

Established by

Irish Episcopal Commission for the Care of Migrants

2008

Umbrella body for Irish Episcopal Council for Emigrants (IECE) and the Irish Episcopal Council for Immigrants (IECI)

Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference

Irish Episcopal Council for Immigrants

2008

To organise a network to assist Irish Bishops’ immigrants obtain the benefits Conference of pastoral care

Crosscare Migrant Project

2007

Rights-based services for emigrants, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers

Irish Bishops’ Conference ‘Refugee and Migrant Project’ (previously the Refugee Project) public policy

1999–2011

To keep the Bishops and Directed by Sr. church informed about Joan Roddy, asylum issues; to contribute returned from to the pastoral care of refugees central leaderand people seeking sanctuary ship of and to the Order in Rome

Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid

Following the reversal of migration patterns in the mid 1990s, the most visible service-based response of the hierarchal church was the establishment in 1999 of the Refugee Project (later to become the Refugee and Migrant Project) by the Irish Bishops’ Conference. This project provided pastoral care to refugees and asylum seekers, as well as awareness and information within the church and beyond, until its closure in 2011. Religious congregations also established a number of organizations primarily targeting asylum seekers and refugees (see Table 3.3). Although in many cases staffed by lay people, these are identifiably religious NGOs, often with social justice rather than, or combined with, apostolic or evangelical aims. Another church response to immigration has been at the level of individual clergy or religious, a large proportion of whom have spent time outside of Ireland, either in the diaspora or on the missions (see Table 3.4). Nearly all of the episcopal and religious order-run organizations are identifiable as Catholic Church organizations. However, many of the NGOs initiated by clergy or religious have developed into secular agencies and accommodate religiosity and secularity in a variety of ways at an organizational level. Their inspiration in the experience of the church as a sending church and the initiatives of individual religious and clergy, for the most part,

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Table 3.3 Responses of religious congregations as a receiving church in Ireland Organization

Founded

Scope

Established by

Cois Tine, Cork

2002

Pastoral, spiritual and social needs of the immigrant community

Society of African Missions (SMA) Fr. Fachna O’Driscoll SMA (returned from Nigeria); Fr. Angelo Lafferty SMA (returned from Zambia and Liberia)

SPIRASI

1999

Asylum seekers, refugees and other disadvantaged migrant groups (especially survivors of torture)

Spiritan Congregation (Fr. Michael Begly, who had returned from Gambia)

Vincentian Refugee Centre, Dublin

1998

People seeking asylum, refugees and people with permission to remain in the state

Vincentian Fathers, the Daughters of Charity and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in partnership

Jesuit Refugee Service, Limerick and Dublin

1996

Particular focus on outreach to asylum seekers in Direct Provision and detention centres

Part of an international Catholic NGO founded in 1980. Established in Ireland in 1996 (national contact person Frank Sammon SJ)

RUHAMA

1989

Works with and on Good Shepherd Sisters and behalf of trafficked Our Lady of Charity Sisters persons and women involved in prostitution

remains in the background. Instead, the work of these organizations is directed primarily by technical expertise in community work, human rights, legal skills, efficient systems and financial management. However, continuing church connections are visible insofar as religious founders remain important spokespersons for some organizations; many have ongoing funding from founders’ congregations; and most have clerical or religious members of management boards. As such, religious networks have value and form part of these organizations’ ‘social capital’ (Berger, 2003: 30–1). The overviews of church-run and church-initiated projects in Tables 3.2 to 3.4 demonstrate the significance of these programmes in forming a national infrastructure of

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Table 3.4 Responses of individual clergy or religious to immigrants in Ireland Organisation

Founded Scope

Established by

Migrant Rights Centre Ireland

2001

Kathleen McGrath and Monica Kelly (Columban Sisters); Fr. Bobby Gilmore (Columban Order)

Drop-in centre, community work programme, advocacy and information for migrants

Immigrant Council 2001 of Ireland

Promotes the rights Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy of migrants through (Religious Sisters of Charity) information, legal advice, advocacy, lobbying, research and training work

NASC: The Irish 2000 Immigrant Support Centre, Cork

Advocacy and policy work for immigrants in the Cork region

Fr. Fachna O’Driscoll (SMA); Srs Marie McGuinness and Mary O’Donoghue (Mercy Order)

Doras Luimní 2000 Limerick (formerly Development Organisation for Refugees and Asylum Seekers)

Promoting and protecting the rights of all migrants through advocacy, integration, capacitybuilding and information

Sr Ann Scully (Mercy Order) with support of the Augustinians, the Redemptorists, the United Presbyterian Church and the Catholic Bishops

Welcome English Language Centre, Cork

2000

Voluntary community Sr. Celestine Forrest (Mercy organisation, providing Order) English-language classes to refugees and immigrants

Irish Refugee Council

1992

Policy-level support for asylum seekers and refugees

Fr. Pat O’Burn (Columban Order); Sr. Catherine Butler (Franciscan); Concern and Trócaire

Irish-led welfare and other social supports for immigrants. They also suggest a continuum with regard to their visibility as church initiatives. In this context, we might consider the implications of the secularization, or making ‘worldly’, of church work with migrants. Fahey has noted a shift towards social justice as a focus in some sections of the Irish Catholic Church since the late 1960s and a turn to secular notions of technical competence and professional expertise rather than religious faith

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in representing this work (Fahey, 2007; see also Inglis, 2007; Maleševic´ and Lorié, 2009). For Itçaina, the exchange of expertise among networks of church actors and lay professionals creates ‘a new channel of influence, both indirect and structural’ for the church (2006: 1482). This influence is gained ‘insofar as the recognition of Catholic expertise implies some form of disaffiliation from the mother organization and the end of any specific denominational justification in the activities undertaken’ (ibid.). In the case of the NGOs listed above, ‘social remittances’ from clergy and religious who have worked overseas are individualized and secularized in ways that differentiate between the institution and individual social justice initiatives, potentially giving such church actors wider authority and legitimacy in liberal secular civil society. When religious authority is combined with a compatible secular human rights-based politics, as is the case in much of the civil society activism within the church regarding migrant integration, the religious organization will be more influential (Shelledy, 2004: 151). One way in which this authority is legitimized is in relation to temporally and spatially extended church networks and flows of social remittances regarding migrant welfare. For example, Fr. Alan Hilliard states: We have learnt a lot that we can now pass on. We have also contributed to an understanding of the care of the migrants that needs to be acknowledged and contextualised; we now have to name and insist that it is heard. As this globe tries to balance human rights with economic need, we have to share the story of the Irish migrant and in particular highlight the option for the migrant that the Irish Church was brave enough to take. (Hilliard, 2006)

The pioneering work of the Irish church is identified as a form of networked cultural capital for a new world marked by inevitable migration. Moreover, the pro-migrant position of the church is located in the wider secular landscape of global human rights activism on behalf of migrants. While also connecting the religious and the secular, Sr. Joan Roddy et al. unsettle such claims to legitimation by drawing attention to how church experiences and encounters across racial, religious and ethnic diversity abroad are challenged anew by the contemporary context of immigration. After a long experience of sending missionaries abroad, the church is now challenged to welcome and include growing numbers of people from other ethnic, racial, linguistic and religious backgrounds in the community of the faithful in Ireland. This presents an opportunity for the church to rediscover itself as part of a universal community of believers and of human beings. (Roddy et al., 2003: 198)

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There is a suggestion that the links between ‘race’, nation and religion that marked much of the sending church experience need to be revisited and unravelled in the development of ‘a more pluralist relationship to its mission’ today (ibid.). Indeed, some service users identify a need for church-run organizations to change what is seen as ‘a kind of colonial idea . . . “I know better than you what you want” [and] . . . the charity model’ (Kensika Monshengwo in Lentin, 2012: 55; see also Passarelli, 2012). Contemporary inter-racial and cultural encounters within the spaces of the church and church organizations in Ireland re-stage previous such encounters on the missions. This re-staging demands a critical analysis of the missionary project of the Irish Catholic Church, which sometimes ‘worked in tandem with the civilizing mission of English imperialists’ as Irish missionaries contributed to the replacing of indigenous beliefs with European Christian morals and norms (Lennon, 2004: 182). Thus the shift in status from a sending to a receiving church involves a return to past encounters and the power relations underpinning them for insights into how these might be manifest in the present. It also demands a move away from the fostering of transnational Irish Catholic networks towards a much less predictable project that might draw to some extent on these networks, but that will involve a transnational assemblage of diverse members, practices and orientations. The nodes in this network are potentially more transient and perhaps the linkages will be less ordered than in the past. Such a move would render immigration ‘a modifying factor in terms of identity, both for the country and the church’ (Itçaina, 2006: 1479). Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s comments at the Dublin launch of the Irish Churches’ Affirmations on Migration, Diversity and Interculturalism, in September 2010 suggest the diversification of Christian churches in Ireland is gaining recognition: Christian Churches face the challenging but exciting task of welcoming and including new members who have a different language, different cultural backgrounds, and different experiences and expectations of church membership. In facilitating participation in church and local community life, Churches play a vital role in supporting and promoting the integration of ethnic minorities. (Church of Ireland, 2010)

The Affirmations document commits the longer-established churches in Ireland to ‘foster co-operation and collaboration’ with the ‘migrant-led churches’ in providing pastoral care and support to migrants (ibid.). Thus it acknowledges the differently transnationalized space of the majority churches in Ireland as diverse members and religious practices circulate and encounter one another within that space. However, we are left with the question of whether and how an ethnically identified church characterized by ethnically

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defined network-making power might reconfigure this network and relinquish the power it facilitates, so that it includes and is reshaped by newcomers. Castells’ conception of networking power is based on an eclectic model that starts with a Weberian notion of power as involving the relational capacity of any social actor to influence asymmetrically the construction of meaning in favour of the empowered actor’s will, interests and values (2009: 10). Castells also invokes Foucault to identify the subjectification effects of disciplinary discourses emanating from institutions such as the state, religious institutions or the media, and draws on Habermas to highlight processes of legitimation in stabilizing ‘the exercise of domination’ (ibid.: 12). For Castells therefore, ‘network power’ takes a number of forms, the most significant of which he calls ‘network-making power’: ‘the power to program specific networks according to the interests and values of the programmers and the power to switch different networks via strategic alliances between the dominant actors of various networks’ (Castells, 2011: 773; emphasis added). As contemporary networks are made up of evolving systems of interconnected nodes whereby nodes are added or dropped as the network programme changes (Castells, 2009), a shift in church network-making power relationships will involve the reprogramming of the goals of the network and the ‘switching’ of connections with diverse migrant-led religious and secular organizations, groups and associations nationally and transnationally. If the Irish Catholic Church as a sending church was consolidated in the context of nation-building prior to and following independence, its role as a receiving church has been shaped by rapid change in both the positions of church and state in Ireland. With regard to the state, the development of social partnership between government and key stakeholders since the late 1980s involved a form of ‘flexible network governance’ based on ‘considerable fluidity across all . . . activities [and] . . . overlapping personnel’ (Hardiman, 2006: 344). From 1997, civil society organizations, including the Conference of Religious in Ireland and Society of St. Vincent de Paul, were included in agreeing the social policy aspects of partnership. This ‘new state–civil society relationship’ involves a ‘small state’ and ‘innovative forms of policy making’ (Connolly, 2007: 7). As this ‘small state’ did not, for the most part, fund services for immigrants, the work of church actors in establishing services was institutionalized with the support of philanthropic organizations which acted in a quasi-state role by setting the organizational and professional standards for funded NGOs. As such, the church has been able to both establish the meaning of ‘the vulnerable migrant’ in public discourse and in many cases align its migrant integration agendas via networks with other civil society and philanthropic

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foundation constituencies. As such, this multi-nodal and multifaceted network created a programme for migrant integration based on negotiated goals and maintained strategic connections in order to combine resources in the achievement of these goals. This networked ‘joint action’ has been a central feature of the development of migrant integration policy and practice in Ireland in ways that have been informed and shaped by the experience and expertise developed by church actors in the diaspora and the mission fields.

Concluding discussion For Castells (2011: 777) network-making power is ‘the paramount form of power in the network society’ and depends on two mechanisms: (a) the ability to constitute network(s) and to program/reprogram the network in terms of the goals assigned to the network; and (b) the ability to connect and ensure the cooperation of different networks by sharing common goals and combining resources while fending off competition from other networks by setting up strategic cooperation. (ibid.: 776; emphasis added)

Networks here are not single actors such as individuals or religious leaders, but ‘a complex set of joint action that goes beyond alliances to become a new form of subject – a networked subject’ (ibid.). Although the institutional authority of the Catholic Church in Ireland remains strong in education and health, its authority is actively contested in the 2000s due to a combination of factors including child-abuse scandals, pluralization, secularization and declericalization. Nonetheless, through its transnational activities, the Irish church has facilitated the flow of significant ‘social remittances’ between Ireland, the diaspora and the mission fields, many of which are being mobilized in responding to immigrants in Ireland today. In this context, the transnational and local work of the church in relation to migration is a ‘good news story’ based on what is seen as the effective forging of alliances to promote state and civil society responses to (em/im)migration. However, the Irish Catholic Church network and its networking activities have been unevenly successful in changing the programme regarding migration from one of economic expediency to one of migrant human dignity and rights. Its uneven success is because the church network has been effective only when there has been an ‘alignment of agendas’ with state and other constituencies (Hardiman, 2006: 368), as was the case in relation to emigrant welfare. Church actors have shaped state and civil society projects of migrant integration in Ireland but, given the wider context of neoliberal welfare state retrenchment, there would appear to be consensus across network nodes (church, civil society, state actors,

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philanthropic and other funding organizations) that the project of migrant integration in the twenty-first century is, and will continue to be, a shared one. The connecting mechanisms that produce this networked governing subject (produced in relations between nodes and networks) were changing in Ireland in the 2000s as social partnership processes of governance and neoliberal state restructuring fostered the contracting-out of state service provision. Thus control of these connecting points moved into the contracts negotiated between many of the organizations referred to in the tables above and philanthropic foundations, the state and EU funders (Gray, 2013).3 As such, partnership relationships and these market-based contracts have become the ‘specific systems of interface . . . formulated on a relatively stable basis so that compatible goals are established between . . . networks’ (Castells, 2011: 777). This shift is in line with the changing choreography of state, church and civil society across Europe as the state rolls back service provision and rolls out competitive contracted-out provision recognizing faith-based organizations in particular as part of the market mix of services (Beaumont, 2008). So, although the Catholic Church has had a significant civil society presence in Ireland since the 1930s, the 1990s and 2000s heralded new sociopolitical conditions for church interventions relating to (em/im)migration. In this context, the church, in combination with other civil society actors, facilitates Catholic actors and Catholicism in being both visibly and less visibly present across the domain of migrant integration and practice. As such, the church hierarchy, religious orders and individuals work as an assemblage of distributed authority through the connecting mechanisms of contemporary neoliberal governance, to simultaneously pursue both church doctrinal goals and the integration and welfare of migrants.

Acknowledgements This chapter draws on a broader research project funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Thank you to Íde O’Carroll, Mary Gilmartin, Allen White and Manchester University Press reviewers for most helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Thank you also to Alan Hilliard, former Director of IECE, Declan Ganly, the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain and Geri Garvey, the Irish Apostolate, USA for their contributions at different stages in the writing of this chapter.

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Notes 1 Notable civil society Church organizations working transnationally on behalf of migrants include: the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People; the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe Commission for Migration (CCEE); the International Catholic Migration Commission; Caritas Europa; and the Jesuit Refugee Services. 2 See the Inter-Church Committee on Social Issues ‘Parish-based Integration Project’ (largely funded by the Integration Unit of the Office of the Minister for State for Integration), which produced a resource book to aid parish responses: Unity in Diversity in our Churches (Cristea et al., 2008). 3 The connecting points between these organizations and the hierarchcal church, or religious orders, are controlled by the annual funds allocated and the motivations and agendas of those clergy or religious members of the organization’s board or staff. Most organizations report annually on how church/order funding has been allocated and the use of these funds seems to be much less constrained than in the case of funding from philanthropic foundations, the EU or the state.

References Beaumont, J. (2008) ‘Introduction: faith-based organizations and urban social issues’, Urban Studies, 45:10, 2011–17. Berger, J. (2003) ‘Religious nongovernmental organizations: an exploratory analysis’, Voluntas, 14:1, 15–39. Casanova, J. (1994) Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Casanova, J. (2005) ‘Catholic and Muslim politics in comparative perspective’, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 1:2, 89–108. Casanova, J. (2008) ‘Public religions revisited’, in J. de Vries (ed.) Religion: Beyond a Concept. New York: Fordham University Press, 101–19. Castells, M. (2009) Communication Power. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Castells, M. (2011) ‘A network theory of power’, International Journal of Communication, 5, 773–87. Central Statistics Office (2008) Non-Irish Nationals Living in Ireland. Dublin: CSO. Church of Ireland (2010) Press release: ‘Church leaders to launch document to assist churches to promote integration and interculturalism.’ Available online at www.ireland.anglican.org/news/3160. Accessed 10 November 2010. Connolly, E. (2007) The Irish Experience of Development: National Social Partnership, Civil Society and Poverty Alleviation, Working Paper 7, Centre for International Studies: DCU. Available online at http://www.dcu.ie/ ~cis/civilsociety.html. Accessed 20 October 2011.

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Cooke, C. (1980) ‘The modern Irish missionary movement’, Archivium Hibernicum, 35, 234–46. Corish, P.J. (1985) The Irish Catholic Experience: A Historical Survey. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Cristea, A. along with A. Martin, R. Cochran and T. Walsh (2008) Unity in Diversity in our Churches. Available online at www.iccsi.ie. Accessed 10 September 2011. Cullen, P. (2009) ‘Irish pro-migrant nongovernmental organizations and the politics of immigration’, Voluntas, 20, 99–128. Daly, M.E. (2008) ‘The Irish state and the diaspora’, The 33rd O’Donnell Lecture’, delivered at University College Dublin, 18 November. Dublin: National University of Ireland. Delaney, E. (2000) Demography, State and Society: Irish Migration to Britain, 1921–1971. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Dignitatis Humanae (1965) ‘Declaration on religious freedom’, Pope Paul VI. Available online at www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_ council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html. Accessed 12 June 2010. Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi (2004) Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. Vatican City. Available online at www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/migrants/documents/rc _pc_migrants_doc_20040514_erga-migrantes-caritas-christi_en.html. Accessed 20 August 2012. Fahey, T. (2007) ‘The Catholic Church and social policy’, in S. Healy and B. Reynolds (eds) Values, Catholic Social Thought and Public Policy. Dublin: CORI Social Justice, 143–63. Feldman, A., D. Ndakengerwa, A. Nolan and C. Frese (2005) Diversity, Civil Society and Social Change in Ireland: A North–South Comparison of the Role of Immigrant-Led Organizations. Dublin: Geary Institute, University College Dublin. Fielding, S. (1993) Class and Ethnicity: Irish Catholics in England, 1880–1939. Buckingham and Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press. Fitzgerald, D. (2009) A Nation of Emigrants: How Mexico Manages Its Migration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Fuller, L. (2002) Irish Catholicism since 1950: The Undoing of a Culture. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Gilley, S. (1984) ‘The Roman Catholic Church and the nineteenth-century Irish diaspora’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 35:1, 188–207. Gillmor, D.A. (2006) ‘Changing religions in the Republic of Ireland, 1991–2002’, Irish Geography, 39:2, 111–28. Gray, B. (2013) ‘Catholic church civil society activism and the neoliberal governmental project of migrant integration in Ireland’, in F. Gauthier and

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T. Martikainen (eds) Religion in the Neoliberal Age. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 69–90. Gray, B. and R. O’Sullivan Lago (2011) ‘Chaplains in the Irish Catholic Church: a transnational religious social field’, Irish Journal of Sociology, 19:2, 93–109. Hardiman, N. (2006) ‘Politics and social partnership: flexible network governance’, Economic and Social Review, 37:3, 343–74. Harvey, B. (1999) Emigration and Services for Irish Emigrants: Towards a New Strategic Plan. Dublin: IECE and ICPO. Hickman, M.J. (1995) Religion, Class and Identity: The State, the Catholic Church and the Education of the Irish in Britain. Aldershot: Ashgate. Hilliard, A. (2006) ‘Hope for the migrants – hope for the Church: exploring a pastoral response’, Speech at Western Theological Institute Conference, 28 September. Available online at www.catholiccommunications.ie/pressrel/ 28–september-2006.html. Accessed 3 March 2008. ICB website (2011). Available online at http://icib2.churchinsight.com/ Groups/160511/Irish_Chaplaincy_in.aspx. Accessed 19 September 2011. IECE (2012) Pastoral Care without Frontiers: The Irish Chaplaincy in Britain 1957–2007. Dublin: IECE. Inglis, T. (2007) ‘Catholic identity in contemporary Ireland: belief and belonging to tradition’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 22:2, 205–20. Irish Apostolate USA website. Available online at www.usairish.org/ whatwebelieve.html. Accessed 10 January 2011. Itçaina, X. (2006) ‘The Roman Catholic Church and the immigration issue: the relative secularisation of political life in Spain’, American Behavioral Scientist Journal, 49:1, 1471–88. Kennedy, P. (2007) ‘Pastoral care without frontiers: the Irish chaplaincy in Britain 1957–2007’, Paper presented at From Pastoral Care to Public Policy – Journeying with the Migrant, IECE Conference, Dunboyne Castle Hotel, 21–23 November. Kiggins, T. (1991) Maynooth Mission to Africa: The Story of St Patrick’s Kiltegan. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Lennon, J. (2004) Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Lentin, R. (2012) ‘“There is no movement”: a brief history of migrant-led activism in Ireland’, in R. Lentin and E. Moreo (eds) Migrant Activism and Integration from Below in Ireland. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 42–71. Levitt, P. (2003) ‘“You know, Abraham was really the first immigrant”: religion and transnational migration’, International Migration Review, 37:3, 847–73. Levitt, P. (2004) ‘Redefining the boundaries of belonging: the institutional

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character of transnational religious life’, Sociology of Religion, 65:1, 1–18. Macourt, M. (2011) ‘Mapping the “New Religious Landscape” and the “New Irish”: uses and limitations of the census’, in O. Cosgrove, L. Cox, C. Kuhling and P. Mulholland (eds) Ireland’s New Religious Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 28–49. Maleševic´, V. and Á. Lioré (2009) ‘GROW-ing neo-secularisation’, Working Paper No. 2, Galway, National University of Ireland Galway. Meyer, K., E. Barker, H.R. Ebaugh and M. Juergensmeyer (2011) ‘Religion in global perspective: SSSR presidential panel’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 50:2, 240–51. Murphy, D. (2000) A History of Irish Emigrant and Missionary Education. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Office of the Minister of State for Integration (2008) Migration Nation: Statement on Integration Strategy and Diversity Management. Dublin: OMSI. O’Mahony, E. and M. Prunty (2007) Active Citizenship in Faith-Based Communities. Dublin: Council for Research & Development, a Commission of the Irish Bishops’ Conference/Secretariat of the Task Force on Active Citizenship. O’Shea, K. Fr. (1985) The Irish Emigrant Chaplaincy Scheme in Britain 1957–82. Dublin: IECE. Pacem in Terris (1963) Encyclical of Pope John XXIII on establishing Universal Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity and Liberty, 11 April. Available online at www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/encyclicals/documents/ hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem_en.html. Accessed 12 June 2010. Passarelli, A. (2012) ‘Beyond welcoming the strangers: migrant integration processes among Protestant Churches in Ireland’, in Lentin and Moreo (eds) Migrant Activism and Integration from Below in Ireland, 140–58. Roddy, J., J. Connolly and M. Leen (2003) ‘Human rights have no borders: justice for the stranger at home and abroad’, in J.P. Mackey and E. McDonagh (eds) Religion and Politics in Ireland at the Turn of the Millennium. Dublin: The Columba Press, 198–213. Shannon, W.V. (1963) The American Irish: A Political and Social Portrait. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Shelledy, R.B. (2004) ‘The Vatican’s role in global politics’, SAIS Review, XXIV:2, 149–62. Sustaining Progress 2003–2005, Dublin: Government Publications Office. Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants (2002) Ireland and the Irish Abroad. Dublin: Department of Foreign Affairs. Walter, B. with B. Gray, L. Almeida Dowling and S. Morgan (2002) A Study of the Existing Sources of Information and Analysis about Irish Emigrants and

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4 Ireland’s diaspora strategy: diaspora for development? Mark Boyle, Rob Kitchin and Delphine Ancien

Introduction In 2011, when the population of the Irish Republic stood at 4.58 million, over 70 million people worldwide claimed Irish descent, and 3.2 million Irish passport holders, including 800,000 Irish-born citizens, lived overseas (Ancien et al., 2009). Despite being varied and complex, it is often assumed that a strong relationship has prevailed between the Irish diaspora and Ireland, with the diaspora operating transnationally, bequeathing a flow of various exchanges (e.g. information, goods, money, tourist visits, political will) between diaspora members and family and social, cultural, economic and political institutions in Ireland. Nevertheless, throughout the early 2000s, Ireland’s relationship with its diaspora was seen to be entering a new era in which ties to Ireland were seemingly weakening as the traditional imperatives that helped to maintain a strong Irish identity across generations were becoming less relevant: anti-Irish racism in host societies, while still present to a certain extent, had decreased significantly; the economic position of Ireland had been radically transformed during the Celtic Tiger years and the need to provide remittances and philanthropy had dissipated; the need to mobilize in relation to the ‘Irish question’ in the North had lessened given the peace process; and, for younger members of the diaspora, long-established groups such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians no longer appealed, resulting in ageing membership and slow decline. Somewhat ironically, at the same time the Irish government was beginning to recognize its obligations to its diaspora, while also viewing it as a potential resource to aid Ireland’s first booming and later ailing economy. While contemporary analysis has largely focused on Ireland’s attempts to forge and implement migration policy with respect to immigrants to Ireland,

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there has been insufficient analytical focus on policy initiatives to engage with Irish emigrants and their descendants abroad. And yet, in response to the changing nature of diaspora–homeland relations, a raft of programmes are now being instituted, administered across a range of government departments and semi-state agencies, to manage Ireland’s relationship with its diaspora and there are nascent moves to link these together into a single diaspora strategy. In this chapter we examine the development of Ireland’s diaspora strategy from 2000. We first provide an analytical framework through which diaspora strategies might be best understood, and ruminate on some important criticisms of the diaspora for development agenda. We then isolate three aspects of this framework for further scrutiny: motives, institutions and strategies, and supporting infrastructures. We conclude by identifying a number of questions which the further development of an Irish diaspora strategy might usefully address.

Diaspora and development: an analytical framework Growing interest in the role of global diasporas in the development of countries of origin signals a potential paradigm shift within Development Studies and the practitioner field of Development Policy (see Bakewell, 2009; Dewind and Holdaway, 2008; Faist, 2008; Kuznetsov, 2006; Leblang, 2010; Lowell and Gerova, 2004; Piper, 2009; Saxenian, 2006; Solimano, 2008; Vertovec, 2007; Yossi and Barth, 2003). Historically, emigration has been viewed as a barometer of the success or failure of national economic development strategies. The loss of talent from a country was a sign that the strategy being pursued by that country was not working. In turn, the emigration of skilled labour from any country constituted ‘brain drain’ and was assumed to further weaken that country’s ability to develop. In the past two decades, however, countries of origin have begun to explore the ways in which emigrant populations can and do impact upon the development of their homelands from their new overseas locations and, as a result, how the energy and talent of émigrés might be managed, levered and harnessed to best effect. It is possible to identify up to ten transnational practices through which diasporic populations impact upon the development of sending states (see Figure 4.1). 1. Diaspora advocacy and diplomacy – advocates, activists, agitators and ambassadors within diasporic communities can exploit their knowledge, contacts, linguistic skills and cultural insights to promote peace and security in their homelands and to enhance the strategic, diplomatic and foreign policy objectives of homelands. 2. Diaspora capital markets – diasporic members can fuel capital markets (portfolio investment) through holding deposit accounts, securitizing

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N ETWORKS remittance flows, providing transnational loans to diaspora groupings, buying diaspora bonds and supporting diaspora mutual funds. 3. Diaspora direct investment – diasporic members can invest in homelands as senior executives in transnational corporations, venture capitalists, investors and by outsourcing contracts to small and medium-sized enterprises in countries of origin. 4. Diaspora knowledge networks – diaspora can assist companies in sending countries by providing knowledge and contacts; sharing knowledge; mentoring organizations; training talented colleagues; and joining think-tanks, consultation groups and advisory councils. 5. Diaspora philanthropy – diasporic communities can provide private and voluntary donations for charitable and public good through such vehicles as private and voluntary organizations, religious organizations, corporations, foundations, volunteer citizens, and university and college alumni associations. 6. Diaspora remittances – diasporic remittance flows entail private or personto-person transfers from migrant workers to recipients in the worker’s country of origin. 7. Diaspora return migration – diasporic populations can promote bilateral and multilateral agreements to restrict recruitment from especially vulnerable and at-risk countries; increase accountability among recruitment specialists and employers; establish protocols for the treatment of foreign workers; and facilitate return migration. 8. Diaspora corps – diaspora groupings can establish volunteering schemes to promote short-term assistance in countries of origin by skilled diaspora volunteers and youth diaspora volunteers, especially in relation to the support of vulnerable populations, the provision of skills that are in short supply, and to assist in the administration of aid, not least following a natural or a humaninduced disaster. 9. Diaspora tourism – diaspora visits to homelands provide an important source of revenue and foreign currency, incorporating: medical tourism, business-related tourism, heritage (or ‘roots’) tourism, exposure or ‘birthright’ tours, education tourism, VIP tours and peak experience tours (one that provides people with a deep emotional experience by bringing them to ancestral homes). 10. Diaspora human capital effects – the prospect of joining the ranks of sometimes more wealthy diaspora can result in a pre-departure boost in the human capital of sending states: migrants prepare for a potential exit by upgrading their competencies and skill set and increasing their likelihood of securing a relocation to a more developed labour market.

We offer an analytical framework which proposes that the role of global diasporas in the development of countries of origin is conditioned by: a) the development of an effective diaspora strategy in sending states; b) the scale, history, geography and nature of a particular diaspora; and c) the external aid, trade, diplomatic, security; and immigration priorities of states (see Figure

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Diaspora advocacy and diplomacy

Diaspora capital markets

Diaspora direct investment

Diaspora knowledge networks

Diaspora philanthropy

Diaspora remittances

Diaspora return migration

Diaspora corps

Diaspora tourism

Diaspora human capital effects

Figure 4.1 How diaspora can impact upon the development of sending states

4.2). The empirical focus of the chapter is on the first of these strands: the changing motives of the Irish state towards its diaspora, the institutions and strategies which are overseeing Ireland’s diaspora policies, and the quality and effectiveness of the supporting or flanking infrastructures upon which Ireland depends. Given the potential contributions which diasporic populations can make to the enhancement of the global economic competitiveness of sending states, it is not surprising that many sending states are becoming motivated to better harness their overseas cohorts. Concomitantly, a new area of public policy, referred to as ‘diaspora strategy’, has started to come of age. A diaspora strategy is an explicit policy initiative or series of policy initiatives enacted by a state, or its peoples, aimed at managing and developing relationships with diaspora populations. While more commonly championed by developing

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countries, newly emerging countries and countries from the global South (including Armenia, India, Mexico, China, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Jamaica, El Salvador, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Ghana and Morocco), diaspora strategies are also being pursued by such advanced capitalist nations as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Israel, and by a number of peripheral countries within the European Union, including Scotland, Ireland and Lithuania (Aikins and White, 2011; Boyle and Kitchin, 2011; Gamlen, 2008; Kuznetsov, 2006; Levitt and Jaworsky, 2007; Newland, 2010). International practice suggests that countries seek to engage their diasporas for a variety of reasons, but that increasingly global economic competitiveness is becoming an important driver. Moreover, those who are seeking to fortify and develop their relations with diasporic communities are viewing it as necessary to erect new institutional capacities to accomplish this task. Among the models of governance which are emerging are the creation of dedicated new government ministries, the establishment of diaspora units within government departments, the establishment of nimble and flexible cross-department working groups, and the outsourcing of diaspora strategy to voluntary and/or private sector groups. Some diaspora strategies vary from muscular state interventions designed to create and support new schemes through to the light incubation of already established schemes which might benefit from seed funding and periodic assistance. Diasporic contributions to the development of countries of origin are most effective when diasporic groupings are motivated to help (feel a loyalty to the nation), are able to exploit modern transport and information and communications technology connections, and are capable of exercising a wide range of rights as citizens of both the sending and the destination country (dual citizens). Consequently sending states are attending to a number of critical support infrastructures, including processes of nation-building, the development of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and the creation of new citizenship rules. It is important to note that there exists a growing body of critics of the diaspora for development agenda. Five areas of concern would seem to be germinating. First, notwithstanding the rich intellectual history of Development Studies, there exists no credible intellectual foundation, beyond pure pragmatism, for the claim that diaspora-centred development provides a viable approach to development. Secondly, the agenda is being increasingly pedalled by what amounts to a cottage industry, both within and beyond states which are benefitting from its new centrality. A series of new institutions and projects is being built largely by vested interests for vested interests. Thirdly, diaspora strategies rarely pause to question who is being counted as a legitimate member of the diaspora and who is not; in other words, how strategies are in and of themselves making and excluding members of the

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Figure 4.2 An analytical framework for the study of diaspora strategies

national collective. Fourthly, diaspora strategies attend insufficiently to the range of stakeholders who might make or break their effectiveness; relationships between sending states and diasporas constitute only part of the story; stakeholder groups within both sending countries and destination countries need to be engaged and aligned. Finally, more attention needs to be paid to the winners and losers of the development which diaspora-centred development promotes; which kind of development results, where and involving which social groups. While we recognize the significance of these potential pitfalls we would describe ourselves as sympathetic critics; we would wish to see how the agenda further unfolds before reaching premature conclusions as to its merits.

Ireland’s diaspora strategy In the remainder of this chapter we focus on how Ireland is seeking to refresh, re-energize and build anew its relationships with its diaspora. Drawing upon the analytical approach outlined and where appropriate locating the Irish case in international context, our discussion focuses upon three central questions: why is Ireland now turning with renewed vigour to its diasporic populations? What kinds of public, private and non-governmental organizations are being asked to interface in new ways with Irish diasporic populations and what kinds of strategies is Ireland adopting vis-à-vis leveraging diasporic assistance? How effective is Ireland in building a parallel set of support

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infrastructures to undergird its diaspora policies (with respect to narratives of the nation propagated to build a new generation of diasporic patriotism, channels of communication to connect homeland and diasporic groupings, and the citizenship rights it bestows on diasporic populations)? Motives underpinning a diaspora strategy for Ireland Why at this historical moment are a growing number of sending countries seeking to develop explicit and systematic strategies aimed at creating, managing and energizing relationships with their diasporic populations? For Israel, motivation derives principally from the desire to protect and defend the right of the state of Israel to exist; for Scotland, concern initially was with low fertility levels and the social, economic, political and cultural consequences of a shrinking population; for New Zealand, the diaspora is seen as a means of countering geographical isolation from the global economy; for Armenia, the diaspora is being seen as a resource in the reassertion and reclamation of a post-Soviet national identity and trajectory; for India and China, diasporic groups are being deployed to broker integration into the global economy at a moment when the global distribution of power is being realigned; while for Mexico, the efficient harnessing of diasporic remittances is being promoted to counter the effects of population flight from the global South. For Ireland, diaspora strategizing was initially conceived as an opportunity to spend the fiscal surpluses of the Celtic Tiger boom on the protection and welfare of vulnerable and forgotten overseas migrants. In 2002, in the midst of the buoyant Celtic Tiger economic boom, Ireland commissioned a Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants which recommended using the country’s new-found wealth to extend welfare assistance to overseas populations, especially vulnerable groups (the elderly, infirm, sick, the poor and prisoners) who left Ireland in the 1950s and the 1980s to move to British cities. At the same time there was a growing concern that the strength of diasporic attachment and affiliation to Ireland might be waning (ironically not least because of the developing peace in Northern Ireland). The Irishness of the Irish diaspora could no longer be taken for granted. As a consequence, priority was being given to the nurturing of the social and cultural life of the diaspora and its continued enthusiasm for matters Irish. Recently however, Ireland’s policy towards its diaspora has undoubtedly been motivated by a further critical consideration. Given the dramatic rise of the Irish economy from 1993 to 2007, and the equally dramatic collapse of the Irish economy, banking system and property sector thereafter, there is growing recognition that diasporic networks have a role to play in brokering the country’s economic development. The Irish diaspora has been viewed as a resource to be harnessed to fortify the Celtic Tiger economy and now to rescue a country which is quite literally bankrupt.

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With remittances dwindling in importance over the course of the twentieth century, initially the impact of Irish diasporic philanthropy and return migration on the economic development of the country was given priority. Ireland has a very poorly developed indigenous philanthropic landscape, but has been successful in cultivating philanthropy in the diaspora. The Ireland Funds, International Fund for Ireland (IFI), and Atlantic Philanthropies (AP) are prime examples. Over the past thirty years, the Ireland Funds have raised more than €300 million to be spent on projects in Ireland, IFI more than € 850 million and AP more than € 1.2 billion. In the main, these funds have been targeted at social disadvantage, education and welfare, and supporting community development and local economic initiatives with the aim of increasing social and economic capital. Moreover, USA-based diasporic philanthropy organizations and philanthropists have worked to support directly and indirectly the peace process in Northern Ireland. Since 1993, approximately 40 per cent (in excess of 200,000) of all migrants to Ireland have been returnees (primarily those who left Ireland in the 1980s and to a lesser extent the 1950s). During the years of the Celtic Tiger, given the strength of the Irish economy and the lure of well-paid jobs, proactive programmes were perhaps not needed to entice Irish people to return to Ireland. But nevertheless public and privately funded recruitment fairs were held in key diaspora centres, in part in an effort to ease bottlenecks in key labour markets. More recently, the Irish state has turned its attention to business networks, and in particular diaspora knowledge networks. The Irish government has invested heavily and successfully in the promotion of inward investment and in building business partnerships with the Irish diaspora globally. The Industrial Development Agency, with fourteen offices outside of Ireland, is responsible for the attraction and development of foreign investment in Ireland. While it targets any company which might potentially locate in Ireland it has a successful track record of recruiting businesses owned and/or run by Irish or Irish-descent entrepreneurs and managers. Enterprise Ireland, with thirty-one offices outside of Ireland, is the state agency responsible for the development and promotion of the Irish business sector and in assisting international companies and entrepreneurs who are searching for Irish suppliers or are interested in investing in Irish companies. At present, Enterprise Ireland supports, through in-kind or financial aid, over sixty Irish business networks around the world with over 30,000 members. These networks are used to support the work of members whether they are located in Ireland or not, but are also used strategically to help market Irish business and products and to enable Irish companies to expand into new territories and markets, and to encourage inward investment into Ireland. An example of the latter is the recently established Irish Technology Leadership

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Group (ITLG), comprising Irish people in senior positions in the high-tech world in Silicon Valley, who are seeking to invest in Irish companies, partly because they want to make a contribution to promoting Ireland but also because they see this initiative as a good and profitable enterprise for their members as well. The ITLG comes closest to mimicking the work of the Chinese, Indian and Taiwanese diaspora outlined in Saxenian’s (2006) much vaunted work on diasporas in Silicon Valley, California. Unlike other countries such as Scotland and Chile, which have placed emphasis on developing a single elite business network of high-level achievers among the diaspora, Ireland has adopted a much more plural approach that aims to foster a number of business networks and to develop a wide base of contacts and expertise. Some of these, such as Techlink UK and Biolink Ireland USA, were initially seeded by Enterprise Ireland and others were started by the diaspora. In the main, networks are owned and run by their members and function as social/business networking sites, many of whom also organize regular face-to-face meetings. In addition there are numerous Irish business forums and chambers of commerce. For example, the Asia Pacific Business forum links eleven Irish business groups in the Asia Pacific and the Gulf to facilitate an exchange of ideas and resources and to leverage reputation and connections, while the Irish Chamber of Commerce USA is a transnational economic network with thirteen chapters across the USA. The Ireland Funds events also provide an important business networking function. The breadth and depth of these business networks, given the size of Ireland, are exceptional, although there are still many possibilities for expansion, especially with respect to both generalist and specialist networks (O’Neill, 2009). It is now impossible to ignore the impact of the global financial crisis on diaspora strategies and the potential contributions a diaspora might make to national programmes of recovery. One strategy has been to look at competitive assets such as pools of talent overseas as potential critical brokers of success. In September 2009, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Micheál Martin T.D., convened the first Global Irish Economic Forum which brought together nearly 250 of the most influential Irish diasporeans from around the world to explore how the Irish diaspora might contribute to crisis management and economic recovery and how Ireland might create a more strategic relationship with its diaspora. This has led to the creation of the Global Irish Network comprising 300 Irish diasporic ‘thought leaders’ from thirty-seven countries (Department of Foreign Affairs, 2010). A series of ‘regional meetings’ of this network are held on an ongoing basis, and the second Global Irish Economic Forum was held in October 2011. Following the creation of this network projects that have been instituted include the establishment of a National Solidarity Diaspora Bond, the opening of a New

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Arts Centre in New York, the advancement of a plan to set up a new university for the performing arts in Ireland, the launch of a major diaspora return tourism initiative, ‘the Gathering’, scheduled for 2013, and the introduction of a student intern scheme to facilitate up to 2000 interns to work for a period with companies in Asia (including China, India, Singapore and South Korea). Institutions and strategies While it is relatively easy to identify branches of state which deal with immigration, it is more difficult to establish who governs over matters of emigration. Cognate state departments and administrative units such as Departments of Foreign Affairs, Departments of Home Affairs, Departments of Heritage and Culture, and Enterprise and Development Agencies, devise and implement solutions to emigration problems normally in an ad hoc and isolated way. Gamlen (2008) develops the useful notion of the ‘emigrant state’ to capture the totality of the work this range of state actors performs. Diaspora strategies emerge when particular states decide it is necessary first to secure an overview of the range of actually existing public, private and voluntary diasporic ties (to map the existing range of transnational connections) and secondly to articulate and enact a preferred orientation as to how these ties might best be developed. A diaspora strategy, it should be noted, does not necessarily demand the development of a coherent and formalized top-down, bureaucratically regulated, centralized and managerialist, blueprint. But it does imply a strategic understanding of the full extent of the emigrant state and the ways in which the emigrant state might be better deployed. India has a well-developed diaspora strategy which is produced and managed by a dedicated Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, which came into existence in May 2004 as the Ministry of Non-Resident Indians’ Affairs. Likewise, the Armenian diaspora strategy is governed by a dedicated Ministry of Diasporas. The Scottish government’s International Projects Division seeks to promote joined-up thinking and coordination across branches of the state, for instance with respect to the diasporic relevant work of Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Development International and VisitScotland. New Zealand’s diaspora strategy is coordinated and managed by Kea New Zealand, a not-forprofit organization which works in close relation with, but which exists independently from, government. The Irish Abroad Unit, a division within the Department of Foreign Affairs, oversees Ireland’s diaspora strategy. As such, Ireland’s strategy is not governed by a powerful Ministry of Diaspora, but equally is not discharged to an NGO or private organizations. The Irish Abroad Unit seeks to promote joined-up thinking and coordination across branches of the state, for instance with respect to the diasporic-relevant work

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of Enterprise Ireland, the Industrial Development Agency, The President’s Office and other departments within the state. With respect to the policies of these agencies, the motif of the Irish state is ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’, with the state at best ‘lightly incubating’ existing initiatives or seeding new initiatives. Government interventions in homeland engagements with diasporic populations can take one of five forms: absent, custodian, midwife, husbandry and demiurge. These terms can be taken to mean (O’Neill, 2009): • Absent – the state leaves the formation of links between the homeland and the diaspora to the market or to autonomous social, cultural and political movements, with the diaspora often self-organizing its engagement with its homeland. • Custodian – the state nurtures, protects, regulates and polices new and emerging diasporic connections. • Midwifery – the state identifies potential engagements, champions/ leaders and mobilizes and cultivates them but leaves ownership of initiatives in the hands of the diaspora. • Husbandry – the state works with and re-energizes existing diaspora organizations and networks. • Demiurge – the state directly creates and runs diasporic initiatives and networks, perhaps with the intention of letting the market assume responsibility at a later date. The Irish schemes are slowly transferring to more managerialist interventions, especially with regards to accountability and transparency of spend, but there remains an underlying inclination to leave diaspora organizations and networks to run themselves, providing minimal resources (basic funding, advice, speakers, etc.) only when an organization or network needs to be reenergized. Ireland’s engagement with its diaspora then embodies for the most part forms of custodian, midwifery and husbandry relationships. Ireland’s engagement has been developed on an ad hoc basis, often seeded by the diaspora itself rather than the state. There is no overall diaspora strategy in place, nor a specific agency to formulate and manage it, though the state is slowly moving towards a more formal connection with and management of the diaspora through new state-led initiatives. Borrowing Alan Gamlen’s (2008) terminology, Ireland then has a complex but fractured ‘emigrant state’, pursuing a ‘strategy without tactics’. As a result, many countries are envious of the perceived relationship between Ireland and its diaspora, even if the reality lacks coherence and such a situation runs counter to common discourse in Ireland that the Irish state

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does relatively little to engage its diaspora and has a scarcity of programmes (see Ancien et al., 2009). Support infrastructures A prerequisite for a successful diaspora strategy is a motivated diaspora, willing and minded to contribute to national development. While perhaps historically taken for granted, the social and cultural condition, empathy and inclinations of diasporic communities are now emerging as an important arena for intervention. Diasporic patriotism varies in time and space, with the patriotic flame being doused and ignited by a variety of origin- and destination-specific triggers. But states can play a role in incubating, fostering and building diaspora social and cultural networks. It is recognized that the nation needs to be strategically and consciously built in the diaspora first if the diaspora is to contribute to nation-building in the homeland. Although at first glance a reasonably straightforward proposition, in fact such a project might imply and encourage a profound shift in the ways in which nations and territory are imagined. For Agnew (2005), contemporary interest in building nations at home and in diaspora points to a preparedness to de-territorialize the nation and to cast or re-territorialize the nation as a global network. To think of Ireland, for instance, as a globally networked community of 70 million people distributed across the globe and exerting influence on the world’s leading business centres is arguably more powerful than to cast Ireland as a small country on the periphery of Europe with a population of less than five million (Department of Foreign Affairs, 2010). In the main, culture and nation-building activities are organized by the diaspora for the diaspora. For example, the Ireland Funds, various business networks, societies and clubs all host events and in some cases provide virtual platforms that help members of the diaspora find and interact with their peers. In general, the Irish state’s involvement is limited to helping to facilitate such social networks through some in-kind or financial aid. However, in 2005 Culture Ireland was established as a state agency to promote the best of Ireland’s arts and culture internationally and to assist in the development of Ireland’s international cultural relations. Mostly the aim is to create international opportunities for Irish artists and cultural practitioners, but it also serves to promote Ireland and Irish-mindedness. Ciste na Gaeilge of the Irish Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs is a fund which supports the teaching of Irish at third institutions outside of Ireland. Students sit the TEG (European Certificate) examinations upon completing the course, and the most successful students are provided with scholarships to intensive summer courses in Carraroe, Co. Galway. A different type of scheme is that run by the Aisling Return to Ireland Project, financed under the Emigrant Support Programme, which provides annual supported holidays to Ireland

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for long-term, vulnerable Irish in Britain who cannot afford to visit Ireland. Building the sense of nationhood in a diaspora also necessitates opening up new dialogue with diasporic communities, increasingly through the use of ICTs. Norway (Norgestinget), Finland (Ulkosuomalaisparlamentti), Sweden (Utlandssvenskarnas parliament), France (Assemblée des Français de l’étranger) and Switzerland (Organization des Suisses de l’étranger) have recently established expatriate parliaments to consult with their diaspora about domestic and diaspora matters. India has established the Prime Minister’s Global Advisory Council of Overseas Indians, and also hosts events to meet with its diaspora twice a year. Many countries seek to inform the diaspora as to what is happening in their home country through newsletters and websites. Yu (2010), for instance, has mapped the existence of over 60 Canadian diasporic media outlets, 53 media organizations and 110 alumni publication outlets in twelve selected destinations in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. Website portals, both state-sponsored (such as Connect2Canada) and run by NGOs or private organizations or even individuals (such as the Canadian Expatriate Network), detailing useful information to the diaspora in situ and also about the home country, are seen by many in the diaspora and those seeking to serve the diasporic community as vital infrastructure. In addition, many diaspora can also keep in contact with their homeland through broadcast media via satellite and Internet. In the Irish case, the development of broad-based information portals for the diaspora has been left to independent organizations to develop, although some receive finance and advice from government departments. Through the Emigrant Support Programme, for example, funding has been allocated to support a number of online information services, including Crosscare Migrant Project (www.migrantproject.ie), the Irish Network of Great Britain (www.in-gb.co.uk) and, before it discontinued operations, the Emigrant Advice Network (www.ean.ie). Emigrant News, an independent organization, provides a weekly news summary through its website (www.emigrant.ie) and its database of over 30,000 subscribers. Irishabroad.com, EuropeanIrish.com and Rendezvous353.com provide a wide range of information about Ireland, the diaspora and links to other Irish-related websites, as well as providing a range of social networking options including blogging, discussion forums, public groups, community forums and dating. In addition, RTÉ and other national and local radio stations broadcast across the Internet, and most national and local Irish newspapers are available online. Diaspora strategies depend upon the citizenship rights and obligations that are available to overseas citizens. Four issues are at stake. First, embassy and consular services provide a first line of defence and assistance, and the geography, resourcing and remit of these services needs continual updating. Secondly, states are confronted with the question of the extent to which they

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are to continue to provide and extend civil, political, social and economic rights to overseas citizens, for how long after departure, in what form and to what degree. Thirdly, the question of raising taxes on overseas émigrés is important. To date only the United States taxes its citizens on wealth created irrespective of their location of residence and, even in this case, a number of exemptions and exceptions are possible. But other taxes related to remittances, philanthropy, capital investment, pensions, savings, inheritance and foreign direct investment are levied universally. Finally, there exists the possibility of creating new models of citizenship specifically for overseas populations and, indeed, for any population claiming ancestral ties no matter how distant. These models provide a graduated diminution in rights from tangible to symbolic. While services to Irish citizens overseas have extended, Irish citizenship and the rights that it entails have not. In September 2004, the Irish Abroad Unit was established within the Department of Foreign Affairs to coordinate a new centralized programme of service provision – the Emigrant Support Programme. The emphasis of the Emigrant Support Programme is on supporting culturally sensitive, frontline welfare services, targeted at the most vulnerable members of Ireland’s overseas communities. Elderly Irish emigrants, including those who emigrated in the 1950s, are among the major beneficiaries of this support; however, funding is also directed to support other vulnerable or marginalized groups, including the undocumented Irish in the USA, the homeless in Britain and those suffering from particular difficulties, including alcohol or mental health issues. The programme also funds the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas, which supports Irish citizens incarcerated abroad. But expanded service provision does not entail an expansion of rights. Perhaps the question of voting rights for overseas citizens is the most sensitive example of the difficulties which Ireland faces when extending citizenship beyond national territorial borders. Although the question of voting rights for overseas Irish citizens has been explored on a number of occasions and is still the object of much debate (Honohan, 2011), Ireland is one of a number of countries that at present do not allow members of the diaspora to vote at any level of governance (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), 2007). And although the government has committed to re-examining the potential role of the diaspora in serving in the Senate, it is unlikely that this situation will change in the short term.

Conclusion Diaspora strategy is rapidly emerging as an important new policy field for nation-states that have experienced significant out-migration, often over

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several generations. Already, it is clear that there is a wide range of different diaspora strategies and schemes (institutions, instruments, policies, programmes and initiatives) being developed and implemented across countries dependent on aspiration, context and circumstance. These differences notwithstanding, through joint ‘policy transfer’ workshops, seminars, publications and conferences, a growing global dialogue is emerging as to the optimum design and implementation of diaspora strategies. Many countries now consider that their approach to diaspora strategizing might be enhanced if they set their case into international context and if they draw from and contribute to the emerging global dialogue on diaspora strategies. We have proposed that Irish diaspora policies and programmes have developed over time in response to specific needs, but observe the dominance of economic priorities recently. Fortuitously, when taken together these policies and programmes provide a reasonably comprehensive set of instruments through which to engage the diaspora. While Ireland has largely practised a form of developmental managerialism based upon the mantra of light incubation (custodian, midwifery and husbandry forms of engagement), more recently there has been a degree of creeping institutionalism. The relative success of the Global Irish Economic Forum will determine the course of this trend. To date the most distinctive lesson that Ireland might offer to the developing global debate on international best practice is the importance of resisting overly muscular strategies and of working to support the selforganization of the diaspora. Finally, while Ireland has benefited from a strong degree of Irish-mindedness in the past it is clear that it is now aware of the necessity of working in partnership with diasporic groups to fortify and extend diasporic patriotism, connectivity and citizenship entitlements. But whether Ireland will ever be reimagined as a de-territorialized networked nation remains to be seen. It would be remiss not to conclude by revisiting the five emerging areas of critique of diaspora-centred development identified above. Our claim is that it is simply too early to make definitive judgements on Ireland’s performance relative to these five areas of concern; now is not the time to draw up a final scorecard. In fact, given the progress which has been made to date, we see merit in the agenda and identify ourselves at least for now as sympathetic critics. We can conclude with some speculative observations on each of the five areas: • Intellectual bases of the agenda – notwithstanding references to the ‘knowledge economy’, the ‘smart economy’ and ‘social capitalled development’, it appears the Irish state has no clear intellectual or political project in mind when it invokes the diaspora as a potential agent of development. More sustained dialogue between Ireland’s over-

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arching economic development strategy and approach and the logic of using the diaspora as a partner in development would seem useful. Cottage industry – as described above, Ireland’s approach to its diaspora strategy to date has been remarkably light in touch. Certainly there has been no great investment in the creation of whole new diaspora institutions. Moreover, most diaspora programmes have been developed by existing arms of the state each pursuing the Irish diaspora with a concrete objective in mind. Ireland’s case is marked by the comparative absence of a cottage industry and a refusal to engage the diaspora for engagement‘s sake. Cultural exclusion/inclusion – undoubtedly the Irish strategy has attended to the cultural fortification of Irish-mindedness in the Irish diaspora. There is an undoubted risk that in so doing a narrow, exclusive and essentialist notion of Irishness might result, incorporating but also marginalizing certain diasporic communities from the national narrative. The Irish strategy has taken cognizance of the idea of the ‘affinity diaspora’, certainly a more inclusive idea. But a key question will be how might Ireland define its diaspora so as to be inclusive and so as to avoid an unhelpful racialization of its national economic recovery strategy. Stakeholder alignment – Ireland has traditionally benefited from a strong degree of stakeholder alignment. For example, arguably the Northern Irish peace process would not have been possible without the cooperation of not only the Irish diaspora and the Irish and British states, but also the Clinton administration and political movements across the island of Ireland. But there remains scope to continue to strengthen the involvement of multiple stakeholders if the Irish diaspora is to be effectively leveraged. Development for whom? Finally, work remains to be done to map the development outcomes of diaspora-centred development across Ireland and between social groupings. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Irish diaspora is doing more than simply consolidating socio-spatial inequalities across Ireland. The investment by Atlantic Philanthropies in the Campus at the University of Limerick; the impact of the Irish diaspora in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on the horse-breeding industry in Counties Kildare and Limerick; investment by the San Jose-based Irish Technology Leadership Group in small ICT companies across Ireland; and the impact of the Gathering 2013 on rural tourism, all point to more complex development outcomes.

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References Agnew, J. (2005) ‘Sovereign regimes: territoriality and state authority in contemporary world politics’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95, 437–61. Aikins, K. and N. White (2011) Global Diaspora Strategies ToolKit. Dublin: Ireland Funds. Ancien, D., M. Boyle and R. Kitchin (2009) ‘Exploring diaspora strategies: lessons for Ireland’. Available online at www.nirsa.ie/nirsa/diaspora/PDFs/ Exploring%20Diaspora%20Strategies%20Lessons%20for%20Ireland.pdf. Accessed 5 December 2011. Bakewell, O. (2009) ‘Migration, diasporas, and development: some critical perspectives’, Jahrbucher f. Nationalokonomieu Statistik, 229, 787–802. Boyle, M. and R. Kitchin (2011) A Diaspora Strategy for Canada? Enriching Debate through Heightening Awareness of International Practice. Vancouver: Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Available online at www.asiapacific.ca/sites/default/files/filefield/capp11_1_boyleandkitchin. pdf. Accessed 17 December 2011. Department of Foreign Affairs (2010) Report on the Farmleigh Global Irish Economic Forum. Dublin: Department of Foreign Affairs. Dewind, J. and J. Holdaway (eds) (2008) Migration and Development Within and Across Borders: Research and Policy Perspectives on Internal and International Migration. Geneva: IMO. Faist, T. (2008) ‘Migrants as transnational development agents: an inquiry into the newest round of the migration–development nexus’, Population Space and Place, 14, 21–42. Gamlen, A. (2008) ‘The emigration state and the modern geopolitical imagination’, Political Geography, 27:8, 840–56. Honohan, I. (2011) ‘Should Irish emigrants have votes? External voting in Ireland’, Irish Political Studies, 26:4, 545–61. IDEA (2007) Voting from Abroad: The International IDEA Handbook. Stockolm and Mexico: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and Federal Electoral Institute of Mexico. Available online at www.idea.int/publications/voting_from_abroad/. Accessed 29 January 2011. Kuznetsov, Y. (ed.) (2006) Diaspora Networks and the International Migration of Skills – How Countries can Draw on their Talent Abroad. Washington, DC: World Bank Institute. Leblang, D. (2010) ‘Familiarity breeds investment: diaspora networks and international investment’, American Political Science Review, 104, 584–600. Levitt, P. and B.N. Jaworsky (2007) ‘Transnational migration studies: past developments and future trends’, Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 129–56.

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Lowell, B.L. and S.G. Gerova (2004) Diasporas and Economic Development: State of Knowledge. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University. Newland, K. (ed.) (2010) Diasporas: New Partners in Global Development Policy. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. O’Neill, A. (2009) ‘Diaspora knowledge networks’. Presentation at ‘Exploring Diaspora Strategy’ workshop, National University of Ireland, 26–28 January 2009. Available online at www.nuim.ie/nirsa/diaspora/PDFs/ aineoneill.pdf. Accessed 5 December 2011. Piper, N. (ed.) (2009) ‘Rethinking the migration–development nexus: bringing marginalized visions and actors to the fore’, Population, Space and Place, 15, 93–203. Saxenian, A. (2006) The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Solimano, A. (ed.) (2008) The International Mobility of Talent: Types, Causes, and Development Impact. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vertovec, S. (2007) Circular Migration: The Way Forward in Global Policy. Oxford: International Migration Institute. Yossi, S. and A. Barth (2003) ‘Diasporas and international relations theory’, International Organization, 57, 449–79. Yu, S.S. (2010) Mapping Canadian Diasporic Media: The Existence and Significance of Communicative Spaces for Overseas Canadians. Vancouver: Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

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5 Transnational media networks and the ‘migration nation’ Aphra Kerr, Rebecca King-O’Riain and Gavan Titley

Introduction: transnationalism and ‘integration’ While migration has become emblematic of an era of accelerated globalization in Ireland, public and political discourse rarely approaches migration and migrant lives with the same attention to connexity and flow evident in discussions of economic transformation, national ‘brand management’, and the banal and aspirational transnationalism of consumerist lifestyles, investment opportunities and privileged mobilities. Concomitantly, while discussions of diaspora in Ireland have shifted from the Robinson-era rehabilitation of transnational affect and historical bonds to considerations of the ‘Global Irish’ as a diasporic network of expertise, investment, and political and cultural capital (Boyle and Kitchin, 2008), the transnational connections inhabited by those moving to and dwelling in Ireland are largely disavowed in policy and official discourse. By way of example, the government strategy document on integration, Migration Nation (Office of the Minister for Integration, 2008), invokes a titular concept suggesting transformative change while proceeding to discuss the integration of ‘minority ethnic communities’ without a single reference to the transnational socioscapes within which such communities are embedded, contested, re-worked and evaded. Undoubtedly, the varying intensities with which the nationalist horizon of ‘integration’ is pressed, and the insistent sense of migrants as ‘needed but unwanted’ (Appadurai, 1996), serves to frame these connexities as potential barriers to integration. Axiomatically, perspectives committed to the legitimate presence and belonging of migrants in the nation-state may also pay attenuated attention to these dimensions in an era when migrant transnationalisms have become the focus of what William Walters (2004) terms ‘domopolitics’; a politics of protecting the national home from bad, inutile or suspicious mobilities.

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Nevertheless, transnational networks cannot be reduced either to the amorphous irritant précised by ‘methodological nationalism’ (Beck and Sznaider, 2006) or to apolitical, cosmopolitan fancy. Analytical attention to networks recasts the ‘issue’ of integration as a dimension of transnationalism. This attention has two key aspects. First, the substantial gap between state rhetoric on ‘integration’, and structural limitations to integration, must be recognized. This involves drawing attention to the non-integrating population management strategies of the ‘market state’ (Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF), 2003; Fekete, 2009); the circular migration practices and mobilities of extended European regional space (Favell, 2008); and the limited, stratified status possibilities and flexibilized pathways forced upon and forged by ‘non-EU’ migrants (Guild et al., 2009). Secondly, attention to the multi-sited nature of personal relations, modalities of sociability and engagement, and affective and imaginative investments forged and shaped within transnational networks suggests how overlapping and ongoing processes of ‘integration’ may relate to each other. Integration does not just involve one place, one pace or one modality of life. Media use and engagement provide one key site where the integrative dimension of transnationalism is evident. In research conducted from 2007–91 and involving the diverse experiences of Chinese and Polish citizens in Ireland, we examined media practices as a formative dimension of transnational experience, and one that reveals ongoing, relational forms of negotiation in place and between places. The immanence of media in everyday life (Silverstone, 2007) positions the study of media practice in relation to wider practices, such as living arrangements, workplace dynamics, and generational and gendered issues and perspectives. Media use is inflected with personal history and biographical reflection, particularly for people whose experience of movement and mobility involves the accretion of relationships and connections stretched and mediated in space and time. It is precisely for these reasons that attention to communication structures and networks, and media practices, has been formative to the study of migrant transnationalism. Steve Vertovec’s (1999) familiar thematization of transnational research, for example, is inconceivable without an infrastructure of instantaneous interconnection and mediated experience: transnationalism as social morphology, as type of consciousness, as mode of cultural reproduction, as avenue of capital, as site of political engagement, as reconstruction of place and locality. Nevertheless, as Myria Georgiou has argued, a dominant tendency towards unreflexive understandings of culture in transnational media research has arguably fashioned a curiously static understanding of networks, inadequate to ‘the mobility and multipositionality of people, ideas, communications and cultures’ (2007: 18). For that reason, we frame this discussion of media practices in terms of the work

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conducted by Larsen et al. (2006) on communications and ‘geographies of social networks’. As it happens, Larsen et al.’s approach is shaped by taking issue with the Other of culturalism’s over-determined migrant communities, that is, the autonomous and reflexive agent whose ‘networked individualism’ is taken to involve the dilution of kinship networks, thick affectivities and ties, and relations to place(s) (2006: 265–8). The suturing of an individualization thesis to the fact of mobilities involves an ontological collapse: physical distance as distancing, mobility as ‘freedom’. As against this, social networks are constituted through relational ties of care, support, affection and involvement at distance, where ‘presence is not reducible to co-presence . . . co-presence is both a location and a relation’ (Callon and Law, 2004: 6–9, cited in Larsen et al., 2006: 265). To approach the interactivity of local positioning with distant ties and relationships, Larsen et al. suggest a concept of network capital as: access to communication technologies, affordable and well-connected transport, appropriate meeting places and caring significant others that offer their company and hospitality. Without sufficient ‘network capital’ people are in danger of social exclusion . . . Network capital becomes highly pertinent as people seek to lead lives that are more geographically spread. (Larsen et al., 2006: 280)

In this chapter, we examine media and communication practices in terms of a broader conception of network capital, whereby mediated resources are deployed in negotiating co-presence relationally between different significant locations, between different and sometimes competing expectations of dwelling-in-place, and in thinking about possible futures, here, there or elsewhere. While alert to the reductionist problems of ‘groupism’ (Brubaker, 2004), we conducted this research in relation to nationally organized participants, as questions of language and particular media cultures are central to, but do not define, network capital. Moreover, mobility, status and future possibility are heavily circumscribed by national citizenship, and we sought to integrate these structural factors into the shape of networked practices.

One for everybody in the audience: dense networks of Polish media transnationalism The post-2004 labour mobility2 and settlement of Polish citizens in Ireland has been characterized by complex circuits of labour mobility, the establishment of entrepreneurial, pastoral and cultural networks, and the emergence of ‘multiple, cross-national employment biographies’ (Wickham and Krings, 2010: 1; see also Krings et al., 2009). Cheap air travel, security of status and freedom of mobility, and a highly mediated sense of ‘cultural compatibility’

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referenced explicitly to Catholicism and implicitly to whiteness have provided Polish migrants with relatively high degrees of network and cultural capital.3 A number of recent studies have detected a tendency to subsume intraEuropean Union (EU) migration to the paradigmatic assumptions of studies of non-EU migration, and, in so doing, to miss the significance of an ‘emergent, regional-scale European territorial space’ shaping a ‘wider transnational horizon that encourages temporary and circular migration trends, and demands no long-term settlement or naturalization in the country of work’ (Favell, 2008: 706; see also Nolka and Nowosielski, 2009). It is in this space, and organized through distinct spatial clusters and a general critical mass of consumers within Ireland, that a material culture has taken shape (Rabikowska and Burrell, 2009). Central to this has been the development of media forms that, as we have argued elsewhere, cannot be understood as conventional ‘ethnic minority media’ addressing captive community audiences but are instead entrepreneurial, reflexive media artefacts shaped by a knowledge of a transnational spectrum of possibilities, and competing for the attention of dispersed Polish audiences (Kerr, 2007; Titley, 2008; Titley and Kerr, 2011). In turn, this spectrum is shaped by media connectivities that extend far beyond Polish and Irish-based sources. This section draws upon focus groups in their native language with fortyfive Polish nationals living in Ireland, conducted between 2008 and 2009.4 Most of our informants had moved to Ireland since 2004 in order to work in the construction industry, as professionals or in the service industry. Twothirds of our participants were aged between twenty and thirty-four years, with a 60/40 male-to-female ratio. Half were single, a third married and the remainder either divorced or widowed. Overall our sample was reflective of the wider Polish population in Ireland in that they were primarily young, some were educated to degree level – but all had at least a secondary school qualification – and most were living in urban areas (Central Statistics Office, 2008). Not all had come from Poland. Some had moved from third countries and were accompanied by extended family networks that assisted with childcare. Most were living in rented shared accommodation, a set of arrangements that has an important, pragmatic impact on media access and media practices. The Polish population in Ireland is relatively dispersed, and to reflect this our research took place in Dublin, Limerick, Maynooth, Portlaoise and Cork (Gilmartin and Mills, 2008). Their spatial dispersal also meant that participants had different levels of access to local, national and transnational media and different levels of physical access to support and community structures.5

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Transnational media flows and relational practices Even in the digital age, the satellite dish remains emblematic of transnational media use, and also symbolic of degrees of integration and orientation to the ‘host’ society. For some respondents, Polish satellite services such as Cyfra+ held strong class connotations, and featured as markers of negative distinction, that is, of immigrants who were not making an effort to ‘integrate’. This positional sense does not capture the way in which Polish satellite services generally provided a particular kind of environmental resource within an inter-related set of practices and needs. As one working, female respondent described: Concerning TV, because my family isn’t familiar with English . . . it means my mom doesn’t know the language at all and my husband just doesn’t like it, so we have only Polish media at home. Polish TV in a cable. NTL or something . . . . (M, FG1)6

However, within the domestic space, media use was also organized in terms of generational expectations and experiences of time. The need to create a secure linguistic environment for extended-family members coming for shorter stays made the co-temporal properties of live Polish television important in providing a particular experience of transnational time and space. The one-hour time difference ensured that favourite television shows from home – particularly soap operas, which are historically invested in creating a shared experience of national time–space – could be watched simultaneously with friends and family in Poland. This form of network capital contrasted with a future-oriented approach to children’s media use and its wider social implications: Well we watch the British ones cause we have it. BBC 1 to 4. The kids watch CBeebies, and I also set Polsat in English – cause you can set the language and they don’t know how to set it back to Polish. . . . This was very helpful and now there are no problems at school at all. (M, FG6)

Moreover, several respondents were alive to the irony that the ‘domestic’ media spectrum in Ireland is historically transnational: In Ireland I am interested in local media . . . It is in fact funny, because by ‘local media’ I mean British media. (F, FG2)

Overall, what these discussions suggest is that media use within the home is shaped by questions of language, and strikingly different balances between the phenomenological comforts of Polish flow and an often instrumental approach to English-language media. This is perhaps most pronounced in

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frequent discussions of accent. A familiarity and ease with British and American media, and the experience of dealing with context-specific accents in social life in Ireland, produced a tension between, for example, listening to radio as an ‘acculturation’ tool and simply wanting to relax: P: I listen. If I am in good mood I try to repeat. But in this case [I use] British and American TV more, not Irish one, as I am not very keen on the Irish accent. . . . I think that at the beginning, when I came here, I was also subconsciously familiarizing myself with the accents, while watching Irish TV I was trying to distinguish various accents from the north or the south of the country . . . for sure it helped in becoming familiar with the accent. (FG5)

As several studies have argued, a culturalist preoccupation with questions of identity and belonging have frequently obscured the ways in which media use within the home is shaped by properly banal pursuits, and cannot be ‘read’ as recursive cultural practices with wider significance (Aksoy and Robins, 2000). Thus in these discussions, categories of taste and pleasure were central to media practices as domestic leisure: I do not watch Irish TV because there is nothing interesting. Having Cyfra+ or Polsat one have Discovery and other channels, there are plenty channels to watch. (G, FG3)

Nevertheless, it is important to note that even as leisure, discussions of media practices within the home were frequently organized by relational dynamics, whereby different choices were continually related to each other in oppositional and complementary ways. A pronounced criticism of broadcast media in Ireland was its perceived Anglo-American orientation and distinct lack of educational and historically focused programming, and the almost complete absence of programmes from other European countries and in other languages. Approached in this way, Polish media flow is also a cosmopolitan presence, broadening their mediascape beyond dualities of ‘home’ and ‘away’. Similarly, relational readings of transnational or ethnic news about Poland, or about European affairs from Irish media sources, prompted reflections on the perceived political conservatism and ‘ideological bias’ of mainstream Polish sources. A pronounced dimension of relational viewing is an evaluation as to ultimately what counts as ‘news’: At the beginning when I came here . . . it was extremely strange for me watching TV news about nothing, about the fact that someone’s field was flooded. It was a great news! I was very relaxed watching that kind of news. Nobody was giving me all that political crap . . . It was so soft, gentle stuff in Irish TV. (G, FG1)

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However, this threshold is national, not local, and the scale of the media operation is important in different aspects of social life. Many participants emphasized the importance of news about their locality, and radio, newspapers and free-sheets were most important in this regard. In particular, some participants who had been made unemployed discussed the role of both national and local radio in accessing news and entertainment, but also in maintaining a felt connection to society beyond the home. In the same context, libraries became important meeting places, sources of free access to newspapers and to Internet. However, for all the fragmentation of contemporary mediascapes, it was notable that many participants discussed the importance of national media in both Poland and Ireland as moments of ‘shared ritual’ in key sporting, social and political events. In other words, rather than there being a transition from the national-integrative dimensions of broadcasting in an ‘era of scarcity’ to the multiplicity of a digital ‘era of abundance’ (Ellis, 2000), the experience of transnational multi-positionality enhanced the importance of feelings of mediated togetherness made possible by key media events both ‘here’ and ‘there’. Occasionally these events converge; the death of President Kaczynski in April 2010 saw public screenings of the funeral and extensive coverage in the Irish media. Internet access, and the development of wireless and mobile technologies have accelerated the immanent transnationalism of everyday life. However, reliable Internet access is an important, material form of network capital, and important regional disparities emerged between participants, with those interviewed in Cork and in rural locations drawing attention to the poor quality of service. Online sources were crucial in finding up-to-date information on arrival in Ireland, and online communication platforms significantly reduced communication costs, allowing for the daily maintenance of dispersed ties through phone calls, text messages and a variety of chat programmes and social networks. Many participants sourced multiple forms of Polish media online, as the digitalization of newspapers, television services, radio programmes and films has opened up significant, ongoing and cotemporal access to national media. Yes, we listen radio via Internet – Zlote Przeboje, Radio Gdansk and PR 3 in my case. We also browse news portals like WP.pl and Onet.pl. (L, FG1) I watch sometimes. In internet. Polish TV series. Recently ‘Kryminalni’. (B, FG2)

However, reliable Internet access also serves to provide access to a global mediascape, and in contexts of shared living arrangements and the costs associated with television ownership, the laptop also becomes a surrogate

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television and source of eclectic programming, used to download films, music and programmes from a broad ‘elsewhere’: I have no TV set at that moment so I watch what I can find in Internet. Documentary movies mostly. (F, FG2)

Of course, as with orientation towards news, online orientations are also local, and participants regularly used the Internet to search for jobs, accommodation, and local news and events. However, many drew attention to the lack of useful sites with regularly updated information. The ways in which online media exacerbate expectations around speed and instantaneity are evidenced in the impact of online sources on the nonetheless active miniindustry of Polish media developed in Ireland. At a basic level, physical access was heavily dependent on regional position, as these newspapers were mainly available in Dublin shops, and occasionally from street vendors and through church networks. However, these media were also interpreted within the transnational mediascape, and therefore evaluated for relevance, quality, form and content against a range of competitors. Many participants regarded them as useful ‘first contact’ media, of diminishing interest for those who had spent some time in Ireland, and comparatively ‘amateur’ or simply remediated and out-of-date versions of instantaneously available online media. Similarly, the raft of programmes developed by community and commercial local and regional radio stations (Titley et al., 2010: 158–70) were held to cater to a ‘stereotypical’ Pole and unable to reflect the diversity and differences within the Polish community. Yet, in an opinion expressed by other participants in the project, conventional forms of multicultural broadcasting and publishing may often be of limited interest, but they were widely regarded as a form of symbolic capital, as a sign of presence in the local public sphere.

The ties that bind: Chinese transnational media practices While there has been a small but growing Chinese community in Ireland since the 1970s, the size and diversity of this community have increased dramatically over the past fifteen years to 16,500 in the 2006 census (Central Statistics Office, 2008). Chinese people living in Ireland currently tend to migrate from many different areas of mainland China (with large groups coming from Shenyang, Shanghai and Beijing). Many have come to Ireland as students and are relatively young and unmarried. Both men and women have come to Ireland to learn English and to better their employment opportunities. Because Chinese students have been allowed to work part time, many young Chinese can be seen in low-wage service jobs (particularly in catering and service/hotel industries) in addition to their study.

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Five focus groups (of five participants each) were conducted in 2008 with Chinese migrants residing primarily in and around Dublin.7 The focus groups were conducted in Mandarin by Weiming Liu and the participants ranged from twenty-three to forty-six years of age and were predominantly women. All of the participants came to Ireland initially as students (many to study English) and many worked part time as healthcare assistants, cleaners, waiters/waitresses or language teachers. Two had moved to a work visa to work in healthcare provision (nursing) but were on temporary work visas and none were naturalized at the time of the focus group; thus there was a sense of their transitory non-permanent visa status in Ireland. Most Chinese participants were single (the Central Statistics Office (2008) found that on average 71 per cent were single) but some were married, with spouses in Ireland or in China. Some participants had been in Ireland less than a year (seven months) and some as long as seven years. The Chinese people interviewed in this study found that they had links and networks to people and places both locally (translocalism), nationally and transnationally. Their media uses and opinions of the Irish and Chinese local media in Ireland reflect this orientation. They engaged with Irish media sources and Irish-based Chinese ‘ethnic media’ sources, but only intermittently and with limited interest. Once again, because of the centrality of speed and instantaneity to feelings of co-presence, the routines and forms of these sources do not reflect their transnational lives and interests. Digital media sources and platforms structure their communications, and their structural–legal position as ‘temporary migrants’ or students impacts on their living arrangements, propensity to invest in, for example, television and the licence fee, and thus on the scope of their media field. They have also come from China with considerable cultural, social and technological capital, which some have been able to parlay in Ireland into ‘network capital’. Transnationally oriented media practices reinforced their personal and Chinese diasporic networks and made their network capital denser. In some respects, it means that they have meaningful and strong, but spatially distant, social ties to others, which are cultivated and maintained through the time–space coordinates of digital media use. In doing so the Chinese participants are less integrated ‘into’ Ireland as a place. Rather ‘Ireland as a place’ is integrated into their existing and emerging transnational networks. As a result, Ireland is put ‘on the map’ in the Chinese diaspora by Chinese people living in Ireland, in part through their media practices. Thus, in media as well as wider social terms, it is neither ‘integration’ into Ireland nor ethnic self-segregation in enclaves but ongoing integration into transnational (media) practices that flows multilaterally through networks of migrants in the Chinese diaspora. Within these networks, Ireland as a site is evaluated primarily through questions of scale. It

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is worth noting that participants from bigger cities in China normally have access to Internet connections that are far faster than much of rural or even suburban Ireland, but this may not be representative of all Chinese in Ireland. Discussions of news also illustrate the centrality of perceptions of scale and parochialism in Irish media. There was a widespread consensus among Chinese focus group members that they only read Irish newspapers if they were available for free (Metro or Herald a.m.). If they were ‘lying around at work in the staff room’ then they might pick them up, but for the most part they did not read them with any regularity or consistency. The following exchange is indicative: Girl 1: The Irish news is very trivial and there is nothing worth reading. For the moment, the biggest news is about if the Irish . . . [Forgets the word] Girl 4: [Reminds girl 2 of the word] Taoiseach. Girl 1: [Continues] . . . Taoiseach took a bribe. [This case] has been investigated for two years and is still not finished. Other news covers stories on car accidents or murdering cases [in Ireland]. There is little coverage of international news. Girl 5: The country is small. There isn’t much news. Girl 1: The country is small. Girl 4: That’s right. As far as I know, we’re not the only ones [who don’t like the Irish news]. Irish people don’t read it either. There isn’t much news to read. A lot of people like BBC [news].

The ‘country is small, there isn’t much news’ is a recurring motif in these audience studies, sometimes produced by differences in news values, but in the case of Chinese respondents, by the differences in scale that define thresholds for what counts as ‘news’. They felt that the Irish news was very locally focused, with ‘local’ functioning also as a measure of how the value of news was evaluated by them, as one female participant in her mid twenties from Beijing explained: ‘If there is a traffic accident, it can be reported on the national news.‘ Relational engagement happens along several axes, not just as a comparison between Chinese and Irish sources. British television services served as another point of comparison, with accent (although not AmericanEnglish accents) once again cited as a barrier in broadcasting, while the greater multiculturality and internationalism of British television was meaningful to several participants. However, news was also monitored for issues of potential relevance to their insecure visa status and situation. This came up in a different focus group in this manner: Interviewer: Do you keep up with Irish news? Girl 1: No, I don’t. Girl 4: No, not really unless [the Irish news] is related to immigration, visas, education policies.

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Girl 1: Yes, that’s right. And the news, which may help to find jobs [attracts my attention]. Girl 3: Yes, [I would be interested in] news on immigration, visa regulations. Girl 1: I would be interested in the news concerning Chinese [immigrants].

In an interesting parallel with Polish participants, a recurring criticism of Irish broadcasting was the perceived narrowness of its acquisitions and range of reference. In a period when broadcasting in Ireland has engaged with the question of a new ethno-cultural diversity in its audiences, diversity is understood by a sample of these audiences not as a question merely of representation, but, more importantly, as a diversity of sources, aesthetics, genre and scope. One focus group member in her late twenties highlighted this when she said: There has been a deep impression on me since I came here [to Ireland]. When I was in China, there were a lot of foreign movies, including both European movies and American movies. But in Ireland, I don’t see a Chinese movie on Irish TV even once a month. Even in cinemas, there might be a Chinese or Asian movie every two or three months. Very few [Chinese or Asian movies] are available [in Ireland]. The cultural exchange is unbalanced.

In a continuance of the parallel, the Irish-based Chinese ‘ethnic community’ media were rejected for many of the same reasons. The participants reported that they did not read Chinese ‘ethnic’ newspapers like the Shining Emerald or the Chinese News Express (now Irish Chinese News) very often. Much like their general newspaper consumption, it was opportunistic; if they happened to be in a Chinese restaurant they might pick them up, but they did not buy them or read them regularly. By also criticizing what they saw as the derivative and untimely nature of these sources, they demonstrate how certain forms of media are being forced to rethink the forms of network capital they are capable of offering, when both their functional (jobs, adverts, news) and affective (sense of shared engagement, networking) dimensions have been diminished by communicative forms more widely associated with individualism and fragmentation: Girl 5: They don’t have much information from back home. Ireland Chinese News hardly has anything [any information from back home]. Girl 1: Some [information in the Chinese newspapers] is copied from Internet. Girl 3: Everything [is copied from Internet]. Weiming: Are you interested in the news [in Chinese newspapers]? Girl 1: No. [I’m not] . . . The news is not updated . . . [The news is] copied [from Internet]. Girl 5: They’re weekly newspapers, are they?

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Girl 1: Shining Emerald has improved a lot. There used to many wrong spellings. The quality [of the spelling] was terrible. It has improved a lot.

However, it is important to reflect how the possibilities afforded by the thick lattice of connectivity available to them are ambivalent, enforcing feelings of distance as much as transcending them. The acuity of news about China was amplified by general dynamics of being outside looking in, particularly for participants who routinely discussed their imagined futures as being ‘back’ in China. Extensive network capital may also breed insecurity about future readiness, or to put it another way, a profoundly mediated sense of co-temporality and co-presence also rubs up against insistent feelings of the ‘real’, and of the excess reality that always evades mediation: Girl 2: I also feel that we’re isolated from our fellow countrymen when we go back home on holidays or for other reasons. There is a generation gap. Girl 5: It seems that we’re backward. Actually, the backwardness only means that we fail to keep up with news from back home. Girl 1: I keep up with the news from back home every day. Girl 2: It still feels different to read online.

While most participants possessed a PC and frequently used webcams, the near-daily involvement in online chat – mainly Skype and QQ, a Chineselanguage based chat platform – also saw them heavily involved in the networks of Chinese Internet cafes dotted around Dublin, but particularly in the north inner city. This may also relate to a developing tendency to maintain personal ‘blogs’, both as a way of communicating with more networked acquaintances more efficiently, but also as working from Irish IP addresses allowed them access to a range of ‘dissident’ websites: Girl 1: It’s www.6park.com. It’s a foreign website. But it’s created by Chinese people. Girl 3: That website doesn’t look professional. But a lot of people browse it. Girl 1: The information at that website is regularly updated. [This website] is forbidden in [the mainland of] China. Girl 5: [To girl 1] Is that because some articles are a bit too . . . [unacceptable by the Chinese government]? Girl 2: It [www.6park.com] contains some news, which is not seen in China.

Conclusion Media and communication practices provide a useful modality for thinking about the shifting connectivities of transnational lives, including modalities of integration. Beyond either new media utopianism or tired visions of media

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enclaves, the findings and discussions presented here suggest how media resources provide forms of network capital that are multivalent and oriented towards ongoing and divergent forms of integration in places and in times. While the maintenance of social networks, the affective dimensions of cotemporality and a suite of pragmatic considerations and limitations oriented many participants towards online media forms and satellite broadcasting, it must be stressed that these practices are not linear, but dialectical. While the Polish and Chinese participants in our study differed demographically, legally, geographically and in terms of media practices, they all engaged with, and critically accessed Irish, ‘community’, diasporic and transnational media relationally. These relations and uses change over time, and are frequently shaped and re-shaped by the life course of people’s migration and settlement, and by their affective relationship to Ireland shaped by the restrictions and possibilities of legal status. Assessments of, and involvement in, transnational media are every bit as reflective and ambivalent as those expressed in relation to the Irish, national media sphere. Both Poles and Chinese participants were critical of ‘official’ and ‘commercial’ media discourses in transnational media and both sought alternatives in unofficial and personal communicative networks. This insistent relationality, we argue, indicates how considerations of ‘integration’ are central to transnational practices and, as the Polish experience indicates, this consideration is intensified by generational considerations. Indeed Larsen et al. (2006) argue that relationality is a general property of social network geographies, involving the maintenance of different amalgams of ties, embodied and mediated communicative relations to place, and forms of interpersonal engagement that attempt to inter-relate proximate and ‘socialising at-a-distance’ (2006: 280). Approached in this way, it makes little sense to juxtapose the ‘transnational’ with being ‘integrated’, as in experiential terms they are dialectically interconnected. In an article assessing the continued relevance of the paradigm of transnationalism to migration studies, Janine Dahinden asks: ‘are we all transnationals now?’ (2009: 1365). In other words, in social contexts characterized by multiple forms of mobility and everyday transnational interconnection, and in nation-states where public discourse is increasingly reflexive as to the impact of global processes and transnational actors on diminished or reformed understandings of national sovereignty and exceptionalism, the question arises as to the specific analytical value of transnationalism to the discrete study of networks and socio-cultural practices formed in and through migration. The question is an interesting one, precisely because the paradigmatic value of transnationalism has involved a cumulative questioning of the ontological terms of migration studies. It encompasses not only a response to the freighted political accents

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of the categories of ‘migration’ and the ‘migrant’, but also underlines their unsettled analytical status in societies marked by networks of diverse human, material, informational and ideological mobilities (Appadurai, 1996). Under such conditions, for example, what modalities of life count as integrated, for whom and in what ways? As Dahinden asks, ‘does one need to be globally mobile in order to be transnational or do the non-mobiles also display some sort of transnationalism?’ (2009: 1366). In contemporary Ireland this is an enormously pertinent question. Moving beyond the here/there either/or binaries that often frame migrant lives must also involve making good on the implications of relationality and analysing migrant transnationalisms as a part of the dense lattice of transnational flows that impact upon and are integrated into individual lives, localities and social terrains more generally.

Notes 1 The authors would like to acknowledge funding from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, the support of colleagues at the National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM) and the generosity of our participants. The full project report is available at www.bai.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/201004_nuim-culturaldiversityrpt_gt.pdf or a hard copy can be requested from [email protected]. 2 Polish migration to Ireland existed before 2004 (Grabowska, 2005). 3 This has served to obscure discrimination faced by, for example, unemployed manual labourers (see Haynes et al., 2009). 4 All of the data in this chapter come from a larger project entitled ‘Broadcasting in the New Ireland: Mapping and Envisioning Cultural Diversity’ funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and published in 2010. The larger project directly compares the media use and practices of Nigerian, Chinese and Polish migrants in Ireland through focus groups conducted in the native languages of each group. The seven focus groups here were conducted in Polish by two research assistants, Krzysztof Nawratek and Asia Rutkowska from NUIM. The groups were recorded and later translated and transcribed by the research assistants. As there is no nationally representative sampling frame from which to draw interviewees, snowball sampling was used to recruit participants in focus group research. Participants were recruited from diverse areas in Ireland through community-based organizations, online venues of interest to migrants in Ireland (often in the native language), and through adverts posted in migrant shops, at universities and in community centres. We strove to have interviewees from diverse socio-economic, age and gender backgrounds and who came from different regions in their home countries. However, the data presented here are not generalizable to the larger migrant populations living in Ireland. 5 Such as, for example, the Polish embassy, the Polish Social and Cultural Association, the Ireland–Poland Cultural Foundation and the Polish–Irish Society, all of which are located in Dublin. All of the above maintain websites and links to related centres in other countries. 6 Each quotation is labelled according to a participant code and focus group number. 7 The sampling strategy is explained in note 4 above. The method of data analysis used was to conduct the qualitative focus groups, translate/transcribe the focus groups into

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English and then code them for comparison by themes relating to the areas of research: representation of the lives of migrants, the actual media world of migrants, the practices of migrants in relation to media use and migrant responses to broadcasting, including public, community and commercial media sources.

References Aksoy, A. and K. Robins (2000) ‘Thinking across spaces: transnational television from Turkey’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 3, 343–65. Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Beck, U. and N. Sznaider (2006) ‘Unpacking cosmopolitanism for the social sciences: a research agenda’, British Journal of Sociology, 57, 1–23. Boyle, M. and R. Kitchin (2008) ‘Towards an Irish diaspora strategy: a position paper’. NIRSA working paper No. 37. NIRSA Working Papers, Maynooth. Brubaker, R. (2004) Ethnicity without Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Callon, M. and J. Law (2004) ‘Guest Editorial’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 22, 3–11. CARF (2003) ‘Racism and the market-state: an interview with A. Sivanandan’, Race and Class, 44, 71–6. Central Statistics Office (2008) Census 2006 – Non-Irish Nationals living in Ireland. Cork: Central Statistics Office. Available online at www.cso.ie/en/ media/csoie/census/documents/PART%201%20NON%20IRISH%20NAT IONALS%20LIVING%20IN%20IRELAND.pdf. Accessed 20 August 2012. Dahinden, J. (2009) ‘Are we all transnationals now? Network transnationalism and transnational subjectivity: the differing impacts of globalization on the inhabitants of a small Swiss city’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32, 1365–86. Ellis, J. (2000) Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty. London: I.B. Tauris. Favell, A. (2008) ‘The new face of East-West migration in Europe’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34, 701–16. Fekete, L. (2009) A Suitable Enemy? Racism, Migration and Islamophobia in Europe. London: Pluto. Georgiou, M. (2007) ‘Transnational crossroads for media and diaspora: three challenges for research’, in O. Bailey, M. Georgiou and R. Harindranath (eds) Transnational Lives and the Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 11–32. Gilmartin, M. and G. Mills (2008) ‘Mapping migrants in Ireland: the limits of cartography’, Translocations: Migration and Social Change, 4, 21–34.

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Grabowska, I. (2005) ‘Changes in the international mobility of labour: job migration of Polish nationals in Ireland’, Irish Journal of Sociology, 14, 27–44. Guild, E., K. Groenendijk and S. Carrera (2009) ‘Understanding the contest of community: illiberal practices in the EU?’, in E. Guild, K. Groenendijk and S. Carrera (eds) Illiberal Liberal States? Immigration, Citizenship and Integration in the EU. Farnham: Ashgate, 1–28. Haynes, A., E. Devereux and M. Breen (2009) ‘Media, migration and public beliefs in the Republic of Ireland’, Translocations: Migration and Social Change, 5:1. Available online at www.dcu.ie/imrstr/volume_5_issue_1/ index.shtml. Accessed 20 August 2012. Kerr, A. (2007) ‘Transnational flows: media use by Poles in Ireland’, in J. Horgan, B. O’Connor and H. Sheehan (eds) Mapping Irish Media: Critical Explorations. Dublin: UCD Press, 173–88. Krings, T., A. Bobek, E. Moriarty, J. Salamonska and J. Wickham (2009) ‘Migration and recession: Polish migrants in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland’, Sociological Research Online, 14:2. Available online at www.socresonline. org.uk/14/2/9.html. Accessed 21 December 2011. Larsen, J., K. Axhausen and J. Urry (2006) ‘Geographies of social networks: meetings, travel and communications’, Mobilities, 1, 261–83. Nolka, A. and M. Nowosielski (2009) ‘Poles living in Ireland and their quality of life’, Journal of Identity and Migration Studies, 3:1, 28–46. Office of the Minister for Integration (2008) Migration Nation: Statement on Integration Strategy and Diversity Management. Dublin: Government of Ireland. Rabikowska, M. and K. Burrell (2009) ‘The material worlds of recent Polish migrants: transnationalism, food, shops and home’, in K. Burrell (ed.) Polish Migration to the UK in the New European Union after 2004. Farnham: Ashgate, 211–32. Silverstone, R. (2007) Media and Morality: On the rise of the Mediapolis. Cambridge: Polity. Titley, G. (2008) ‘Researching media transnationalism in “multicultural” Ireland: an exploratory discussion of Polish media practices’, Translocations: Migration and Social Change, 3:1, 29–49. Titley, G. and A. Kerr (2011) ‘Here, there and everywhere: Polish media transnationalism’, in B. Fanning and R. Munck (eds) Globalization, Migration and Social Transformation: Ireland in Europe and the World. Farnham: Ashgate, 193–205. Titley, G., A. Kerr and R. King-O’Riain (2010) Broadcasting in the New Ireland: Mapping and Envisioning Cultural Diversity. Dublin: BAI. Vertovec, S. (1999) ‘Conceiving and researching transnationalism’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22, 447–62.

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Walters, W. (2004) ‘Secure borders, safe haven, domopolitics’, Citizenship Studies, 8, 237–60. Wickham, J. and T. Krings (2010) ‘Polish migration to Ireland: new mobilities in an enlarged EU’, Migrant Careers and Aspirations Project Newsletter No. 4. Dublin: Trinity College.

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BELONGING

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6 Children’s words, children’s worlds: exploring the experiences of migrant children in Ireland Allen White, Naomi Tyrrell, Fina Carpena-Méndez and Caitríona Ní Laoire

Introduction There has been a rapidly expanding and developing literature on immigration into Ireland since the late 1990s (see Mac Éinrí and White, 2008). Within this it is striking that children have comprised an important yet under-recognized part of these flows and processes. The decade of the ‘pre-Crash Celtic Tiger’ (roughly 1998–2008) produced a very particular context for the inward migration of children and young people. During this period, one characterized by rapid social, cultural and economic change and a growing incorporation of Ireland into global flows of capital, labour and information, Ireland became a more culturally diverse society. This provoked anxiety alongside celebration, as well as a changing attitude towards the place of children and youth. The ways in which global, European and local phenomena intersected during the Celtic Tiger period make Ireland a particularly interesting context for the study of migrant childhoods. Child migration in the West has mostly been understood and explored in selective and particular ways (White et al., 2011). First, researchers tend to emphasize the neediness and difference of migrant children which is certainly a reflection of their construction as vulnerable victims of migration. As part of this their agency and subjectivities are frequently erased. Thus there is a predominance of research and policy dealing with particularly vulnerable groups such as refugee, asylum seeker, trafficked or separated children (Gozdziak, 2008; Spicer, 2008; Terrio, 2008), and research focused on the needs of these children in host society contexts (Kohli, 2006; Rutter, 2003, 2006). Those children who disrupt accepted concepts of child vulnerability,

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for example by moving as part of migrant-worker or return migrant families, are less frequently the subject of concern. Secondly, often there is an emphasis on the lack of ‘integration’ of migrant children and young people in host society contexts, rather than on their experiences as transnational migrants. This is reflected in a paucity of research which focuses on first-generation migrant children, that is, children who experience migration themselves, as opposed to second- or third-generation migrant children. In similar ways, the positions of migrant children and youth in Irish society are shaped in specific ways through a number of intersecting discourses, including notions of childhood innocence and vulnerability, polarized images of youth as problematic and/or vulnerable, complex processes of othering of migrants and minorities, and changing ways of ‘being’ children and teenagers in contemporary Ireland (Ní Laoire et al., 2008). Migrant children and young people’s lives are also shaped by the structural frameworks of Ireland’s evolving policies on migration, integration, education and children’s rights (Bushin and White, 2010). Migrant children/youth have tended to be viewed by policy-makers in particular ways: as temporary, as different, as vulnerable, as a problem and as having different needs from Irish children/youth (Devine, 2005; McGorman and Sugrue, 2007; Shandy, 2008). Such hegemonic assumptions of migrant children as being different and ‘not-belonging’ reproduce, and are reproduced by, public fears around difference, social conflict and anxieties about the future. Of course attitudes towards migrant children and young people in Ireland cannot be reduced to a simple relationship of fear and othering. Abstract ideas that associate imagined migrant youth with difference and notbelonging are challenged by real, local examples of young migrants who are firmly woven into the social fabric of communities (Lentin and McVeigh, 2006; Shandy, 2008). The murder of Toyosi Shitta-Bey in April 2010 offers instructive examples of both positive and negative aspects of this.1 In reality, attitudes are highly complex. Constructions of migrant children as vulnerable victims are particularly powerful, reflecting broader Western discourses of child migration (Shandy, 2008; White et al., 2011). Related to these constructions of migrant children, policy approaches tend to focus on meeting migrant children’s basic needs such as education and social care (Christie, 2002), at the expense of their wider needs, which has implications for a whole range of key services and institutions. In interlocking and reinforcing ways, migrant children and youth in Ireland are positioned at the intersection of a number of discourses and are imagined as problematic, different and not-belonging: as children or youth and therefore not-adult, as migrants and as the harbingers of cultural and linguistic difference and diversity. Reflecting dominant policy concerns, much of the existing research in this area tends to focus on the education

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system. Also, while recent research has begun to explore migrant children’s lives from a variety of perspectives (Culleton, 2004; Darmody et al., 2011; Devine and Kelly, 2006; Fanning and Veale, 2004), there are still wide gaps in terms of in-depth understandings of migrant children’s lives in different social and spatial contexts, and in particular in relation to the role of immigration and citizenship policies in shaping the children’s and young people’s worlds. As Bushin and White (2010) argue, young migrants’ participation in socio-spatial practices, at varying scales, is shaped in different ways specifically because of the immigration procedures to which they are subjected. Put simply, there is no single universal ‘immigrant youth’ or ‘migrant child’ experience and furthermore the experiences of migrant children and young people extend beyond the classroom and school, regardless of the fact that this is the site of so much of research in Ireland (see Ní Laoire et al., 2011). Macropolitical structures of immigration systems directly influence the geographies of children and young people, and immigration procedures in Ireland have a differentiating impact on their geographies, in relation to mobility, socializing, employment, income and access to information and communication technologies (ICTs), among others (Bushin and White, 2010; Ní Laoire et al., 2011). While an emerging literature on the migration of children and young people into Ireland has begun to unpick the ways in which these discourses operate, and has begun to explore different aspects of migrant children’s and young people’s lives in contemporary Ireland, much remains to be done in terms of developing in-depth understandings of how migrant children and young people construct and experience their own social worlds and the ways in which they do this. In the rest of this chapter we explore the ways in which migrant children and young people construct different senses of belonging in and across multiple scales and as part of their negotiation of their social and cultural identities as migrants and as children/young people. We argue that assumptions that different groups of migrant children and young people do or do not ‘belong’ in Ireland are simplistic and misleading. We suggest that our explorations of the lived realities of migrant children and young people in Ireland reveal more multifaceted, complex, sometimes paradoxical senses of belonging to local and transnational communities and de-territorialized groups of people. Migrant children and young people form attachments and detachments which often challenge assumptions that are made by others about whether or to what they should belong. As part of these arguments we explore the complexity of migrant children’s and young people’s lives through a focus on their consumption of global consumer culture as part of processes of belonging. Prior to doing this, however, we outline the parameters of the research project we were involved with and methodologies we employed in our research with migrant children and young people in Ireland.

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Research methods We start from the standpoint of researchers who have concluded a funded research project. Such a standpoint carries with it an implicit danger that any account of the project (about research methods, project structure or fieldwork experiences) will smooth over problems, iron out wrinkles and elide over mistakes or sources of tension. We worked as part of a team and as individual independent researchers on separate but related strands of research.2 At different points in time this presented each individual researcher with unique challenges and difficulties. Thus our experiences individually and as a team were ‘messier’, flawed and less seamless than the account below might suggest. The research was conducted through four projects or strands of research, each corresponding to a particular migrant group and led and conducted by one of the four co-authors. This approach allowed the project to recognize the diversity of migrant childhoods while acknowledging the power contained within immigration and citizenship policies, global migratory processes and dominant constructions of race and ethnicity that shape children’s and young people’s lives in contrasting ways. The four strands of research were: • Strand A: African/Irish Children’s Experiences of and Integration into Irish Society (conducted by Dr. Allen White). • Strand B: From Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to Ireland: Children’s Experiences of Migration (conducted by Dr. Naomi Tyrrell (née Bushin)). • Strand C: Latin American Migrant Children in Ireland (conducted by Dr. Fina Carpena-Méndez). • Strand D: Coming Home? Children in Returning Irish Families (conducted by Dr. Caitríona Ní Laoire, also Team Leader). The strands included children from the main migrant streams (asylum seekers, EU and European Economic Area labour migrants, non-EU labour migrants and returning Irish migrants) that have constituted in-migration into Ireland over the last fifteen years. In addition, they included children who had migrated from countries with a lengthy history as a destination for Irish emigrants and countries that have historical links to specific Irish missionary traditions, as well as those with little or no historical connection to Ireland. By including children who have taken part in return migration as well as children who are short-term/temporary migrants and more long-term migrants, the project attempted to capture the dynamic and fluid nature of contemporary migration processes, rather than assuming that all migrants have undertaken once-off migrations from one country of origin to Ireland.

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Finally, the strands also included children from communities that have been consistently racialized in debates about immigration to Ireland, children from communities that are considered (somewhat simplistically) to ‘pass’ as similar to Irish, children who are considered to be unproblematically ‘Irish’, and children who are almost invisible within debates about migration and identity in Ireland. Of course, we recognize that the four migrant populations we chose to work with do not represent the full spectrum of migrant diversity in contemporary Ireland. Our methodology was driven by a desire to allow the voices of children and young people to speak through the research, by using children-centred methods, although we recognize the limitations of such methods and of any attempts by adult researchers to enter children’s worlds or to allow children’s voices to be heard (Jones, 2001; Van Blerk and Kesby, 2008). However, we felt it was important to use research methods which recognized children as competent research participants (Alderson and Morrow, 2004) while also acknowledging the specificity of research with children. While each strand of the research developed its own specific methodological approach, the project as a whole was grounded in a common theoretical perspective on children and childhood, which recognized that children are active socio-cultural producers in their own rights (James and Prout, 1990). In practice, this approach involved spending time with children and young people who have moved to Ireland, building up relations of trust and getting to know them, often over long periods of time. We talked with them about their lives and their migration experiences, incorporating both ethnographic methods and a range of participative techniques such as artwork, mapping, photography and play-and-talk (see Bushin and White, 2010; White et al., 2010; see also Clark Ibáñez, 2004; Coates and Coates, 2006; Poser, 2006). In all, qualitative and children-centred research was conducted with 194 migrant children (84 boys and 110 girls; aged three to eighteen) across Ireland, between 2006 and 2009. Following accepted legal definitions of ‘childhood’, we use the term ‘children’ throughout the chapter to refer to children and young people within the entire three to eighteen years’ age spectrum of our participants, although we recognize that ‘young people’ may be a more appropriate term for those aged thirteen to eighteen. Most of the children who participated were first-generation migrants, that is, they had migrated to Ireland from other countries, although the sample also included some of their siblings who had been born in Ireland. The participants lived in a range of geographical locations across the Republic of Ireland, including cities, suburbs, small towns and rural areas. A majority lived in the southwest region and in the Dublin region, while a number also lived in a range of locations in the west and north-west. They had moved from a wide range of international locations, including over twenty different countries. The

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research was conducted in children’s homes, schools, youth clubs, cafes and an asylum accommodation centre. Adults – parents, teachers and playworkers – were also included in the research. All names and identifying details in this chapter have been changed to protect participants’ anonymity. The pseudonyms were usually chosen by participants themselves.

‘Not-belonging’ The discussion above highlights how, in a number of interlocking ways, migrant children and young people are simply assumed to ‘not belong’ in Ireland. Our research suggests that the lived realities of migrant children and young people are more complex than the frequently uni-dimensional identification that is ascribed or ‘given’ to them by (adult and peer) others. This paradox manifests itself in a series of tensions surrounding ‘belonging’ that mark out their lives in a number of different ways. There are of course inherent contradictions and problems contained within simplistic assumptions about belonging for migrant children. In many ways, migrant children become defined by these processes in negative terms, as ‘non-nationals’, which negates the highly complex nature of their belongings. However, our explorations into migrant children’s own senses of attachment and belonging (sometimes compared with those of the adults around them) reveal much more complex stories than has been assumed hitherto and make known the ways in which varying aspects of their transnational lives often are consciously interwoven into their identities. Thus while multiple and often unexpected processes can result in migrant children feeling that they do not belong in Irish society, they can and do develop strategies of belonging, often at local and global scales (despite dominant adultist discourses to the contrary). There is plenty of evidence of the processes through which migrants are excluded and ‘othered’ by majority Irish society. Being ‘othered’ and being constructed as, or feeling oneself to be, ‘different’ constituted a key element in the experiences of migrant children in our research. However, this rarely took place in straightforward and universal ways. Instead different groups of migrant children experienced or felt themselves as different in different ways. Discourses of difference, dependence, neediness and vulnerability permeate representations of migrant children in Ireland and this is communicated to children through a variety of channels. Within these, the education system is of particular importance. These are also racialized discourses, reinforced and refracted through discourses of blackness and whiteness. They are connected to the ways in which migrant children and young people may be othered and viewed as different in the context of their everyday interactions with peers. Children and young people from CEE, for example, felt (and were made

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to feel) ‘out of place’ in their local environments. They discussed the ways in which in school their peers and teachers labelled them as ‘newcomers’, ‘migrants’ or ‘non-nationals’. Finding this labelling uncomfortable, they wanted to ‘fit in’ to their new social and educational contexts but this proved to be difficult when their ‘difference’ was emphasized. In certain examples school policies sometimes served to highlight the differences between migrant and non-migrant children and reminded them of their migrant status on a daily basis. English-language tuition policies worked to separate recently arrived migrant children into intensive English classes and this practice served to isolate these young people and prevent them from socializing with their non-migrant peers. Other school policies, while intending to promote the ‘integration’ of migrant children into new schools, served to emphasize their difference instead. For example, one teacher wanted to use the posters the young people had made during the research process in a display about ‘newcomers’ in the school. While these efforts were well intentioned and welcomed by some of the young people (particularly at younger ages), young people sometimes commented that they did not want their differences to be highlighted. These young people had tried to ‘fit in’ as best they could; they did not like their ascribed status/label of ‘newcomer’ or ‘non-national’ and did not want any of their work to be displayed. Unlike other groups of migrant children, assumptions of unproblematic belonging pervaded the experiences of children who moved to Ireland as part of returning Irish families. However, these assumptions were challenged by the children’s encounters with peers, institutions and other aspects of Irish society. While the children of returning migrants continued to assert their Irishness once in Ireland, many of them had found that this was not as easy as they might have expected given their backgrounds. Instead, they found that they had to constantly assert their Irishness in the face of challenges from among non-migrant Irish. David (age twelve, moved from East Asia) commented that not speaking the Irish language and not being able to share his school-friends’ early childhood memories made him feel less Irish. Reflecting on her life when she moved back to Ireland at age five Anne (early twenties, moved from the UK) commented: ‘I settled down . . . but . . . every now and again like somebody would say I was English and I would be like “no I’m not”.’ Being born outside Ireland and having a different accent could be used to highlight return migrant children as different and ‘not Irish’. The presence of a child who is both a migrant and claims to be Irish challenges pervasive assumptions about native–newcomer dualisms and may produce a certain emotional anxiety among peers, who respond by objectifying and othering the migrant/Irish child. In our discussion below we point to the agency that migrant children and young people articulate in the ways in which they negotiate and/or respond to

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deeply entrenched discourses of belonging and not-belonging. We suggest that migration origins and destinations may not provide migrant children’s primary sites of belonging but instead point to the interconnected spaces of their everyday lives. In other words, migrant children’s lives can be embedded in local places as well as in global and transnational spaces. Moreover, their attachments are shaped not just by their migrancy but also by their involvement in gender, class and other social relations, and by their interactions with institutions such as the family, school and global consumer culture. Therefore, migrant children’s lives and experiences must be understood in the context of their multiple and intersecting relations and identifications. Moreover, our discussions also highlight the importance of listening to children’s experiences because these are rarely acknowledged in adultist discourses about ‘integration’ or ‘difference’.

Using global consumer culture to belong While we have emphasized some of the ways in which migrant children are made to feel different, we should acknowledge that there are powerful homogenizing influences in their lives as children and young people. Global consumer culture can provide a powerful point of connection between children and young people with apparently different cultural backgrounds, placing them within shared frames of reference and facilitating senses of belonging with peers. Indeed our research highlights the myriad ways in which migrant children were similar to their non-migrant peers and the considerable amount of effort they spent ‘fitting in’, often via their consumption of global consumer culture. Globally commodified cultural media such as websites, pop music, fashion, sport, film and computer games are designed to appeal to children and young people regardless of linguistic, social or other cultural boundaries. In schools and neighbourhoods in Ireland, children and young people consume and reproduce these cultural products and in doing so forge connections with each other. Migrant children and young people, like their non-migrant peers, recognize the potential of this and actively use global cultural media to position themselves within peer networks. In numerous research encounters migrant young people revealed lives that are locally embedded within globalized worlds of text messaging, mobile phones, social networking websites, MTV, digital TV and fashion. In addition to its homogenizing influences, this global culture can also be drawn upon by migrant children to assert an acceptable sense of difference in Irish society. While the local context can act as a site for identity construction this is not necessarily a case of ‘becoming more Irish’. Rather, it revolves around developing belonging, and perhaps stability, via globalized consumer culture, fashion,

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music and lifestyles. To put this another way, the children and young people constructed their sense of belonging – to local places, to transnational family groups, to peer groups – via their consumption and use of different belongings. As Fortier (2000) points out, ‘belongings’ can refer to both possessions and inclusion. For example, many children and young people participating in this research produced photo books about themselves and their lives. Some of these books contained displays of family photographs in domestic spaces and places. For many children, the careful ordering and arranging of family portraits within homes (as well as the careful recording of such arrangements by children taking part in the research) include family members living many miles away in other countries. Thus domestic, local and transnational spaces are blended within the making of a homespace locating the child within larger familial networks. The children used the cameras creatively to imagine and represent themselves and their lives according to their choices and decisions about what, or who, to photograph. Strategies of posing people and scenes, and presenting and micro-managing material culture in particular ways, typified many of the photographs. They also communicated specific aspects of the children’s social and cultural identities (Miller, 1998). Through participating in aspects of global consumer culture, as well as through highly localized cultural practices, these children and young people accumulate the cultural, symbolic and social capital which facilitates the formation of meaningful connections to others (peers, family) and provides a sense of belonging. Many of the children in Irish return migrant families displayed material symbols of consumer culture with great pride. Possession of the latest consumer goods acted as an important source of symbolic capital among peer groups: and in the winter we go up and we play the Wii because we got it from Santa. [Caitríona: Santa managed to get it to you did he?] Most people seemed to get them. There’s about five people in my class that don’t have it. . . . Mostly people now get the Wiis. People got Nintendos sort of last year. They were the style last year. (Emily, aged eight, moved from continental Europe)

In different ways, children in migrant families accumulate cultural capital that contributes to their negotiations and performances of identity. These are identities with which they feel comfortable, which enable meaningful connections with others and which transcend the politics of national/ethnic belonging. Global consumer youth culture permeates the lives of migrant children and their relationships with their peers and parents. Like other children this commercial consumer culture in part constitutes the terms of their social belonging among peers, particularly by defining which objects and experiences count towards being ‘worthy of belonging’. Diego, a seventeen year old

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boy from Brazil, has lived in Ireland with his mother since the age of eight. Close ties with his family and former classmates and teachers in Brazil were fostered through frequent (annual) trips to Brazil. In many Latin American families, a desire for commodified goods and experiences was often invoked as central to both children’s motivations for migration and their sense of selfworth and achievement in their home countries, while feeling their lifestyles were ‘frugal’ when compared with their Irish classmates. As Diego says: I have very good friends in Brazil but I never think about going back because there things are very expensive. Here in Ireland, it has been possible to buy whatever I want, but it wouldn’t have been possible in Brazil . . . I know that . . . My friends in Brazil got the ipod, the games, the computer I buy two years later than me . . . even the rich people cannot buy the very new things . . . I am proud of myself for being able to have all these things! No . . . I don’t think about going back to Brazil . . . my father is there, and my grandparents and uncles and cousins, and even my friends from childhood . . . but I prefer to stay in Ireland . . . because I would have to learn well written Portuguese, now it is easier for me to go to school here . . . and also because of . . . stuff! Yes, stuff [he points to the things around him, a computer, videogames, his cell phone]. (Diego, aged seventeen, moved from Brazil)

This longing for consumption of the sort of commercial objects and experiences that would count for a middle-class lifestyle and a global childhood status propelled Latin American families to migrate to Ireland. Yet they encountered in Ireland a receiving society that was being reconfigured by those same globalized socio-economic and political processes (for a different example see Katz, 2004). Within globalized interconnected structures of childhood, migrant children can eclipse experiences of being different when communication and relationships with local peers are easily mediated by sharing children’s global commercial culture. However, they also soon became acutely aware of the active processes of boundary-making based on the formation of new legal, socio-economic and symbolic hierarchies and practices of exclusion. Migrant children are keenly attuned to the constructed character of belonging and its unsettling elusiveness in daily life. Young people from CEE countries spoke of the significance of local spaces and contexts in their desire to develop feelings of belonging to transnational youth cultures. The spaces these young people occupied played a key role in shaping their social identities, making them ‘members of a culture’ (Katz, 2001: 173). For example, Monika drew a mental map of Cork and described where she hung out with her friends (‘a small park’) and where young people who were different from her – ‘not like me’ – hung out (‘MQ’ – a shopping centre). These young people explicitly referred to their consumption of goods, foods, TV shows, DVDs, satellite TV and websites

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from their countries of origin. David, Tomaz and Jasia all noted the easy availability of Polish language DVDs and Polish satellite TV channels. Living in a context that at times highlighted their difference from their Irish peers, consumption of cultural products from their ‘home’ nation contributed to their construction of a meaningful and alternative sense of belonging. Thus for these young people, consuming globalized, transnational products and texts formed part of their membership of nationally oriented diasporic youth cultures rather than identifying with, becoming members of, or affiliating themselves to, Irish culture. African/Irish youth developed peer groups and friendship networks that were highly localized but equally dependent on the consumption of things and objects from globalized commodified youth cultures. Ruth moved to Ireland aged twelve and had found it difficult to settle into school and make friends. In an initial interview (at age fourteen) she was especially interested in talking about rock music, which she linked to her favourite pastime – meeting her friends in Dublin city centre and going to Temple Bar, Grafton Street and St. Stephen’s Green or to the Central Bank to watch skateboarders. During a follow-up interview (at age fifteen) Ruth mentioned that while she still went into Dublin city centre to socialize with friends, this entailed going to ‘hang out’ in a different part of the city. This, she explained, is part of her changing musical taste. Previously she listened to one type and now she listens to ‘loads’ of different types. Ruth: I don’t go to the Central Bank anymore, I just like, hang out like [on] O’Connell Street. Allen: How come . . . Why did you just get bored . . .? Ruth: It was just like before I was kind of like different and I dunno the people I hang around with but now I’m like, I have like a different group of friends . . . Allen: OK, right. Ruth: So . . . yeah . . . Allen: So do you listen to like different kinds of music then or do you . . . Ruth: It’s not different as in, like, now like it’s like I listen to like loads of music whereas before I used to be just into one type like now like I am into loads. (Conversation with Ruth, aged fifteen from West Africa)

Ruth’s changing music tastes and new peer groups and changing use of certain locations in Dublin city centre help her to mark out her similarity to, and difference from, other groups of teenagers in Dublin. Many of the African/Irish young people stress their hybrid African (or national-) Irish identities, for example John (thirteen, from West Africa) argued ‘Africa and Ireland are both part of my life’; his sister Sarah (fifteen) sees her identity as residing somewhere in-between ‘because I am African so I can’t just be Irish just because I live there for longer so I am African but I am

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also Irish in a way because I live here and I have grown up here more’. However, the key cultural texts, codes and practices she uses to articulate her social and cultural identity are taken from globalized, highly commodified youth culture industries. To some this might signify a kind of ‘cultural suicide’ (Drotbohn, 2005) as specific local or ‘authentic’ cultures are replaced by commodified ‘inauthentic’ global youth popular cultures. However, most African/Irish children and young people were attracted to particular fashions, styles or music because these were globalized – they were not ‘Irish’ or ‘Nigerian’ or ‘Somalian’ or ‘Kenyan’. That is, the appeal of particular musical forms and clothing styles lay in their global production and consumption in that African/Irish young people could claim to hold common frames of reference with their Irish peers through wearing these styles or listening to this music. As Genius (eighteen, from central Africa) puts it, the appeal of rap lies in its global penetration of music markets, saying ‘wherever you go . . . rap is there’. These young people’s negotiations of identity involve patterns of cultural consumption which intersect with their migrancy and diasporic backgrounds in different ways, reflecting their translocational positionality – ‘the interplay of a range of locations and dislocations in relation to gender, ethnicity, national belonging, class and racialization’ (Anthias, 2001: 634). But they are also important aspects of their identities not just as migrants but also as young people/teenagers, boys/girls, sons/daughters/friends, living in contemporary Ireland in the twenty-first century.

Conclusion The research literature on migration into Ireland tends to either ignore the migration of children and young people or to construct them as deficient or problematic in particular ways. These constructions reproduce public anxieties about difference and the presence of social and cultural ‘others’ in neighbourhoods, localities and towns across Ireland. However, the position of migrant children and young people at the intersection of a number of interlocking discourses, coupled with the highly differentiated impacts of immigration policies and procedures on different groups of migrant children and young people, mean that there is no single ‘migrant child experience’. Using children-centred research methods that prioritize and emphasize the competencies and validity of children and young people’s accounts and experiences, we can unpack the ways in which different groups of migrant children and young people construct and experience their own social worlds (for a fuller version of these arguments see Ní Laoire et al., 2011). Migrant children and young people form attachments and detachments which often challenge assumptions that are made by others about whether or

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to what they should belong, in contexts that may be highly contradictory and restrictive. These assumptions are, we argue, based on fixed and potent ‘us–them’ models of belonging that underpin official discourses of integration or citizenship. They are also fundamental to all processes of exclusion. According to such assumptions, ‘belonging’ is something that is linked to the ownership of certain attributes, such as nationality, ethnicity, citizenship, age, status, language/accent, and so on. Instead, in our interactions with migrant children and young people we have been struck by how belonging is not tied only to country of origin or destination but that migrant children ‘do’ belonging in multiple (sometimes contradictory and paradoxical) ways. In the examples discussed above our research highlights the attachments that migrant children and young people develop across multiple scales, spaces and places incorporating local and global frames of reference and forms of belonging. These multiple belongings are formed in dialogue, in mobility and in contingent circumstances. They are negotiated, shaped and articulated in different ways by different groups of migrant children. Thus arguing that migrant children are Irish or not ignores the complex and multifaceted ways in which migrant children actively engage with processes of belonging. Like many other children, migrant children can work very hard to assert their sameness and to conform, thus trying to ensure their acceptance by peers (and others) and to ‘fit in’. At the same time some migrant children and young people like to express difference, but only in ways that allow them to retain common frames of reference with their Irish (and non-Irish) peers. In this context, blunt policies of ‘celebrating difference’ that are promoted through key institutions like schools are not always welcome, and policy concerns which are based only upon migrant children’s differences from Irish children can be imbalanced. Instead we argue for recognition of migrant children as children and as full participants in a diverse and globalizing society.

Notes 1 Toyosi Shitta-Bey, aged fifteen, was stabbed to death in west Dublin in April 2010 in an allegedly racially motivated attack. Born in Nigeria, Toyosi had lived in Ireland since the age of four. Two Dublin men were charged with the killing. 2 Research carried out as part of the Marie Curie Migrant Children Research Project, funded through a Marie Curie Excellence Grant (Number: MEXT-CT-2004–014204).

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Lentin, R. and R. McVeigh (2006) ‘Irishness and racism: towards an e-reader’, Translocations: The Irish Migration, Race and Social Transformation Review, 1:1, 22–40. Available online at www.imrstr.dcu.ie/firstissue/lentin. mcveigh.pdf. Accessed 13 April 2010. Mac Éinrí, P. and A. White (2008) ‘Immigration into the Republic of Ireland: a bibliography of recent research’, Irish Geography, 41:2, 151–79. McGorman, E. and C. Sugrue (2007) Intercultural Education: Primary Challenges in Dublin 15. Dublin: Social Inclusion Unit, Department of Education and Science. Miller, D. (ed.) (1998) Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter. London: UCL Press. Ní Laoire, C., N. Bushin, F. Carpena-Méndez and A. White (2008) Negotiating Belonging: Migrant Children and Youth in Ireland. Available online at http://migration.ucc.ie/children/workingpapers.html. Accessed 6 May 2010. Ní Laoire C., F. Carpena-Méndez, N. Tyrell and A. White (2011) Childhood and Migration in Europe. London: Ashgate. Poser, J. (2006) ‘Posing and presenting: looking at children’s representational practices’. Paper presented at the Material and Visual Cultures of Childhood and Youth Conference, Goldsmiths College: London, 5–6 May. Rutter, J. (2003) Supporting Refugee Children in 21st Century Britain. Stoke on Trent: Trentham. Rutter, J. (2006) Refugee Children in the UK: Their Migration, Urban Ecologies and Education Policy. Buckingham: Open University Press. Shandy, D. (2008) ‘Irish babies, African mothers: rites of passage and rights in citizenship in post-millennial Ireland’, Anthropological Quarterly, 81:4, 803–31. Spicer, N. (2008) ‘Places of exclusion and inclusion: asylum-seeker and refugee experiences of neighbourhoods in the UK’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34:3, 491–510. Terrio, S. (2008) ‘New barbarians at the gates of Paris? Prosecuting undocumented minors in the Juvenile Court: the problem of the “Petits Roumains”’, Anthropological Quarterly, 81:4, 873–901. Van Blerk, L. and M. Kesby (eds) (2008) Doing Children’s Geographies: Methodological Issues in Research with Young People. London: Routledge. White, A., N. Bushin, F. Carpena-Méndez and C. Ní Laoire (2010) ‘Using visual methodologies to explore contemporary Irish childhoods’, Qualitative Research, 10:2, 143–58. White, A., C. Ní Laoire, N. Bushin and F. Carpena-Méndez (2011) ‘Guest editorial: children’s roles in transnational migration’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (Special Issue: Children’s Roles in Transnational Migration), 37:8, 1159–70.

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7 African migrants in Ireland: the negotiation of belonging and family life Liam Coakley

Introduction The migration flows that transformed Ireland from a country of emigrants to an attractive site of immigration between 1997 and 2007 have recently been reversed. As a consequence, Ireland is again best seen as a peripheral emigrant nursery in the globalized world economy, with Irish population patterns once again moulded more significantly by the outflow of Irish-born people than by any equivalent inflow of immigrants. While commentators dispute the scale and significance of current emigration, a significant increase in outward migration has been documented since 2008. There has been a parallel decline in all categories of immigrants to Ireland. Only a few years have passed since the height of Ireland’s experience as an immigrant destination, when experienced commentators were confidently forecasting that immigrants to Ireland and their descendants would eventually number around 20 per cent of the population of the country. Despite recent changes in migration patterns, the experience of mass immigration to Ireland in the period between 1997 and 2007 changed the country and, irrespective of current migration patterns, a more multicultural and multi-ethnic population is present in Ireland today than at any time in Irish history (Watt and McGaughey, 2006: 15). For example, while refugee applications from ‘third country nationals’ have been declining steadily since 2005, large numbers of applicants were still awaiting a recommendation in December 2010 (Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC), 2011: 1).1 Similarly, while the numbers of economic immigrants from EU countries have declined, significantly high numbers of such immigrants remain in Ireland and people are still choosing to move to Ireland in search of opportunity.2 The need to cater for this diverse population will continue to

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influence the formulation of much Irish social and educational policy for years to come. The arrival of relatively large numbers of asylum seekers/refugees in the late 1990s first brought this reality to the attention of the public at large. Before this, nearly all those who came to live in Ireland were from the UK, European Union countries or were ‘programme refugees’, for example persons admitted under Ireland’s participation in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees refugee resettlement programme. Recently however, large numbers of individual immigrants have become visible in Irish contexts. Most of these have come to Ireland from locations in the recent ‘accession countries’ to the European Union (EU-10) but significant numbers of immigrants from the continent of Africa have also arrived. People from West Africa have featured particularly strongly, but immigrants from many different parts of the continent have also moved to Ireland, sometimes in significant numbers.3 A small but growing literature charts the experiences of these migrants from the continent of Africa. Komolafe (2002) and Ugba (2004) were among the first to focus on African communities’ migration experiences. Nigerian communities inevitably featured strongly in this research but the presence of many different diasporic African communities is now a well-recognized facet of research in this area (see, for example, Coakley and Mac Éinrí, 2007; Koser, 2003). While discourses of justifiable flight commonly framed many earlier considerations of African migration to Ireland, more recently emphasis has been placed on the integration experiences of these communities, as they seek to engage with what can sometimes be an unwelcoming social and cultural environment. Ejorh (2006) for example has written convincingly on the issue of inclusive citizenship for African immigrants in Ireland, and Kenny (2010) charts many aspects of the Irish Nigerian community in particular. African experiences feature strongly in more specific studies as well. For example, Coakley and Healy’s (2007, 2011) considerations of Ireland’s IBC05 scheme for immigrant residency, and Coakley’s (2012) reconsideration of the scheme, draw on the integration experiences of migrants from many parts of the continent of Africa. This chapter seeks to add further to this literature by reporting on the experiences of a small number of recent migrants from the continent of Africa to Ireland. These research participants have come to Ireland from western and central parts of the continent, in the main. It is consequently impossible to discount the possibility that the patterns outlined here arise from the, albeit very broadly, geographically bounded nature of the sample. Equally, it is possible that many nuanced national or regional differences may exist across such a large geographical area which may have gone unnoticed at this level of analysis. Migration relations certainly differ across space, depending on the

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conditions extant in the migrant’s country of origin. However, some extremely common patterns arose during this study. These are drawn upon here to illustrate some common experiences that African migrants attest to as they seek to engage with life in Ireland and with Irish society in general. Particular emphasis will be placed on the potential ‘double-engagement’ that many migrants have with their country of origin, on the one hand, and their current life in Ireland, on the other, irrespective of where that country is located or what conditions are extant there. Potential national or sub-regional variations in the construction of these transnational patterns may be discernible. These are left to investigations conducted at a much finer level of analysis than was possible here.

Research method Eighteen interactions took place and research participants were paid €50 for their time. These interactions typically took between 2.5 and 4.5 hours to complete, sometimes spread over two visits. On average these yielded two to three hours of taped conversation, and a series of detailed, highly qualitative research dialogues were produced. Drawing upon particular insights developed by researchers working in oral history and life narrative research, migrants’ experiences of life in Ireland were placed at the centre of the project and the research was framed by a desire to use ‘the actual voices of migrants’ to uncover ‘layers of meaning’ (Devlin-Trew, 2005: 2). Participants were given space to tell their own stories, in their own terms and each dialogue was recorded to preserve the spontaneous nature of each exchange. This research valorized the fact that events in a life do not take place in a vacuum. A broader span of personal history contextualizing life-choice is therefore inherent in these narratives than if other interview-style methods were used. In so doing, as Halfacree (2004: 241) states, I sought to ‘tease out the contours and textures of migration within the lives of the people concerned’, to see the event in the context of the life. Narrators’ experiences and their own interpretations of those experiences were the focus of maximum effort. In so doing, and following on from Gutting’s (1996: 482–3) call to engage with narrative identity, I sought to gain an understanding of complex social events through the eyes of the individuals concerned, and set these understandings against what is known about the wider social, historical and geographical dynamics of the issue at hand.

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Transnational constructions and families settling in Ireland Migrant communities are now commonly deemed to be transnational in nature and as such any attempt to understand the lived experience of these communities must make reference to at least two physical places. Conceptualizations of the family and of family life held by the African immigrants who participated in this study support this view. Families are stretched out across space and, while very little evidence of either physical movement or even the presence of a significant ‘return mythology’ was found during this research, many of these families are effectively operating in two places (Conway, 2007: 425). While families are not maintaining a classic ‘simultaneous’ physical presence across space (Portes, 1997; cited in Crang et al., 2003: 444), they are effectively living their lives in-between the migrants’ place of origin and current residential location, in Ireland. A geographically diffuse familial imaginary is in force and a series of ‘multi-dimensional identity spaces’ exist (Smith and Bailey, 2004: 357), often mapped onto a transnational economic field. Transnational economic fields and the experience of familial obligation Some research participants have family members scattered across the globe. An individual may not have seen these people for some time, but still see them as essential familial contacts. Sarah,4 a married mother of two from a country in central Africa for example, has family members living in France, Belgium and the USA as well as in her country of origin. She states that she spends often long periods without seeing these relatives and as such seeing them can be ‘bizarre’, but she still counts them as important members of her family unit. This is not an easy or unproblematic relationship. Length of time spent apart may weaken the bonds that exist. David, a single migrant from West Africa, has not seen his mother for seventeen years and consequently feels that that ‘distance reduces affection. I have learned that. It is true that my mother remains my mother; she is still alive. My sisters are still my sisters, but I have noticed that affection has gone down.’ Nevertheless, most people are clear in their continued belief that relations ‘back home’ are important familial contacts. The experience of hardship can serve to maintain these ‘multi-stranded social relations’ (Boyle, 2002: 533). Immigrants from Africa may be focused on making their way in Ireland and ensuring that their children benefit from the experience of growing up in Ireland but they are invariably drawn back to their country of origin as a result of the concerns and worries they harbour for family members who remain. Charles, a middle-aged man from West Africa for example, states that he worries ‘about my family at home, it comes to our mind all the time, no need of looking at, look at news, I know what happens’. Patrick goes further when he states, ‘if there were a way to remove,

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not even the family, everybody there and leave the country for the people who destroy it, it would be good to do it.’ This can be an unsettling experience and one that is reinforced by the need to contribute to these relations’ lives in financial terms. There is a significant literature on the role that such economic transfers play in sending countries, and the real impact that such transfers have on African countries is now well recognized (see, for example, Sall, 2005: 277). Consequently, it is unsurprising that migrants from Africa experiencing financial hardship in Ireland often seek to support family members in their country of origin. As David states: I can tell you that even though I am a student I have somebody in Africa that I look after. I pay everything for his studies in Kinshasa. Like I said, although we are facing all these tough situations, conjuncture and financial problems, there are people who are still depending on us.

This activity can be focused on the maintenance of children who are still resident in their country of origin, but people are also actively trying to support the lives of wider family members as well. Sometimes this is a voluntary activity, born out of a person’s sense of responsibility for those who are less fortunate. Patrick illustrates this impulse when he states: if there is an opportunity, I will send money home. I will do it. I have to pay my bills. I have to have my own life, definitely. If there is something important, I will try to tell myself, try to find a way. We are looking back. Most of the people back home – my family now you know, I am the provider. I am the provider, no. I am the provider basically.

He goes on to say that hardship can be experienced as a result of this attitude but that it is a positive experience for him on the whole. ‘It make you feel proud of yourself, everything sometimes it is very hard at least, but at the end of the day you count yourself as a lucky person being in Ireland.’ This pattern is firmly situated in the experience of hardship and in the importance placed on communal responsibility. Betty enjoys a residency status based on the presence of her Irish Citizen Child in Ireland, but members of her immediate family still live in her country of origin in West Africa and she places all her experiences in Ireland in the context of the hardship she knows they are experiencing. She states that her siblings are ‘still young, I got one eight years old’ and they ‘don’t have anything’ and therefore ‘any little money you know – twenty euro thirty euro, you know you send it back’. Caroline, a woman from West Africa who is parenting alone, further illustrates this pattern when she states ‘that is the thing in Africa. So if no today, I was in Africa with all the children, I would

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get help from uncle from girls. Because something can happen. Maybe today my dad is financially OK but tomorrow the situation can be negotiable and then if me, I refuse to help somebody then nobody will help me, you know.’ This responsibility is not straightforward and tensions can arise. While they continue to value the primary familial relationship, some migrants feel that they are placed under undue pressure to maintain this relationship through a pattern of financial support when the conditions of their lives cannot sustain it. People are imbued with status by virtue of the fact that they have emigrated from their country of origin to a Western European economy but they are aware of the fact that the realities of their lives in Ireland do not necessarily tally with the perceptions of their relatives in their country of origin. As Alan states: I just keep making them realize this time around what I say is that I just wish one of them would just like opportune, would be like opportune to come to this country one day and see what it is like, that they don’t drop money on the streets, that you have to work for it, that they don’t just drop money on the street.

The important role that such transnational financial transfers play in a migrant’s country of origin is well established in the literature (see, for example, Hamdouch, 2005: 73; Schuerkens, 2005: 539; Tiemoko, 2004: 155). Family-based economic strategies are commonly recognized to be fundamental to the rhythms of life in many contexts in the global South, especially in states with weak welfare regimes. Gubert (2005: 57) for example, as part of a wide-ranging review of migrant remittances to Africa, is clear when he states that such economic transfers are a ‘main source of external funding’ in many developing contexts. However, evidence collected during this research demonstrates that many people can feel pressured to engage in such activity on a wider basis than they can afford. Steps taken by people here include waged labour in the informal labour market. David has engaged in this type of work specifically in an effort ‘to get possibility to help those who are in your home country’. In this way, migrant families remain anchored in their country of origin by virtue of their need to interface with family and friends who are still resident there. This requirement causes stress and imposes financial hardship on people who may not be experiencing a level of material success equivalent to the perceptions of those still resident ‘at home’. Nevertheless, most people are happy to maintain these links, as they represent a real connection back to their country of origin and to their previous lives and a multifaceted sense of familial identity ‘in-between’ arises.

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Transnational social fields and the creation of identities in-between Immigrants are strongly motivated by a desire to succeed in Ireland and to see their families benefit from the experience of growing up in Ireland, but everyone who participated in this research is conscious of his/her African identity. As Tim, a man from central Africa, states, ‘everybody will always keep his/her originality as a person, where this person is or goes’. This realization lies at the heart of many experiences. Equally, however, most people are open to a multifaceted construction of who they are and most therefore recognize that they cannot live in Ireland and remain untouched by the experience. As Gutting (1996) states, ideas of identity are as important in such contexts as patterns of behaviour. Both Karl and Peter, migrants from central Africa who are now living in Dublin, raise this point. Karl, for example, states that ‘personally, I feel myself in my African or Congolese skin as I am here’ while Peter states, ‘here people still see us as Congolese, obviously because we still have the skin we got when we were born in Congo’. Be this as it may, however, both of these research participants are equally clear in their recognition of the importance of Ireland to them and therefore in their desire to integrate into Irish society and adopt some norms. Karl states, ‘we have to integrate in the Irish society because we are already Irish citizens and we won’t go back to our home country tomorrow. Thus I take the two parts: I am a Congolese by blood; I am also Irish because I have to live in this country forever’, while Peter states, ‘in our head there has been such evolvement that today we are closer to Ireland than Congo.’ He goes on to consider the nature of this experience and articulates these complex feelings in terms of food, which he states he and his family miss. Equally, however, he states, ‘but we don’t miss them so much that we become sad. We can live without Congolese food because Ireland offers other alternatives. One can eat Irish potatoes, chicken or beef meat and feel alright.’ In this way, as Pries (2001: 68) states, these families may indeed be ‘self-positioning in a new frame of transnational reference’. This situation is not without its worries. The experience of difficulty can have a highly nuanced impact. Edel, a Nigerian woman living in Cork, recounts how the difficulties she experiences when passing customs and immigration checkpoints make her feel when she states, ‘I am a black Irish and there are white Irish. I don’t know if Irish people consider us black Irish as real Irish.’ Equally, Sarah calls Irish society’s ability to be truly inclusive into question on foot of the social incivilities she has experienced. She states that Irish society has to acknowledge ‘that we are now living a multicultural, multi-ethnic society’. Sarah goes on to state that ‘it belongs to Irish people to wake up and realize that change they have to accept and manage properly.

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What to do so that everybody feels that he is accepted in this country and can live safely here.’ Others feel that this binary opposition between black and white is insurmountable. Paul, a migrant from central Africa, certainly states, ‘the fact is that, that they are Europeans and we are not Europeans, it is clear, it is black and white’. While I agree with researchers who assert that the binary opposition between an impenetrable conceptualization of ‘Irish’ and a monolithic conceptualization of ‘other’ has little merit in the current context (see Sabenacio Nititham, 2008), the migrant experience in Ireland, for all its situational complexity, pivots on a range of shared experiences as, for example, on the basis of race. With this in mind, and recognizing that potentially destructive experiences can occur when a migrant is subjected to a lived experience of inequality based on the colour of his/her skin or his/her ethnicity (Lentin and McVeigh, 2006), the real experience of racialized othering cannot be ignored in this context. As Dwyer and Bressey (2008: 7) state, ‘the reality of living with race and racism on the streets’ is of fundamental importance to many. In this light, and irrespective of any individual’s desire to engage with the idea of Ireland and with life in Ireland in general, African migrants’ ability to truly develop a hybrid and transnational ‘Afro-Irish’ identity position must be called in question and the salience of a real and hegemonic boundary between black and white must be recognized as a barrier to integration in Ireland. For all this, there are clear situations that encourage people to identify with life in Ireland and with Irishness in general.

Family life in Ireland Home ownership is a common aspiration. Jack, a man with IBC05 status from Nigeria, in response to a direct question articulates his desire to engage with Irish society, but he does so in very specific terms. He states: ‘for me I will feel an accomplished Irish when I will have that possibility to hold my own house keys, neither a council house nor a rented one, but my own house, in my name. Then I will feel Irish. For the moment I am [from country of origin].’ He goes on to situate this very firmly in terms of his family when he states, ‘a Dad always tries to secure the best future for his children. I think that the best future is when we own and manage well a house, in accordance with our income.’ Such acceptances are common to many migrant experiences. People cannot live in isolation from their host community (Kivisto, 2003: 16–17). However, the presence of children crystallizes many people’s aspirations to engage more fully with life in Ireland.

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The presence of children, family life and the desire to live in Ireland Amanda, a mother of three from West Africa, strongly identifies with her country of origin and would like her children to contribute to society in that country at some time in the future, but she is equally clear in her view of her children’s lives being firmly anchored in an Irish milieu. She states: ‘now our kids are growing here, they are born here we prefer that they even stay here to live, because if they go back they have no future.’ As she says, ‘we were born in [West African country] it is always good to go back even when you are old, but for them no, they can stay here forever.’ Alan and Paul are all similarly clear. For example, Alan, while considering the experience of life in Ireland, states that he personally does not feel under too much pressure to integrate as ‘it is not problem for family here, parents here, they can go back home tomorrow, but children don’t have future in Africa they only have future here’. Paul continues in this vein but more specifically states that his children’s lack of experience living in their parents’ countries of origin precludes them from ever making a life there when he states that: this is my second home, but the children this is their home, they didn’t live in [country of origin in West Africa], I left when I was twenty-three/twenty-five you know. I have this type of life, it is not going to change, I grow, but for the kids they shall feel like you. He was born here, he has never been to [parent’s country of origin].

In many ways, people watch to see how their children are experiencing life in Ireland and use this as a barometer of progress. When children are happy, so too are parents. Peter illustrates this appreciation when he states, ‘if we can go back to the early stages of our Irish stay, we noticed that Irish people did accept us and we knew it because our children were accepted. That was a strong signal to mean that this was a country where we could live.’ This sense of happiness is further reflected by Jack when he states, ‘[my daughter] has many friends here, from school, from the area, we are the only African family here, from this place. They are playing with her. The knock on the door. Is [daughter] coming out? Is [son]? Which is good, is good.’ Parents are willing to forego other desires to facilitate this engagement for their children. Amanda and Tom, for example, have experienced a pattern of low-level social incivility in their residential neighbourhood and have considered moving to another part of the city. However, they decided to stay in their present residential location because they feel that their daughter is benefiting from the relationships she has forged in school and the social networks that she is beginning to develop. Tom states:

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she is four, she is very small, but she like her school, her teachers are good. She has many friends, they always invite her. She like the school very much and she know all her friends her school mates. If you are walking with her on the street, she will tell you this is this person this is this person, even the parents, they know her. If they see us on the street they will greet us. They are good there, for kids I think they are good. This is why we don’t want to move, because it will be difficult for her to move.

Difficulties arise, however, and the pressure to conform to Irish patterns of parenting and the lack of access to wider familial supports impact on the migrant experience of family in Ireland. Different parenting patterns There are differences between the parenting patterns and norms common in many immigrant families and those common among the Irish-born receiving population. This can cause some disquiet. In part, this may simply arise out of different cultural patterns and norms of behaviour as children’s behaviour and parental approaches diverge in various ways worldwide. However, more specifically, many of the people spoken to during the course of this research regularly become exercised by the presence of what they perceive to be lax parenting standards in Ireland and the resultant negative effects that may accrue for children. Alex, a married father from central Africa, certainly feels that Irish parenting patterns should not be adopted by African families as to do so would be to jeopardize the child’s development. He states that ‘it is dangerous, especially for our children, as they can move in non-recommendable environment’. An important aspect of parenting, as seen by the people who participated in this research, is that good manners and respect are instilled in children. As a young Nigerian parent living in Cork states, ‘when children are in a home with good manner they will not go wrong in life, they will have respect, when they know what is right and wrong, I think that they will have respect’. Most African families are strongly of the opinion that an equivalent pattern is not present in the homes of the Irish-born population. Research participants voice their concerns about their children’s safety in this regard and are afraid that the less structured parenting patterns common among Irish-born families will impact negatively on their own children. The following excerpt from Ethan, a married man from West Africa, illustrates this appreciation. He states: The way we educate children is different from here. In Africa, if a child does something bad, you can punish him, give him a punishment, beat him or even forbid him many things. It is just to put him in the best way and everybody is involved in this process. Here we see many things. As parents, you have no right

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to do this or that to your child; you cannot beat him because a child also has his rights. We have two completely different societies about children education. Many children do bad things here, maybe their parents are unable to educate them. Some children receive bad things through friends they meet in the street. Here if the parents are unable to educate their children at home, it is finished because if a child does something bad nobody else will do anything.

Immigrants are conscious of the fact that they are not operating in their own cultural milieu and are willing to adopt Irish norms but Irish parenting patterns are generally presented as a negative aspect of life in Irish society and one that these families are keen to avoid replicating. This creates a real difficulty for these parents. Parents are keen that their children should benefit from life in Ireland but they can feel that the benefits of living in a Western country are being undermined by the restrictions associated with family life, as to adopt Irish parenting norms may dilute their children’s sense of respect and therefore potentially undermine their development as people. Discipline is a key area of concern and people consistently point to the fact that the disciplinary pattern favoured by Irish society is at odds with the patterns they themselves favour. The social prohibition on the exercise of corporal punishment features in many narratives. Nevertheless, most clearly recognize that they are raising their children in a different environment from that in which they grew up. As Harry, a migrant from central Africa states, while considering the salience of different parenting patterns, ‘I can’t bring things from Africa here. Things from Africa are for Africa. I have to respect the Irish law because I am living here.’ A deeper reluctance lies at the heart of this experience. There is evidence to support the assertion that the primary child–parent relationship is conceptualized differently in many migrant families. This realization impacts on parents’ perceptions in Ireland and further reinforces the need for children and therefore their families to integrate, because for children there is no going back. As Amanda says, Here the relationship between the parent and the children is very different from back home. There is a big gap between, between your father and you. I never speak to my dad. Here your child is your friend. There is no way kids can go back, they would be too frustrated.

Isolation from wider familial support structures Many research participants draw attention to the extended nature of the African family. This issue is important in conceptual terms, and immigrants from Africa can feel isolated in Ireland without this social structure to draw upon. The dislocation experienced by many international migrants is articulated by David. The illustrative importance of this passage does not lie simply

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in this recognition, but rather in the fact that this dislocation is firmly anchored in terms of the family. Here, David is looking back on his life prior to his emigration and articulates his sense of place ‘at home’ most firmly in terms of the widespread familial connections that he enjoyed. He states: The first thing I can say is about the meaning of loneliness. I have learned this here in Europe. In our traditions, if you ask me to tell you in our language the equivalent of the word ‘loneliness’, I would have difficulties to find that. Maybe, I will try to make up a word from two or three others. I ignore the equivalent of the word ‘loneliness’. For us if you are born and you are known in this commune, somebody will know you in every street. Easily, even in the neighbouring communes. It was like that, I, we had a system that during holidays, we could go to some family members, for example young sisters of my Mum. Every friend. If you have your Mum’s younger sister, who is of the same age as yours, her friend become yours, so you are known even in that area. That is why we were easily known. In any case when we were kids, it was difficult to go in remote areas because of transport problem. But all youngsters could easily be known without any particular efforts. You could be known by one thousand people, and I am not exaggerating. Without being a star or popular. Just as an ordinary person. You will be known by these people because of the way of living. Here in Europe it is really the contrary.

The diffuse nature of many migrant family structures is equally important in operational terms. Jack identifies the role that this plays in facilitating many lives when he states that ‘once born, a child belongs to everybody. This can allow a mother to do what she wants. A mother can go either to work or school, there will be someone at home to take care of the children. There will be someone to cook for and take care of them.’ He goes on to state that the absence of such a structure in Ireland can have a negative impact as the supports needed have to be paid for instead. Child-minding is used as an example here. Similarly, both Jack and Paul refer to the role that the extended family plays in supporting the lives of elderly relatives who can no longer take care of themselves. They both see this as a positive element of family life and lament the fact that this does not seem to happen as regularly in Ireland. Paul, for example, while considering the role that the wider family plays in the lives of the elderly, considers the obligations that fall on an African family’s shoulders and bemoans the fact that a similar pattern is not common in Ireland when he states, ‘here you just think about yourself, your wife and children’. He goes on to use this realization as an example of the reasons that lie behind his reluctance to fully adopt Irish norms but ‘take 50 per cent from each side’. Jack is equally clear when he states that the children of African families living in Ireland will miss out on the positive experience associated with living in a large extended African family. ‘They won’t grow up

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with love for enlarged family like us. They don’t know their uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers. They won’t have this love and affection we had for our family and they will individualistically grow up.’

Conclusions Life in Ireland is valued and families hope for a better future in Ireland, especially for their children. Equally, however, links are maintained back to members of the extended family living in other countries and to people who may still be living in the migrants’ country of origin. This results in a strongly transnational construction of family but one that is differentially experienced depending on the quality of the primary contacts. People are focused on integration in Ireland, especially for their children, but continue to be ‘pulled back’ by the importance they ascribe to connections with people still living in Africa. In this way, the African families who participated in this research can be seen to simultaneously engage with both their mobile histories and their current local context to create a series of de facto transnational familial spaces while, at the same time, remaining anchored in Ireland. The construction of this identity ‘in-between’ will inevitably have an impact on the experience of integration for many, and this ‘in-between-ness’ must necessarily be embraced by Irish society if a truly intercultural construction of what it means to be Irish is to be progressed in the twenty-first century. In this way, extended family members, referenced so frequently in the testimonies of the people interviewed during this research, should be included and a more inclusive intercultural definition of the family should be foregrounded in Ireland.

Notes 1 Roughly 7500 such applications were made in 2003. Only 1981 applications were received in 2010 (ORAC, 2011: 1). 2 For example the Polish embassy in Dublin has recently estimated that up to 180,000 Polish citizens remain in residence in Ireland. 3 35,326 African people were resident in Ireland on census night, 2006 (Central Statistics Office, 2007). 4 Pseudonyms are used throughout.

References Boyle, P. (2002) ‘Population geography: transnational women on the move’, Progress in Human Geography, 26:4, 531–43. Central Statistics Office (2007) Census 2006 Volume 4 – Usual Residence, Migration, Birthplaces and Nationalities. Available online at www.cso.ie/en/

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census/census2006reports/census2006volume4–usualresidencemigrationb irthplacesandnationalities. Accessed 8 November 2011. Coakley, L. (2012) Ireland’s IBC/05 Scheme for immigrant residency – Five Years after Renewal. Dublin: New Communities Partnership. Coakley, L. and C. Healy (2007) Looking Forward, Looking Back: Experiences of Irish Citizen Child Families. Dublin: Coalition Against the Deportation of the Irish-born Child. Coakley, L. and C. Healy ( 2011) ‘Ireland’s IBC/05 administrative scheme for immigrant residency, the separation of families and the creation of a transnational familial imaginary’, International Migration. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468–2435.2010.00649.x Coakley, L. and P. Mac Éinrí (2007) African Immigrant Families in Ireland: The Challenges to Integration. Dublin: Integrating Ireland. Conway, D. (2007) ‘Caribbean transnational migration behaviour: reconceptualising its “strategic flexibility”’, Population, Space and Place, 13: 415–31. Crang, P., C. Dwyer and P. Jackson (2003) ‘Transnationalism and the spaces of commodity culture’, Progress in Human Geography, 27:4, 438–56. Devlin-Trew, J. (2005) ‘Challenging utopia: Irish migrant narratives of Canada’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 31:1, 108–16. Dwyer, C. and C. Bressey (2008) ‘Introduction: island geographies: new geographies of race and racism’, in C. Dwyer and C. Bressey (eds) New Geographies of Race and Racism. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1–13. Ejorh, T. (2006) Inclusive Citizenship in 21st Century Ireland: What Prospects for the African Immigrant Community? Dublin: Africa Centre. Gubert, F. (2005) ‘Migrant remittances and their impact on development in the home economies: the case of Africa’, in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (ed.) Migration, Remittances and Development. Paris: OECD, 41–58. Gutting, S. (1996) ‘Narrative identity and residential history’, Area, 28:4, 482–90. Halfacree, K. (2004) ‘A utopian imagination in migration’s terra incognita? Acknowledging the non-economic worlds of migration decision-making’, Population, Space and Place, 10: 239–53. Hamdouch, B. (2005) ‘The remittances of Moroccan emigrants and their usage’, in OECD (ed.) Migration, Remittances and Development, 59–74. Kenny, C. (2010) Mapping Exercise – Nigeria. Dublin: International Organization for Migration – Dublin. Kivisto, P. (2003) ‘Social spaces, transnational immigrant communities, and the politics of incorporation’, Ethnicities, 3:1, 5–28. Komolafe, J. (2002) ‘The geographical process of Nigerian migration to Dublin, Ireland’. Available online at www.africamigration.com/ archive_01/j_komolafe_searching.htm. Accessed 8 November 2011.

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Koser, K. (2003) ‘New African diasporas: an introduction’, in K. Koser (ed.) New African Diasporas. London and New York: Routledge, 1–16. Lentin, R. and R. McVeigh (2006) ‘Ireland and racism – towards an e-reader’, Translocations, 1:1. Available online at www.translocations.ie/v01i01.html. Accessed 8 November 2011. Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (2011) Monthly Statistical Report, December 2010. Dublin: ORAC. Portes, A. (1997) ‘Globalisation from below: the rise of transnational communities’, ESRC Transnational Communities Working Papers Series. WPTC-98-01. New York: Princeton University. Pries, L. (2001) ‘The disruption of social and geographic space: Mexican–US migration and the emergence of transnational social spaces’, International Sociology, 16:1, 55–74. Sabenacio Nititham, D. (2008) ‘Locating the self in diaspora space’, Translocations, 3:1. Available online at www.translocations.ie/v03i01.html. Accessed 8 November 2011. Sall, B. (2005) ‘Remittances and economic initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in OECD (ed.) Migration, Remittances and Development, 265–79. Schuerkens, U. (2005) ‘Transnational migrations and social transformations: a theoretical perspective’, Current Sociology, 53:4, 535–53. Smith, D. and A. Bailey (2004) ‘Editorial introduction: linking transnational migrants and transnationalism’, Population Space and Place, 10, 357–60. Tiemoko, R. (2004) ‘Migration, return and socio-economic change in West Africa: the role of the family’, Population, Space and Place, 10:2, 155–70. Ugba, A. (2004) ‘A quantitative profile analysis of African immigrants in 21st century Dublin’. Available online at www.tcd.ie/sociology/mphil/ prelim-findings-2.pdf. Accessed 8 November 2011. Watt, P. and F. McGaughey (eds) (2006) Improving Government Services to Ethnic Groups. Dublin: National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism.

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8 (Re)negotiating belonging: the Irish in Australia Patricia M. O’Connor

Introduction Belonging is a complex concept. More than a synonym of identity, this multidimensional construct brings together ‘a personal, intimate, feeling of being “at home” in a place (place-belongingness)’ and ‘forms of socio-spatial inclusions/exclusion (politics of belonging)’ (Antonsich, 2010: 644). Belonging therefore, has both individual and collective components, strong affective underpinnings and is intrinsically spatial. International mobility poses particular challenges to belonging. Before migrating, sense(s) of belonging or alterity within family, peer group, local community, nation and the world are constructed along specific socio-spatial axes of differentiation (Brah, 1998). These include gender, ethnicity, class, religion and material circumstances. International migration simultaneously exposes the migrant to unfamiliar axes of differentiation and to new experiences as ‘immigrant’ and ‘other’ in the receiving society. This inevitably has implications for immigrants’ sense of place-belongingness and inclusion/exclusion. Migration also requires (re)negotiations of belonging in the homeland. Physical distance now separates emigrants from the places and social networks that defined pre-migration belonging, generating a ‘discontinuity of experience’ (Polyzoi, 1985: 62) with those left behind. While transport and communication advances have facilitated many contemporary international migrants in maintaining a transnational social space (Pries, 2001), migration is fundamentally an embodied process. Emigrants and those who comprise their transnational social spaces are ‘differentially located in space, with differential abilities and opportunities to overcome . . . the frictional effects of distance’ (McDowell, 1996: 31) that is, the transactional costs (time and financial) of maintaining these social spaces.

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In this chapter these frictions are explored through the lens of 203 post1980 Irish immigrants in Australia, one of Ireland’s most distant emigrant destinations. Narrative and performative indicators are used to unpack belonging pre- and post-migration. Immigrants from both Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) are included, thereby providing an all-island, Catholic–Protestant perspective and giving voice to the oftinvisible NI diaspora contingent.

Putting contemporary Irish migration to Australia in context Only 5 per cent of the total Irish exodus between 1788 and the early twentieth century went to Australia, yet its numeric significance there was unmatched in Irish destinations elsewhere in the world. Accounting for almost 25 per cent of Australia’s newcomers during that time, this far exceeded the proportion achieved in the USA (destination for almost 65 per cent of nineteenthcentury flows yet representing only 10 per cent of US newcomers) (MacDonagh, 1986: 124). In Australia, Irish immigrants’ colonial experiences have been the primary research focus (MacDonagh, 1986; O’Farrell, 2000; Reid and Kelson, 2010). Indeed, contemporary ‘immigrants from the UK and Ireland are generally neglected in immigration research largely because they are not perceived as “real” immigrants’ (Madden and Young, 1993: 4). The historical antecedents of Irish immigrants in Australian society plus the arrival of more visible immigrants of Asian and African origins add to this invisibility. The Ireland-born1 population has gone from being the second largest overseas-born birthplace group in 1901 (22 per cent of all overseas-born) to constituting a mere 0.25 per cent of the total population at the 2006 census, the majority of whom arrived before 1980 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006). This dramatic decline was the culmination of several factors. Changes in Australia’s immigration policies resulted in an increased diversification of immigrant flows in terms of origin,2 skills3 and visa entry category.4 This, coupled with reduced flows from Ireland, mortality among pre- and early post-war Irish immigrants and return migration reduced the Ireland-born share of Australia’s multicultural society to current low levels. Groups like the Irish enjoy greater privilege than their fellow culturally and linguistically diverse immigrant contemporaries because ‘Anglo-ness [in Australia] remains the most valued of all cultural capitals in the field of Whiteness’ (Hage, 1998: 191). Australia’s former ‘White Australia’ policy5 attests to this. However, Irish immigrants have not always been included in discourses of whiteness in Australia (O’Farrell, 2000). Similar to the situation in the USA (Ignatiev, 1995) and Britain (Hickman et al., 2005; Hickman and Walter, 1997), ‘white skin made the Irish eligible for membership in the white

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race, [but] it did not guarantee their admission’ (Ignatiev, 1995: 59). Convict origins, the disreputable status of women who arrived under orphan and female assisted passage schemes, the predominantly servant and labouring status of workers, and their mainly Catholic backgrounds all contributed to the constructed inferiority of the Irish in nineteenth-century Australia (O’Farrell, 2000). However, as O’Farrell (2000: 313) remarks: ‘one of multiculturalism’s unintended side-effects was to gradually make Irishness respectable: by 2000 the days of it being a social liability were well over’. In Australia as in the USA, Irish culture became commodified as ‘global audiences became more attuned to the consumption of Irishness in print, film and television fiction’ (Negra, 2006: 6) and Irish theme pubs (O’Mahoney, 2009). Claims to Irish ancestry further support this re-engagement with Irishness. Only 50,256 of Australia’s 19.9 million population were classified as Ireland-born in the 2006 census, yet ‘Irish’ accounted for 1.8 million responses under the ancestry question where up to two ancestries per person could be reported. This represented 7.1 per cent of the total ancestry responses recorded (Department of Immigration and Citizenship, n.d.), indicating that Irish heritage was no longer negative social capital.

Unique features of the study period The 1980s were characterized by a major increase in the number of settler (permanent) arrivals from Ireland, which peaked towards the end of the decade. Settler arrivals from the ROI increased from 116 in 1980–81 (Grimes, 2001) to 4045 in 1988–89 (Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research, 1996). At that time, Ireland was in recession and emigration surged. In contrast, Australia was in a period of peak labour demand, and many major employers, including Nursing Boards and Qantas, engaged in overseas recruitment. Changed immigrant selection criteria meant that specific age, education and occupational skills criteria applied, thus generating more educated and skilled immigrant flows than in previous generations. In contrast, the 1990s were marked by reduced settler flows and a dramatic growth in the number of temporary Irish immigrants entering Australia. For example, while only 772 settler arrivals were recorded for 1991, 4000 Working Holiday Maker (WHM) visas were issued to Irish persons aged between eighteen and twenty-five years (Grimes, 2001: 481). Between July 1998 and June 2003, 264,964 temporary visa holders (visitors, temporary residents including WHMs and business entry visa holders, and students) arrived from Ireland (Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, 2004: 142). The popularity of the WHM scheme encour-

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aged temporary mobility of a form and scale that had not previously existed, undoubtedly facilitated by lower international travel costs. The Irish immigrant presence in Australia during the study period was therefore far greater than either census or settler enumerations at the time suggested.

Study informants: selection rationale and characteristics In-depth face-to-face interviews with 203 migrants from NI and the ROI were conducted between May 2001 and April 2002. All informants were then residents of Greater Melbourne and had arrived in Australia between 1980 and 2001. Informants were sourced using a snowballing technique, a method that involves locating one potential informant or gatekeeper and seeking introduction to other potential informants/gatekeepers from this initial contact (see Hay, 2000). Informant selection was based on two key criteria. First, informants could not have lived outside Ireland before arriving in Australia. This ensured that Ireland was their primary socio-cultural reference, thus making it easier to examine whether Irish immigrants were indeed ‘real immigrants’ who, despite their invisibility, underwent challenges to belonging in Australia. This therefore excluded on-migrants and reduced the size of the base population from which informants could be drawn.6 These disadvantages were outweighed by the opportunities that the culled sample offered to explore discrete identity and belonging issues. Secondly, informants had to be aged eighteen years or older on arrival. The assumption that migration would have the greatest impact on identity and belonging for them was based on two premises. First, identity has its foundations in pre-adulthood, in the society of primary socialization (Bottomley, 1979: 17) and many of its constructions are grounded in a specific time and place. Adults, having lived for longer periods in their homeland, are therefore likely to experience greater challenges to identity constructions (O’Tiarnaigh, 1997: 55). Secondly, younger immigrants would most probably enter the Australian educational system and would therefore undergo part of their socialization process in Australia. It is for this reason that Burnley (1986: 66) argued that immigrant children under the age of twelve should be regarded as ‘one category of second generation persons’. Of the 203 informants who were recruited for this study, 119 (59 per cent) were from the ROI (118 Catholic, 1 Protestant) and 84 (41 per cent) from NI (56 Catholic, 28 Protestant). While religious affiliation was not a selection criterion of the study, no persons of ‘other’ or ‘no religious’ persuasion were recruited. The sample’s gender breakdown was roughly equal (103 males, 100 females). Age at interview ranged from 24–68 years, with the majority (53 per cent) aged 35–44 years. Age on arrival was younger, ranging

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from 18–54 years. Ninety per cent of arrivals were under thirty-four years of age, the majority (55 per cent) in the 25–34 year age group. This age pattern differed a little from the general age profile that typified emigrant flow from the ROI at the time; it was the 15–24-year-olds rather than the 25–34 year age group who were most affected by emigration between 1987 and 1998 (Courtney, 2000: 303). All were employed before leaving Ireland; more than half (55 per cent) in professional/managerial positions and a further 23 per cent in trades. Consistent with peak Irish migration to Australia during this period, most (48 per cent) arrived between 1985 and 1989. Overall, 67 per cent of the sample arrived in the 1980s, 31 per cent in the 1990s and 3 per cent after 2000. Issues of belonging were explored from multiple angles through questions on self-identification pre- and post-migration, what being ‘Irish’ and being ‘Australian’ meant to informants, and what country(s) were considered home. Visitation and communication patterns, participation in ethnic events and formal citizenship uptake were used as performative measures of identity and belonging.

Narratives on belonging before migration Including NI immigrants in this study adds complexities to place-belongingness and the politics of belonging. This is not to imply that the situation in the ROI is unproblematic, particularly given the marginalization of Irish Protestants and Jews under its dominant Catholic ethno-nationalistic paradigm (Fanning, 2010: 396). Given Ireland’s sectarian divides, discussions of belonging would be incomplete without an ethno-religious lens. In so saying, an ‘uncritical conflation [of belonging] with the notion of identity and citizenship’ (Antonsich, 2010: 645) is not being advocated, nor is belonging conceptualized as unidimensional, bound to religion. Rather, it acknowledges that ‘essentialist notions of Britishness and Irishness are extremely powerful in Northern Ireland’ (Ní Laoire, 2002: 197) and self-identification(s) may provide insights into how belonging was constructed. Previous studies have shown a strong Protestant–British identity and Catholic–Irish self-identification in NI (Fahey et al., 2005; Gallagher, 1995; Graham, 1994; Poole, 1997), with some more nuanced identity constructs including ‘Northern Irish’, ‘Loyalist’ and ‘Unionist’ (Gallagher, 1995; Hennessey, 2008; McAuley, 1996). While more than half of the Protestant informants in this study (54 per cent) self-identified as British, the number reporting some form of ‘Irish’ identity in NI was unexpected. One in five Protestant informants self-identified as exclusively Irish, a further 14 per cent had a dual Irish–British identity and an additional 11 per cent assumed an NI identity. This suggests that Protestants’ self-identification in NI included a

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greater affinity with Irishness than previously shown. The majority of NI Catholics (88 per cent) reported an Irish self-identity. Given the study period and the fact that the diversification of the ROI’s population was mainly a phenomenon of the late 1990s/early 2000s (Fanning, 2010), Irish self-identity among ROI informants was uncontested. Narrative indicated that belonging in terms of Irishness was not uniform, as shown in the following quotes: I see [us] all as Irish. I see Southern Ireland as different because of the way they treat people from Northern Ireland. We’re ‘the black North’. . . . I would find it hard to settle in Southern Ireland because I’m from the North. I’d be treated as a stranger in my own country if I lived in Southern Ireland. (Male, NI, age forty) I see Northern Ireland as optional Irish. Being Irish is their choice. It really depends on the type of Northern Ireland person you are dealing with e.g. Unionist versus Nationalist. We all live on the same island. (Male, ROI, age thirty-five) I would say ‘Northern Irish’ to describe a person from Northern Ireland rather than just label them Irish. I would explain that they are part of England. They are in a limbo. I don’t know what they’d like me to see them as. I’m more likely to label them as ‘Irish with an asterix’. (Male, ROI, age forty-three) It doesn’t bother me. I always assumed Northern Ireland’s Protestants were British. It’s news to me that they might want to be Irish. I feel we are naïve living in the South. I never thought about who was or wasn’t Irish in Ireland. (Female, ROI, age forty-one)

The hegemonic and privileged positionality of the ROI Irish was a common theme throughout these narratives, irrespective of informants’ origins in Ireland. So too was the inferiority ascribed to those of NI origin (‘the black North’ or ‘Irish with an asterix’) who seek to assert Irish belonging. Premigration belonging was also deemed to have naturalized attributes: Being Catholic in Northern Ireland, I had more of a real sense of identity. Protestants in Ireland are more British. They are not really Irish. The Catholics have the real Irish culture. (Female, NI, age forty-six) You were either Catholic or Protestant back home. I’m proud of being Catholic Irish, a part of Southern Ireland. Protestant Irish are part of Britain. I’m more proud of being Catholic than Irish. Catholic automatically meant you were really Irish. (Female, NI, age thirty-nine)

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We’re all from a similar area, under the one umbrella. In Ireland we were so connected to the British Isles, we were led to believe that we were British, especially if you’re Protestant. I would have felt strange to have called myself Irish in Ireland. (Female, NI, age forty-one)

Religious affiliation was also linked to issues of authenticity in claims to belonging. ‘It means so much which side of the fence you are on. You are not considered to be fully Irish if you are Protestant’ (Male, NI, age forty). By default, this precluded NI Protestants from being considered ‘fully Irish’.

The impact of migration on belonging In Australia the parameters of belonging were challenged, particularly for those NI Protestants who had self-identified as Northern Irish or British: I feel there is no point in trying to say that I’m from a special part of Ireland. Australians and Americans end up saying ‘so you’re Irish’. (Male, NI, age fifty) I used to react to being called Irish here [in Australia], now I let it go. In the early days I tried to explain – it’s too hard to explain. It doesn’t really matter. Northern Ireland has the best of both worlds. You can call yourself either. (Female, NI, age forty-four)

However, not all informants reluctantly accepted an undifferentiated ‘Irish’ label in Australia: I’m British but I’m really Irish. I feel the Northern Ireland people are lost because they don’t have their own culture. They couldn’t identify with Britain. We felt in-between. I feel more Irish in Australia. I can say I’m Irish. (Female, NI, age fifty-three) Being Irish gives me a sense of belonging. I’m proud to be Irish. People like the Irish – they usually have some Irish ancestry or have visited Ireland. (Female, NI, age forty-five)

Homogenization therefore afforded freedom to assert ‘Irish’ belonging in Australia; something that some were felt they were denied in the homeland. NI Protestant informants’ claims of Irish belonging in Australia were accompanied by a pronounced shift away from self-identifying as British. Despite more than half (54 per cent) having self-identified as British in NI, only 14 per cent continued to assert any form of British label. Instead, belonging was reconstructed in terms of being Irish or Irish-Australian (54 per cent and 21 per cent respectively). Overall, 60 per cent of the sample claimed ‘Irish’ selfidentity. Only 2 per cent claimed a solely Australian self-identity and a further one-third favoured a hyphenated Irish-Australian label.

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(Re)negotiating belonging in Ireland One of the striking features of this study was the extent to which ‘missing kin’ (Baldassar, 2008) served as a key ‘affective driver of transnationalism’ (Dunn, 2005: 27). The relational void created by distance gave rise to the development of transnational social spaces (Pries, 2001) designed to maintain long-distance relationships. Indeed the ‘compulsion of proximity’ (Boden and Molotch, 1994: 258) and the need for co-presence were so strong that when compared with benchmark immigrant studies in Australia (Ang et al., 2002) and Vancouver (Hiebert and Ley, 2003), the contemporary Irish emerge as highly transnational in contact and visitation terms (O’Connor, 2010). Regular contact with family in Ireland was the norm for the majority (98 per cent), with almost half (48 per cent) reporting weekly or more frequent telephone calls to Ireland, and 94 per cent having made return visits. High levels of reciprocal visitation also occurred. Almost all informants (99 per cent) had received visitors from Ireland and in only 4 per cent of cases did these visitors not include immediate family members. Frequent visitation bridged relational voids experienced by informants (O’Connor, 2010), a point highlighted here: ‘during the first few years, I felt like a visitor when I went home. It was like I didn’t belong. Now I’m making more frequent visits, I no longer feel like a visitor’ (Female, ROI, age forty-one); ‘I went back after eighteen months and still felt part of Ireland. After four years I went back and felt like a tourist’ (Female, NI, age forty-one). Visitation also safeguarded belonging in Ireland and avoided being cast as an outsider there. Retention of accent was a critical part of informants’ cultural maintenance. Its significance was described in the following ways: ‘It is important to retain where you are from and your identity. I would hate to lose my accent’ (Male, ROI, age thirty-seven); and ‘I’m very proud of my Irishness. I pride myself that I haven’t lost my accent’ (Female, ROI, age forty-one). Preservation of accent as an ‘audible badge of identity’ (Colic-Peisker, cited in Chetkovich, 2003: 155) was seen by some as synonymous with retaining their Irish identity, and visitation afforded opportunities for co-presence to maintain accent. Meanwhile, in Australia informants commented that ‘I stop myself from drifting into an Aussie accent’ (Male, ROI, age forty-one), and ‘I have never tried to lose/maintain my accent. I hate being told: “you have a bit of an [Australian] accent” when I’m in Ireland’ (Male, ROI, age forty-eight). Acquiring Australianism in speech was seen to diminish Irishness and thereby threaten belonging in Ireland. Accent was therefore integral to preserving ‘authenticity and legitimation of claims to Irishness’ (Gray, 1999: 206) both in Ireland and Australia.

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Belonging in Australia When asked what being Australian meant to them, the majority (60 per cent) of informants stated that they were ‘not Australian’ and/or that it ‘meant nothing’ to them. A further third indicated that being Australian gave them a sense of pride and/or belonging. Failure to self-identify as Australian did not however signify anti-Australian sentiment: ‘I’m proud of living here, being part of it and being accepted. I’m as Australian as the next guy. I don’t think I will ever be Australian because I was not born here. I’ll never be fully accepted because of my accent’ (Male, ROI, age forty-eight); and ‘Australia is a home away from home for me. I really feel part of it. I’m proud to belong to it’ (Male, NI, age thirty-nine). Instead, disassociation with Australianness had more to do with being Irish than being anti-Australian: ‘I am not Australian. I will never be accepted as Australian because I sound different – even if I take out citizenship’ (Female, NI, age twenty-seven); and ‘I am not Australian. I can never be. My foundations are based on a totally different culture. I can never be Australian. I would be lying to myself. [Australian citizenship] is just a piece of paper’ (Male, ROI, age thirty-seven). A perceived inability to perform the hegemonic versions of Anglo-Australian because of their Irish accents and culture, coupled with a growing awareness of their Irish identity, emerged as two key themes underpinning informants’ resistance to Australian self-identification. Despite this, 60 per cent of all eligible7 informants had in fact been naturalized. For the majority (64 per cent), this decision was driven by pragmatic considerations such as ease of travel, security of residency in the event of return migration or changes in immigration policy, and access to entitlements. The remainder cited a commitment to Australia and a desire to participate fully in Australian society as their key motivating factors. Narratives on accent indicated distance between the group’s formal/legal citizenship status and their sense of belonging in Australia. A distinct reluctance to forfeit their Irish accents was evident despite their assessment that retention thereof precluded them from ever being considered Australian. The issue of accent therefore suggests that non-immigrant Anglo-Australians hold a more culturally privileged position than either visible or invisible immigrants with English-speaking non-Australian accents (O’Connor 2010).

Mobilizing ‘Irish’ identity in Australia Emigrants generally ‘are cut off from the representation of an important strand of their histories by a series of absence from spaces of cultural reproduction, in education, memorials and popular culture’ (Walter et al., 2002: 118). Some communities respond by developing ‘ethnic community capital’

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(Lalich, 2003: ix); the social infrastructure designed to satisfy the social, cultural, religious and recreational needs of their ethnic community, for example churches, sports, welfare, culture. Throughout Australia, many ethno-cultural organizations specifically cater for Irish immigrants. In the past such organizations provided important focal points for Irish immigrants, not only as social venues but also as an entrée into the ethno-cultural employment network (Grimes, 1988). Irish clubs also played an important role in ameliorating migration-related loss and in cultural maintenance (Chetkovich, 2001). However, in this study club membership was not a common mode for mobilizing belonging, with only 28 per cent of informants being members of ethno-cultural organizations. For members, these clubs played important social and cushioning functions: ‘I became part of Irish clubs and associations because I wanted to be part of the Irish community here. Without them, I would feel cut away’ (Male, ROI, age thirty-seven). Among non-members narratives of avoidance emerged, such as ‘I’ve avoided Irish clubs and associations’ (Male, ROI, age fifty); and ‘I swore I wouldn’t join Irish clubs or associations’ (Male, NI, age forty-four). Membership rates also differed by informants’ origins (19 per cent NI and 34 per cent ROI). Within the NI group, more Catholics than Protestants were club members (21 per cent compared with 14 per cent). While the former were members of a broad range of overtly Irish organizations, the four NI Protestant club members confined their membership to more secular organizations like the Irish Australian Chamber of Commence, the Irish Australian Welfare Bureau, Irish language group and a county association. The absence of Protestants from distinctly Irish organizations such as the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Celtic Club may suggest that the predominantly Catholic membership and iconography of these clubs inadvertently renders them sites of exclusion to NI Protestants. Informants’ engagement with St. Patrick’s Day celebrations was used as another performative measure of how Irish belonging was mobilized in Australia. For many Irish communities worldwide, this ethno-cultural celebration provides an opportunity to publicly express cultural distinctiveness in the largely multicultural countries in which they live (Cronin and Adair, 2002: 252). Through the iconic public cultural spectacle of the parade these otherwise invisible immigrants are afforded ‘a display of presence’ (Fortier, 1999: 51). For the study group, public expressions of Irishness were limited; only 15 per cent attended the Melbourne parade. However, most informants (85 per cent) celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in Australia, opting to do so in a pub environment (42 per cent) or at a privately organized function (21 per cent). Sixty per cent of NI Protestants reported celebrating St. Patrick’s Day while only 25 per cent had done so in NI. Readership of ethno-cultural publications was the third measure used. By

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providing immigrants with a means of maintaining contact with the larger immigrant community, readership can be seen as a private expression of collective identification. At the time of this study, Melbourne’s Irish communities had access to two main Australian-produced publications, namely The Irish Echo and Tain.8 However, almost two-thirds (63 per cent) read neither of these publications.

Where is home? Designations of home varied: Ireland for 38 per cent of respondents, Australia for 38 per cent, and 22 per cent said both. Those adapting a mainly Irish identity in Australia tended to construct Ireland as home while those who self-identified as Irish-Australian or Australian ascribed exclusive or dual importance to Australia as home. In each context, ‘home’ emerged as a highly relational construct with strong embodied elements: ‘If my parents were dead, what is there in Ireland? The home place is not the same’ (Male, NI, age thirty-seven); and ‘My mother’s death was freedom to live in Australia. It was then I started to see Australia positively’ (Female, NI, age forty). However, family also played an important role in designating Australia as home: ‘Australia is home. My house, my wife and kids are here’ (Male, NI, age fortyone). Family formation was a post-migration phenomenon. On arrival, 68 per cent were either relationship-free or were part of a childless relationship. However, when interviewed very few were not in a relationship, and the number of parents with children had more than doubled in the study period (O’Connor, 2004). Children provided informants with a strong anchoring effect in Australia, limiting the range of transnational mobilities in which they were prepared to engage. Few anticipated that permanent return migration would be a likely part of their migration experience. Likewise, retirement-centred return migration, as discussed by Ley and Kobayashi (2003), was also precluded. It also emerged that concerns about belonging for the second generation in Ireland were a factor in the transnational visitation patterns discussed earlier: ‘When we were last home in Ireland, the kids didn’t know their cousins and this upset my husband’ (Female, ROI, age thirty-five). This echoes the dilemmas of belonging experienced by second-generation Irish in England (Gray, 2006). Having children altered the hierarchy of belonging between Ireland and Australia: ‘I feel that when your parents die, your kids are your family. I feel the mother holds the family together. My kids are my reason for staying in Australia’ (Female, NI, age forty). For some, having family in both countries created a dual sense of home: ‘It’s like having two homes. Australia is home because I have my own family here. In Ireland, home is where my parents are and where I was born’ (Female, ROI, age forty-five).

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Longevity of residence in Australia and career achievements also featured in informants’ narratives of home: ‘Australia is home because I have lived here a long time’ (Male, ROI, age thirty-three); and ‘Australia is home. It’s where I earn a living and where my ties are at the moment’ (Male, ROI, age thirty-five). Changing economic circumstances in Ireland, and the achievement of upward occupational mobility and familial responsibilities in Australia, provided pragmatic considerations and limits to how belonging could be mobilized. For many, therefore, home, in location terms, was going to be Australia. Nonetheless, embodied and emotive links in both countries meant that sense of home would be transnational, ‘shaped by the interplay of both mobile and located home and identities and by processes and practices of home-making both within particular places and across transnational space’ (Blunt and Dowling, 2006: 196). The impact of gender, mobility and age on informants’ responses For the most part, responses were not significantly differentiated by gender, occupational/social mobility or age. Rather, informants’ North/South, Catholic/Protestant origins emerged as the most significant axes of differences throughout the themes explored. However, two key areas of gender differentiation were found, in relation to homesickness and constructions of home. While separation from family and friends was listed as the key migrationinduced loss by both genders, a larger proportion of women did so (69 per cent compared with 55 per cent of males). Likewise, while both genders listed absence from family events, crises and Christmas as the key triggers for their on-going homesickness, more than twice as many women did so (48 per cent compared with 21 per cent for males). This signified a greater attachment to familial and friendship networks in Ireland for women than men. Curiously, though, when it came to designations of where informants considered home to be, women were almost equally divided in their assertions that Ireland (35 per cent), Australia (32 per cent) or both Ireland and Australia (32 per cent) were home. The male equivalents were 41 per cent, 45 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. Undoubtedly, family formation and relationship ties in Australia provided an anchoring effect for both genders in Australia, thereby generating a sense of home, while the maintenance of ties with family and friends in Ireland perpetuated a sense of home in Ireland. Therefore, while gender was not a significant axis of differentiation for many of the themes addressed in this study, the specific findings in relation to homesickness and home affirm the gendered nature of the migration experiences of contemporary Irish immigrants.

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Conclusion As Antonsich (2010: 650) aptly states: ‘Every politics of belonging involves two opposite sides: the side that claims belonging and the side that has the power of “granting” belonging.’ Informants’ experiences illustrate the complexities and fluidities of these positionalities, particularly for those from NI. Echoing Ní Laoire’s (2002: 186) argument that ‘migration from the space of Northern Ireland enables or requires different processes of identification’, many Catholic informants achieved a confirmation of Irishness while Protestant self-identity was disrupted as Irishness was either imposed or freely articulated in Australia. These shifts in essentialist NI identities confirm how ‘identity is always plural and in process, even when it might be construed or represented as fixed’ (Brah, 1998: 195). Embodied and emotive components of belonging were also highlighted. The imperative to bridge geographical distance generated a ‘diasporic space’ that included ‘the entanglement, the intertwining of the genealogies of dispersion with those of “staying put”’ (Brah, 1998: 209). Communication and visitation were deployed to maintain belonging in the homeland and thus generate transnational social spaces. Further evidence of the embodied and emotive underpinnings of transnational belonging was provided by the anchoring effect of relationships in Australia and the extent that accent simultaneously defined belonging and ‘otherness’. Emotions, therefore, ‘should not simply be seen as a convenient and occasional resource called upon to explain certain peculiarities of transnational family life but they need to be seen as constitutive of transnational family life’ (Skrbis, 2008: 236). The importance of life course factors in shaping and adding multi-locality to and changing hierarchies in belonging need on-going acknowledgement. The gap between informants’ formal and informal belonging in Australia affirms that ‘even when political belonging is granted, this might still not be enough to generate a sense of place-belongingness’ (Antonsich, 2010: 650). This demonstrates that invisibility as immigrants is not necessarily synonymous with belonging and that associated constructions of not being ‘real immigrants’ are misguided not only in the case of the Irish but other immigrant groups also.

Notes 1 The term ‘Ireland-born’ is used in Australian census reports to refer to people born in the ROI and thus excludes those born in NI. 2 After World War II, insufficient numbers of UK and Ireland immigrants resulted in Australia’s immigration policies being amended to include persons from continental Europe and, more recently, South-east and East Asia. 3 Specified age, education and occupational skills criteria now apply.

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4 Temporary entry schemes including Working Holiday Maker and short-term business visas were introduced. 5 Of the 600,000 immigrants who entered Australia in the period 1929–40, 63 per cent and 10 per cent were from the UK and Ireland respectively (Burnley, 2001: 29–31). 6 Many of the contemporary Irish immigrants may have first lived in Great Britain, the USA, Africa and/or the Middle East (O’Farrell, 2000: 313–14). 7 Applicants must satisfy a two-year residency requirement as permanent residents. 8 The Irish Echo is a fortnightly publication with a national circulation of 17,000 and is Australia’s only Irish newspaper (Echo website, 2005). Its focus is contemporary and includes articles on events in both Ireland and Australia. In contrast, Tain, which is an acronym for The Australian Irish Network, began in 2000. Published six times per year in magazine format, Tain had a normal print run of 2200 copies in 2005, which increased to 4000 for the St. Patrick’s Day edition.

References Ang, I., J.E. Brand, G. Noble and D. Wilding (2002) Living Diversity: Australia’s Multicultural Future. Artarmon, Australia: SBS. Antonsich, M. (2010) ‘Searching for belonging – an analytical framework’, Geography Compass, 4:6, 644–59. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2006) 2006 Census Tables. Available online at www.censusdata.abs.gov.au. Accessed 10 July 2010. Baldassar, L. (2008) ‘Missing kin and longing to be together: emotions and the construction of co-presence in transnational relationships’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29:3, 247–66. Blunt, A. and R. Dowling (2006) Home. London: Routledge. Boden, D. and H.L. Molotch (1994) ‘The compulsion of proximity’, in R. Friedland and D. Boden (eds) Nowhere, Space, Time and Modernity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 253–85. Bottomley, G. (1979) After the Odyssey. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Brah, A. (1998) Cartographies of Diaspora. London: Routledge. Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research (1996). Settler Arrivals by State of Intended Residence 1994–95. Statistical Report No.20. Canberra: BIMPR. Burnley, I.H. (1986) ‘Convergence or occupational and residential segmentation?’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 22:1, 65–83. Burnley, I.H. (2001) The Impact of Immigration on Australia. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Chetkovich, J. (2001) ‘The scattered re-gathered – Irish clubs in Perth, Western Australia in the late twentieth century’, Australian Journal of Irish Studies, 1: 70–7. Chetkovich, J. (2003) ‘The “New Irish” in Australia: a Western Australian perspective’, PhD dissertation, University of Western Australia.

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Courtney, D. (2000) ‘The quantification of Irish migration with particular emphasis on the 1980s and 1990s’, in A. Bielenberg (ed.) The Irish Diaspora. Harlow: Pearson Education, 287–316. Cronin, M. and D. Adair (2002) The Wearing of the Green. London: Routledge. Department of Immigration and Citizenship (n.d.) ‘Community information summary Ireland-born’. Available online at www.immi.gov.au/media/ publications/statistics/comm-summ/_pdf/ireland.pdf. Accessed 20 November 2010. Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2004) Population Flows Immigration Aspects. Available online at www.immi.gov. au/media/publications/statistics/popflows2002–3/appendices.pdf. Accessed 20 November 2010. Dunn, K. (2005) ‘A paradigm of transnationalism for migration studies’, New Zealand Population Review, 31:2, 15–31. Fahey, T., B.C. Hayes and R. Sinnott (2005) Conflict and Consensus: A Study of Values and Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Fanning, B. (2010) ‘From developmental Ireland to migration nation: immigration and shifting rules of belonging in the Republic of Ireland’, Economic and Social Review, 41:3, 395–412. Fortier, A.-M. (1999) ‘Re-membering places and the performance of belonging(s)’, Theory, Culture and Society, 16:2, 41–64. Gallagher, M. (1995) ‘How many nations are there in Ireland?’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 18:4, 715–39. Graham, B.J. (1994) ‘No place of the mind: contested Protestant representations of Ulster’, Ecumene, 1:3, 257–81. Gray, B. (1999) ‘Longings and belongings – gendered spatialities of Irishness’, Irish Studies Review, 7:2, 193–210. Gray, B. (2006) ‘Curious hybridities: transnational negations of migrancy through generation’, Irish Studies Review, 14:2, 207–23. Grimes, S. (1988) ‘The Sydney Irish: a hidden ethnic group’, Irish Geography, 21: 69–77. Grimes, S. (2001) ‘Irish immigration after 1945’, in J. Jupp (ed.) The Australian People. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 480–4. Hage, G. (1998) White Nation. Annandale, NSW: Pluto Press. Hay, I. (2000) Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Hennessey, T. (2008) ‘The evolution of Ulster Protestant identity in the twentieth century: nations and patriotism’, in M. Busteed, F. Neal and J. Tonge (eds) Irish Protestant Identities. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 257–69.

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Hickman, M. and B. Walter (1997) Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain. London: Commission for Racial Equality. Hickman, M.J., S. Morgan, B. Walter and J.M. Bradley (2005) ‘The limitations of whiteness and the boundaries of Englishness: second-generation Irish identifications and positioning in multiethnic Britain’, Ethnicities, 5:2, 160–82. Hiebert, D. and D. Ley (2003) Characteristics of Immigrant Transnationalism in Vancouver, Vancouver Centre of Excellence Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis, Working Paper Series No. 03–15. Ignatiev, N. (1995) How the Irish became White. New York: Routledge. Lalich, W. (2003) Ethnic Community Capital in Sydney. Accord Report No. 11, Australian Centre for Co-operative Research and Development. Ley, D. and A. Kobayashi (2003) ‘Back to Hong Kong? Return migration or transnational sojourn?’, Paper presented to the Sixth Annual Metropolis Conference, Edmonton, 21–24 March. MacDonagh, O. (1986) ‘Emigration from Ireland to Australia: an overview’, in C. Kiernan (ed.) Australia and Ireland 1788–1988: Bicentenary Essays. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 121–37. Madden, R. and S. Young (1993) Women and Men Immigrating to Australia: Their Characteristics and Immigration Decisions. Canberra: Government Publication Services. McAuley, J. (1996) ‘Under the Orange banner: reflections on the northern Protestant experiences of emigration’, in P. O’Sullivan (ed.) The Irish World Wide: Religion and Identity. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 43–69. McDowell, L. (1996) ‘Spatializing feminism’, in N. Duncan (ed.) Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality. London: Routledge, 28–44. Negra, D. (2006) ‘The Irish in Us: Irishness, performativity, and popular culture’, in D. Negra (ed.) The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity and Popular Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1–19. Ní Laoire, C. (2002) ‘Discourses of nation among migrants from Northern Ireland: Irishness, Britishness and the spaces in-between’, Scottish Geographical Journal, 118:3, 183–200. O’Connor, P.M. (2004) ‘Recent Irish immigration to Australia: a Melbourne case study’, Australian Journal of Irish Studies, 4, 220–30. O’Connor, P.M. (2010) ‘Bodies in and out of place: embodied transnationalism among invisible immigrants – the contemporary Irish in Australia’, Population, Space and Place, 16, 75–83. O’Farrell, P. (2000) The Irish in Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press. O’Mahoney, B. (2009) ‘The popularity of Irish theme pubs in contemporary Australia: a legacy of Irish migration’, Tourism, Culture and Communication, 9:1/2, 115–23.

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O’Tiarnaigh, C.N. (1997) ‘Acculturative stress among Irish immigrants and challenges to personal identity’, PhD dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology. Polyzoi, E. (1985) ‘Reflective phenomenology: an alternative approach to the study of immigrant experience’, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 16:2, 47–72. Poole, M. (1997) ‘In search of ethnicity in Ireland’, in B. Graham (ed.) In Search of Ireland: A Cultural Geography. London: Routledge, 128–47. Pries, L. (2001) ‘The approach of transnational social spaces’, in L. Pries (ed.) New Transnational Social Spaces. London: Routledge, 3–33. Reid, R. and B. Kelson (2010) Sinners, Saints and Settlers: A Journey through Irish Australia. Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press. Skrbis, Z. (2008) ‘Transnational families: theorising migration, emotions and belonging’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29:3, 231–46. Walter, B., S. Morgan, M.J. Hickman and J.M. Bradley (2002) ‘Family stories, public silence: Irish identity construction amongst the second-generation Irish in England’, Scottish Geographical Journal, 118:3, 201–17.

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9 Betwixt, between and belonging: negotiating identity and place in asylum seeker direct provision accommodation centres Angèle Smith

When speaking with Ilissa1 about life in Ireland in the asylum seeker direct provision accommodation centre, she explained that, ‘It will never be your real home – nothing you can do will make it your real home. But you need to make this time and place some kind of home for you, like you belong to something, otherwise you will just go mad.’ (Excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 24 May 2008)

This chapter focuses on the concepts of identity and place as expressed through a discussion of asylum seekers’ sense of belonging and nonbelonging as they await a decision on their refugee application. The legal status of an asylum seeker is defined in Irish domestic law under Section 8 of the Refugee Act, 1996, as amended (Irish Statute Book, n. d.) as a person in fear of persecution who seeks to be recognized as a refugee under the terms of the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees. Under asylum seeker status, a person is granted ‘leave to remain’ in the state until they have presented their case to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) and/or the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and their refugee status has been determined. This process can last as long as five years, during which time asylum seekers are required to live in the state-provided ‘direct provision accommodation centres’ located throughout the country (Reception and Integration Agency (RIA), 2010). I argue that during this waiting time in the direct provision accommodation centres, asylum seekers are in a state of spatial and social limbo. It is in these accommodation centres that asylum seekers learn the practice of Irish society, where many cultures (Irish as well as the many cultures represented

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by the asylum seeker newcomers) meet and are negotiated. In fact, this period of limbo is defined by constant negotiation of living between places and between identities. Asylum seekers in these accommodation centres are within the Irish political borders but are not within the social borders of Irish society. They are not fully participant either in the Irish world or in the world of their home country. Rather, they are constantly negotiating the transnational experience of simultaneously belonging and non-belonging. Living between worlds, belonging to more than one place and negotiating between more than one culture and identity, life for asylum seekers in direct provision accommodation centres is a world betwixt and between. This chapter is based on a six-year longitudinal anthropological ethnographic study of the asylum process and the experiences of asylum seekers in the direct provision accommodation centres (Smith, 2008, 2009, 2010). Over the years, I visited most of the accommodation centres but intensively focused research at six centres where I practised on-going participant observation in addition to numerous interviews of asylum seekers, as well as centre managers and staff.2 This was independent scholarly research funded by a standard research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada based on the merit of the study’s potential academic and practicebased contributions. I was not associated with or linked to any nongovernmental or governmental offices or agencies in Ireland or Canada for this study. My research project concerns the negotiation of social and spatial inclusion and exclusion of asylum seekers in Ireland and focuses on the social/spatial engineering of the state as it controls the movement of and daily space afforded to these newcomers. In an attempt to control who comes into and stays within the Irish borders, the state’s asylum seeker policies, and particularly the policies concerning accommodation and provision in these centres, largely act to manage and shape the asylum seekers’ sense of belonging and non-belonging in Ireland. Yet at the same time it is important to recognize the agency of asylum seekers to maintain connections and belongings to their home cultures and so actively forge bridges across transnational spaces. Using observations and interview narratives from this ethnographic research at a number of centres around the country, I explore the complexities of asylum seekers’ sense of belonging and non-belonging to Ireland and to their home countries. In this chapter, I first briefly outline who are the asylum seekers coming to Ireland, keeping in mind the issues of belonging and non-belonging. The context of their belonging/non-belonging is the system of the direct provision accommodation centres, and I next explain how and why these centres were established as an essential part of the asylum process as well as offer some description of these places. It is clear that the state manages asylum seekers spatially within these centres. In the subsequent section, I continue this

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top-down perspective of how the state controls asylum seekers’ lives in the centres by exploring the daily interactions and rules governing their space, time and cultural activities. Next the bottom-up perspective is presented as I examine the impact on and the experiences of asylum seekers living in these places of limbo to illustrate the spatial, social and ideological distancing that takes place in the accommodation centres. Finally, I end the chapter by showing how asylum seekers navigate the asylum process in Ireland by maintaining and practising some aspects of their home cultures, thus forming connections between the two worlds in which they simultaneously live.

Asylum seekers and the direct provision accommodation system The increase in asylum seeker numbers in the late 1990s and early 2000s was significant: in 1992, only 39 individuals sought asylum in Ireland; by 2000 that number had increased to almost 12,000 (US Committee for Refugees, 2003). For a country with a population of only about 4.5 million (Central Statistics Office, 2009), the implications were great and led to rapidly changing state policy and infrastructure, as well as to a growing consciousness of ‘newcomer’ peoples, cultures and identities on the part of Irish society. While the number of new asylum applications has dropped more recently (in 2010, just 1939 applications were received (RIA Statistics, 2011)), the number of asylum seekers still living in the direct provision accommodation system while they await a decision on their refugee status remains high: in June 2011, there were still 5800 asylum seekers in centres around the country (RIA Statistics, 2011). Despite fewer new asylum seekers, issues concerning newcomer identity, place and belonging are still persistent and relevant in Ireland today. The largest percentage of asylum seekers since 2000 has consistently been African, and the largest nationality group has consistently been Nigerian. State statistics confirm this continuing predominance: as an average over the last ten years, Africans have represented 53 per cent of all asylum seekers and specifically Nigerians have represented 28 per cent of all asylum seekers (RIA Statistics, 2007, 2009). Although today less than half as many single women apply for asylum as do men (a ratio of 2:5 (ORAC, 2010)), prior to the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum (Smith, 2008) the reverse was true and twice as many women as compared with men sought asylum. Thus it was that the largest group of asylum seekers was highly visible as a racialized and gendered group. This has had its own implications in how asylum seekers have been and are perceived and treated by Irish society and media (Lentin, 2003; Smith, 2008). I suggest that new social boundaries were erected around these newcomers to keep them apart from Irish society, barring them from full inclusion into Irish society. Given that all but 5–6 per cent of asylum seeker

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claims are denied (at least prior to the Appeals process) (RIA Statistics, 2010), some might contend that ‘integration’ is not and should not be part of the asylum process. That is not really the point. What is critical here is that asylum seekers, who live in accommodation centres for an average of five years waiting for a decision on their refugee status, are marginalized and excluded from Irish society and are denied basic human rights. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person (Article 3); everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution (Article 14); and no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile (Article 9) (UN UDHR, 2011). Further, regardless if someone is a national citizen or an asylum seeker and thus, in a legal sense is more liminal and transient, under the International Bill of Human Rights all peoples should have the right to freedom of movement and residence; the right to education; the right to work; and the right to freely participate in cultural life (and, I will add, the right to cultural life is the right to self-identity and a sense of belonging and wellness). In the accommodation centres asylum seekers are denied these rights and are removed from Irish society. In 2000, with the increased numbers of asylum seekers (both newly arriving and backlogged as a result of the slow and ad hoc application process), the state wanted to manage and monitor those coming into its borders seeking asylum. The Irish state was anxious not to be seen as an ‘easy alternative’ to claiming asylum either in the UK or other EU member states. To keep in step with the Common Travel Area partner and to act as a deterrent to so-called back-door immigration, the system of direct provision accommodation worked to manage and control the movement and whereabouts of asylum seekers. Previously, the few numbers of asylum seekers had been given vouchers and were allowed to find their own lodgings, food and way of life in Ireland until their refugee application claim was decided. In 2000, a suggestion was put forward in the Dáil (the Irish Parliament) for using ‘Floatels’ – essentially ‘floating hotels’ on barges which were proposed to house asylum seekers and be harboured in ports around the country. Though the debate was shelved, it was nevertheless clear that the state was searching for a means to spatially govern the asylum seeker ‘problem’. What was resolved was the system of direct provision accommodation centres where the Irish state provides food and shelter for those awaiting a decision on their refugee claim. In April 2001, the RIA was established under the aegis of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, to manage and operate the direct provision accommodation system (Irish Refugee Council, 2002, 2004). Since 2001, it has been considered an essential part of the asylum process that asylum seekers are required to reside at accommodation centres or their application for asylum will be withdrawn and refused (RIA, 2007).

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For the first ten to fourteen days after making their application to claim refugee status asylum seekers stay in a ‘reception centre’. During this initial reception, asylum seekers are instructed about legal, health and welfare services and are issued a temporary residency certificate and health card. After this initial ‘reception’, asylum seekers are then relocated and ‘dispersed’ to an accommodation centre situated around the country. These direct provision centres are in old ‘hotels, guesthouses, hostels, former convents/nursing homes, mobile home sites, system-built facilities and apartments [for asylum seekers with special needs]’ (RIA, 2007). At present there are approximately fifty centres around the country (although there have been as many as seventy-five at one time) (RIA Statistics, 2005, 2010). The spatial size, layout and structure of the centres vary. One accommodation centre houses approximately 200 individuals in one of Ireland’s larger cities, and specifically in the heart of that city’s tourist centre filled with B&Bs and small hotels. At the other extreme, another centre (now closed) located in a former hostel in a small village in the west housed less than twenty individuals. (Many of the smaller accommodation centres were closed in late 2004 in favour of larger centres.) A few centres are ‘systembuilt’ facilities. These too vary in form. One centre on the outskirts of a large city is made up of a series of seven two-storey barrack-like pre-fabricated buildings for residential use along with one large building which houses the reception and administrative offices, the crèche, the medical offices, laundry, dining room and kitchen, as well as the communal public rooms. Another centre also has centralized reception buildings that are ‘system built’ but in contrast the residents here live in 100 individual mobile home units that are laid out in a grid pattern of ten ‘streets’, each with ten mobile homes. Often a family or single men or single women living together share these units. Some centres in previous hotels, hostels and dormitories (such as those found in the old convents and colleges) have medium to large-sized private bedrooms where single men or single women or single mothers and their children share with one another. These rooms might share a common bathroom or multiple rooms might share larger bathroom facilities. Regardless of their spatial layout, most centres have overcrowded private spaces and limited (and mostly poorly used) public spaces of common rooms. Why the shift to these specific types of facilities? In addition to the state’s response of controlling and managing the increased number of asylum seekers through the accommodation system, it is also significant that in 2001, with Foot and Mouth disease in Ireland in the spring/summer and 9/11 in the autumn, tourism and tourist centres were suffering. For a country whose economy is in large measure dependent on tourism this was a blow felt by many (Irish Times, 2001; McCaid, 2001). With the number of refugees coming to Ireland reaching its peak, it was at this time that the state arrived

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at the decision to look for hostels, hotels and other kinds of lodges that might be converted into asylum seeker accommodation centres. Thus there was a shift from transnational tourist bodies (in guesthouses around the country) to transnational asylum-seeking bodies – a shift from welcomed outsiders to ‘threatening’ outsiders who must be controlled and governed. What remains despite this shift is an ideology that these newcomers are transient, temporary and not a part of Irish society, hence furthering the significance of the accommodation centres as a place of limbo and a place between worlds.3 These centres are transnational spaces – a borderland between home and host countries, within Irish borders but excluded from full participation in Irish society. These centres are where asylum seekers live, where they call ‘home’ in Ireland; they are important places of interaction between asylum seekers and Irish society. They are places where the asylum seekers learn the practices of Irish society, a place where many cultures meet, and where there is a negotiation between inclusion and exclusion, between belonging and non-belonging. The accommodation centres thus are both the context for and shape the process of the transnational experiences of asylum seekers in Ireland.

Accommodation centres: state control of asylum seeker sense of place and belonging In the previous discussion of how and why the accommodation system was established and what these centres are like spatially, it is clear that the state manages asylum seekers’ sense of place and belonging within these centres. To continue the examination from a top-down perspective, in addition to being managed through spatial limitations, asylum seekers’ lives within the centres are controlled through a web of bureaucracy and rules, as well as restrictions of time and other daily activities. While the centres keep asylum seekers distanced from Irish society, paradoxically asylum seekers are required to learn and negotiate the culture of Irish policies and bureaucracies as well as cultural norms. The centres are sites of daily interaction with the Irish way of organizing time, space and culture. Certainly the asylum seeker application process is an intricate bureaucratic web of policies, procedures, administrative hierarchies and protocols, and asylum seekers must navigate themselves through official documentation and legal proceedings, the language and nuances of which would bewilder most indigenous Irish. In addition to this world of legalese and bureaucracy, the day-to-day experience of asylum seekers living in the accommodation centres is also an exercise in learning about their host country’s ways. Life within the accommodation centres is regulated by the Irish state. Margaret from Kenya told me:

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After moving around from centre to centre, now I don’t want to move anymore [she has a fourteen-month-old baby]. I want to settle down and make a home. I would love to have my own home where I could cook and do my own thing – not worry about other people’s rules and time schedules. This morning I didn’t feel well but I had to look at the time to be down [to the cafeteria] before 10:00a.m. so I could get breakfast and I will have to be back here at 12:00 for lunch. If I was in my own house and home, I could have breakfast at 12 o’clock if I wanted. (Excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 25 May 2008)

Margaret’s frustration speaks to some of the ways in which asylum seekers’ lives in the centres are regulated by policies: space, time, food and activities are all managed, controlled and standardized. I have mentioned that most centres have overcrowded private spaces, as often families or single men or single women share medium to large-sized bedrooms. There are limited (and mostly poorly used) public spaces of common rooms. Sometimes these common rooms, such as the dining room, laundry or rooms for on-site classes, are only open for access at certain times of the day but are otherwise locked, thus echoing what Margaret said about the dining hall being closed and food only served according to scheduled routines. In addition to when one can eat being regulated, other regulated time schedules include: when a resident can come into and/or leave the centre (in some centres doors are locked in the late evening); and how many days one can be away from the centre without penalty, since each resident has to sign in at the centre reception offices daily to prove that they are still living in the system. This regulation of time and space is characteristic of the institutionalization of life inside the accommodation centre. Beyond time and space, many other aspects of the life of the asylum seeker in the centres are also managed and regulated. In addition to having when and where one must eat regulated, what one eats is also controlled and fixed by the centre managers and staff. In recent years, there has been a concerted effort in most of the centres towards including more culturally appropriate foods in the menus. This was as a result of the many complaints and even public protests on the part of asylum seekers. On 29 March 2006, many of the residents of the Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre, in Cork, took to the streets, blockading the busy thoroughfare linking the city to the airport, to publicly protest how they were being treated in the centre. The issue of food quality and cultural inappropriateness was uppermost in the list of grievances (Irish Independent, 2006). While it is more common now to see menus including rice, peanut chicken, crayfish, spicy palm oil or other ethnic foods, asylum seekers also have been enculturated by the persistence and prevalence of Irish cultural foods including potatoes, chips, lamb, ham and boiled vegetables. Asylum seekers in the centres are obliged to learn and negotiate Irish norms around food and culture.

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‘House rules’ or centre regulations concerning activities and conduct are posted throughout the centres’ common areas and in some cases front entrances and reception areas are literally wallpapered with flyers and notices. The information on these postings ranges from information about medical screening, to rules about identification and security surveillance, to health and safety warnings about female genital mutilation and chickenpox, to regulations concerning required activities on dispersal days, to where to bring dirty linens, to how late you can listen to music in common and/or private rooms, and the list continues. These house rules and other information regulate what asylum seekers can do, and when and where and with whom they can do it. Part of this of course has to do with the range and variation of the different cultures that share the bounded space of the centre. Chris, a twenty-four-year old Nigerian mother of two, tried to explain: ‘there are so many people from so many different places and cultures, it is hard to please everyone and people get frustrated and want to live their own way, but they can’t really because they are stuck here living with everyone else’ (excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 24 May 2008). These regulations concerning activities and conduct have the effect of attempting to homogenize and assimilate the various ‘othernesses’ of the asylum seekers in the accommodation centres. There is no area of life that is not in some way, large or small, controlled and shaped by living in the centres. Whether it involves childcare practices, healthcare, language and language barriers or cultural attitudes, all are influenced by the experiences of life in the centre and asylum seekers must negotiate their way through this Irish space even though it is space on the margins of Irish society. As we will see below, the impact on and the experiences of asylum seekers living in these places of limbo illustrate the spatial, social and ideological distancing that takes place in the accommodation centres.

Accommodation centres as limbo and ‘places between’ It was two days before Christmas, dark and rainy and midnight when the first asylum seekers arrived at this centre. They would have been packed up onto the bus in Dublin with other asylum seekers and then they drove all afternoon and evening, stopping along the way to let off a few asylum seekers at one centre and a few more at another centre. By the time they were on the last part of the journey out to this centre, it was late at night and it was raining, they couldn’t see out into the dark and they had no idea of where they were being taken. When they arrived at midnight, we offered them sandwiches and tea, thinking this a nice treat – only to learn some time after that this type of food was very unfamiliar to them and so only added to their bewilderment. (Excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 10 June 2006)

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This story, recounted in an interview with a centre manager, epitomizes the sense of the ‘beyond’ and the isolation represented by many of the accommodation centres that are far removed, on the outskirts of towns or deep in the country. There is an issue here of spatial distance but also of social and ideological distancing experienced by asylum seekers. Asylum seekers lack legal and social status and entitlement: they are not allowed to work, or to attend post-secondary education; they have no right to choose where they will live within the accommodation system, but are subject to immediate displacements to other accommodation centres. Further, asylum seekers are constantly waiting – waiting for the decision on their refugee claim – and are constantly in fear of a negative response and thus deportation. These major issues of concern for asylum seekers maintain their marginalized position, and deny them the freedom to actively participate in Irish society. After initial reception, asylum seekers are ‘dispersed’ to individual direct provision centres situated around the country. Fear of ‘ghettoization’ resulted in the dispersal system in which distribution aimed to keep the asylum seeker population less than one-third of 1 per cent of the indigenous Irish population of the local Health Board Area (RIA, 2007). Rather than a means to integrate the asylum seekers into the fabric of Irish life, the goal, and most certainly the consequence, of dispersal was to cause the asylum seekers’ issues to ‘disappear’ in ‘places apart’ from the rest of Irish society. There is evidence for careful spatial engineering to avoid the development of ‘ethnic enclaves’ within any one area across the country, and specifically to avoid situating asylum seeker centres in the Dublin area – thus removing most of the asylum seeker population from the cosmopolitan city centre (for centre locations and descriptions, see Smith, 2010). There was little consideration of how this dispersed accommodation was contrary to the asylum process itself, which is centralized in Dublin city. In order to go to official interviews, the asylum seeker must travel to and from his or her accommodation to Dublin, often taking day-long bus journeys and having to stay overnight before returning the next day to their centre. Similarly, the psychological effects on the asylum seekers of the isolation and distancing of these centres were not considered. Some centres, especially in the early years of this system, were small (housing no more than twenty individuals) and were the only centre in a small village far removed in the far west of the country where the life would be sheltered and quiet. In other cases, the centres were gated communities far off main roads behind fences and security surveillances. These are surely ‘places apart’. This system allows the state to control the social space of the asylum seekers and their social interactions with and experiences of Irish society: allocating often marginal and gated asylum seeker space that confines and manages new cultural and social borders.

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While waiting for their refugee status in the accommodation centres, asylum seekers are not allowed to work nor attend post-secondary education. ‘What is a man to do if he cannot work? How is he to be a father and show his children that he has value in the family if he cannot work?’, lamented Amadi, a thirty-one-year-old Nigerian man as we sat at the picnic table in the centre’s courtyard (excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 12 June 2006). This was a common grievance repeated over and over in my interviews with male asylum seekers, despite the fact that many men in the centres did clandestinely find jobs. In fact, during the weekdays there was a decided lack of men at the centres.4 Centre managers and staff turned a blind eye, recognizing that it was common practice for the men and argued that: ‘sure, what else had they to do?’ It was not nearly as usual for women asylum seekers to work because many were responsible for the care of their young children. While several of the centres offered part-time crèche facilities (though the number of children permitted was far fewer than the number of children in the centre), women still were the primary care givers to their children. What the crèche facilities did offer for some was the time to take on-site courses, often organized through FÁS (Foras Áiseanna Saothair: Ireland’s National Training and Employment Authority) programmes. At certain centres, the FÁS classes were well established and included language, sewing, computer, communication, family care and cooking classes. Though men were not excluded, these classes were most often attended only by women. Perhaps it is somewhat ironic that the National Training and Employment Authority offered these courses when, as asylum seekers, they were not legally permitted to work. Further, since they were not allowed to take postsecondary education, the courses only targeted a small proportion of the residents who, for example, may have only had remedial-level language skills. Nevertheless, these programmes provided a venue for a meeting of cultures, and a place for asylum seekers to learn about Irish life. While not perfect, I would argue that these programmes were the best practices of inclusion at the centres. FÁS and similar kinds of courses also presented an escape from the boredom of living in the centres. Women asylum seekers in particular struggled with filling their time. If their children were of school age they were alone all day waiting for their return and with little to occupy themselves (see also Conlon, 2011; Mountz, 2011). Especially hard, for many of the women that I spoke with, was that they were not permitted to make their own meals, to cook for their own families. This was not simply a matter of fulfilling their ‘role as a mother to feed their children’, as Oba, a young Nigerian mother, explained to me (excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 15 April 2008), but was also an issue of denying them the role of being culture carriers and culture propagators. When the direct provision system was first established, some

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cooks in the centres had women asylum seekers come into the kitchens to teach them how to cook properly in the fashion of their home cultures. However, food and safety regulations soon put a stop to this practice, and while most of the centre caterers attempt to incorporate some ethnic foods at each meal, residents still complain that it is ‘not the same as at home’. I sat across the table from Beatrice in the bright green cafeteria, stirring my Nescafe coffee. We were working on English grammar lessons together with the College volunteer students. ‘How is your son doing? I heard he has been not feeling well?’ Beatrice drew her eyes from her workbook and I noticed that they were filling with tears. ‘His stomach aches and he feels terrible’, she told me. ‘But what can I expect, if I cannot feed him the food that he needs to make him well? He doesn’t like the food that he is given here; it is not good food for him. He needs his own kind of food, he needs Nigerian food but he can’t get that here.’ (Excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 15 April 2008)

Beatrice’s complaints that her son was ill because he was not getting his ‘own kind of food’ was one that I heard over and over in various centres. That Beatrice’s son was born in Ireland, as were many of the other children whose mothers complained of this to me, and had never known ‘home cooking’, was not really the point. It was, for the mothers, an important part of their children’s upbringing that was missing and so was making them ill. As Ilissa maintained in the quote at the beginning of this chapter, life in the centres was ‘not a home’ and it was not really ‘living’ either, since asylum seekers were not free to make their own choices about where or how to live. Further, there is a constant worry and fear among all asylum seekers that their application will be denied and that they will be deported. The threat of deportation hangs in the air at the centres as residents witness removals. In one case, a Burundi woman and her two young children experienced a night-time deportation, in which: ‘Members of the Garda Immigration Unit called to the hostel in which Olivia and her two daughters were staying, at 10:30 p.m., packed their belongings into plastic bags and drove them to Dublin by car. They were transported to Heathrow Airport the next morning’ (McConnell, 2004). Deportations are part of the process. Asylum seekers also feared more immediate displacements when they were moved to another centre. While visiting one centre in the summer of 2009, some of the staff recommended that I not come back the next day as it would be ‘a crazy scene’ and they would have their hands full. When I asked why, they told me that the news had just come down from the RIA that a large group (approximately forty-five) was being moved out of the centre the following day to various other centres and that there were always problems that some did not want to leave. Many of those being moved had school-aged children and I wondered how the children would react coming home in their

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school uniforms and with their school books in tow only to learn that they would not be back to school the next day. The life of asylum seekers in the centres is uncertain, transient and not of their own making. There is little sense of living in the ‘here and now’ and so it is not surprising that most asylum seekers that I spoke to lived not in the present but worried about the past and the traumas of the life they had left behind; and worried about the future and what would happen with their application if it was successful or if it were not. The accommodation centres are places of legal, social and spatial limbo for asylum seekers. They are ‘borderlands’, on the outskirts of Irish society, and places of marginalization. In part, because the accommodation centres are places of limbo, within the Irish borders but not within the ideological and social borders of Irish society, one way that some asylum seekers navigate the asylum process in Ireland is by maintaining and practising some aspects of their home cultures, thereby forging connections between two worlds.

Attachments to home cultures: living/belonging between worlds Two examples serve to illustrate how asylum seekers established and maintained their connections with their home cultures in the accommodation centres, even while learning how to (partially) participate in Irish society: first, through transnational communication; and secondly, through the religious practice of the various belief systems brought from their home countries. I talk with my parents every day on the Internet and my sister a couple of times a week by mobile [phone]. Every day I wait till I can go to the computer room here at the centre and log on to talk to them, to hear their voices and know that all is all right with them. Besides caring for my son, it is the only thing I look forward to each day, they are so much a part of every day. I tell them about Hasan [her son] and all the little things he does every day. Sometimes, I cry when I have hung up because I want to be with them and not just talking to them on the Internet or phone. I get lonely for them even though I talk to them all the time. (Excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 20 April 2008)

Jamilla, a young Somali mother of a three-month-old baby boy, sat staring down at her mobile phone. Her experience of having strong connections to her home country through her family still living there and through her daily communications with them is a familiar situation for many asylum seekers living in the accommodation centres. Most asylum seekers that I spoke to still have relatives and friends living in their countries of origin. It is not uncommon even that immediate families are split apart. However, unlike those who have been granted refugee status, asylum seekers are not eligible to

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appeal for family reunification and so live apart. That these family ties across host and home countries of origin exist and that the ties are maintained through easy access to communication technologies (like Jamilla through the Internet or mobile phone) mean that asylum seekers are forging bridges across the transnational gap. In doing so, transnational communities (Levitt, 2001) and transnational social spaces (Faist, 2000) are created that construct new multiple, mobile and shifting senses of identity and belonging across and between places. Another aspect of home cultures that asylum seekers maintain and practise in Ireland that further helps to create new connections both to home and host cultures is through religious custom. For many asylum seekers the monotony and boredom of a week filled with no work, no school and no household/family tasks (such as shopping, cooking and cleaning) is broken only by the prospect of attending a religious service once a week. Often this religious day is celebrated by dressing in their best (and often traditional) clothes. It is not unusual that it turns into a full-day event, including travel to and from the service, which may require shuttle buses to the next town or city; the service itself; and a large afternoon meal of traditional cultural foods. More than simply an excuse to escape from the accommodation centre, these services are looked forward to all week because residents know that they will be with people from their home culture, or at least from their own religion, and so have a sense of community, solidarity and belonging (see Ugba, 2007). This sense of community and belonging may be brought back with them to the centre. At one of the centres, I was asked by several African women to join them in a midnight vigil of Bible-reading, prayers, songs and dancing. These women regularly attended services at the weekends but told me that they wanted to feel a sense of command over their lives in the centre as well as that sense of community generated at their various churches,5 and thus intended to meet each night at midnight for one week. The Bible passage read one evening concerned Joshua and the battle at the walls of Jericho. The women interpreted the story as their own story of migration as asylum seekers who needed the faith of Joshua in order to one day be victorious in their refugee application and be permitted to find a home of their own in Ireland. This midnight vigil is a good example of how asylum seekers can forge links between their traditional home culture and religion and their new place in Ireland, even though that place, in the accommodation centres, is on the margins of Irish society.

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Negotiating identity, place and belonging in asylum seeker accommodation centres In this chapter, I have focused on the negotiation of identity and place as expressed through a discussion of asylum seekers’ sense of belonging and non-belonging as they await a decision on their refugee application in the direct provision accommodation centres. The legal status of asylum seekers is inherently liminal and transient: they are in-between the worlds and cultures of their home countries and their host country of Ireland. The context of asylum seekers’ sense of belonging and non-belonging is the system of accommodation established in 2000 as an essential part of the asylum process. It is through these centres that the state manages asylum seekers by controlling their movement and whereabouts, as well as by governing their space, time, cultural activities and social interactions. Asylum seekers must negotiate these Irish practices and the impact of their experiences in these accommodation centres is significant and detrimental. They live a life of social and spatial limbo as they are socially, spatially and ideologically distanced from the rest of Irish society. In the course of my research interviews and participant observation, narratives of fear, depression, boredom and waiting were common. Not being allowed to work, attend post-secondary education or bring their children up with ‘home cooking’ and many other aspects of their home cultures, meant that asylum seekers felt that they were not living a life of their own making. Certain actions revealed evidence that some asylum seekers navigated the asylum process in Ireland by maintaining and practising particular aspects of their home culture, thus trying to form connections between the two worlds in which they simultaneously live. In some cases, I witnessed the attempt to create a sense of identity with and belonging to Ireland in small, surprising individual acts: I had gone in the afternoon to revisit the centre on the main road out of town. I was mapping its location and environs and taking photos when I spotted two posters at one of the resident’s windows: one was a soccer poster and the other was a very battered, half burned large green shamrock inscribed in gold letters ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’. (Excerpt from field notes, A. Smith, 15 May 2008)

The poster was facing out onto the street and not in to the room. It was meant to be seen by people passing by on the street rather than for the sake of the asylum seeker resident in his or her room. Was this a public proclamation of a sense of identity and belonging in an Irish place? Was this an attempt to bridge the gap between an Irish society on the outside of the accommodation centre and the asylum seeker on the inside? And what might this explain about how asylum seekers feel as they live between worlds and between cultural identities?

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Living between worlds, belonging to more than one place, and negotiating between more than one culture and identity, life for asylum seekers in direct provision accommodation centres is a world betwixt and between. While awaiting a decision on their refugee claim, asylum seekers are living in a social and spatial limbo. Yet they also learn to navigate their way through Irish policy, bureaucracy and cultural norms and have agency in maintaining existing, and forging new identities and a sense of belonging across the transnational gap. In this chapter, I have recounted the experiences observed at, and the narratives of asylum seekers in, accommodation centres around the country to illustrate the complexities of the sense of transnational belonging and non-belonging.

Notes 1 All names are pseudonyms. Further, for the sake of anonymity, when I am directly recounting the words of an asylum seeker or centre staff member, I do not refer to particular centres since it may be too easy to identify the individual. 2 The names of specific accommodation centres are not provided so as to further ensure the anonymity of asylum seekers who I have met and interviewed in my intensive research focus on six specific centres. 3 With the shift from servicing tourists to managing asylum seekers, there is a subsequent shift in the political economy associated with the operating of these centres: in a neoliberal landscape, asylum seekers mean big business. 4 When I returned to some centres in 2009, I was surprised by the number of men around during the day: because of the economic crash, many of these under-the-table jobs were cut and the men put out of work. 5 These women did not all practise the same religion, although all were Christian. The two main ‘leaders’ of the midnight vigil were both from Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM) Ministries, an apostolic church originating in Lagos, Nigeria. Presumably, these women and the others in attendance representing various evangelical churches practised their faith in their home countries and so brought this custom with them to Ireland.

References Central Statistics Office (2009) Population and Migration Estimates. Dublin: Central Statistics Office. Conlon, D. (2011) ‘Waiting: feminist perspectives on the spacings/timings of migrant (im)mobility’, Gender, Place and Culture, 18:3, 353–60. Faist, T. (2000) The Volume and Dynamics of International Migration and Transnational Social Spaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irish Independent (2006) ‘Asylum seeker protest causes traffic chaos’, Irish Independent, 30 March. Irish Refugee Council (2002) Information Note on Asylum Seekers and

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Accommodation Centres. Social Policy Information Note No. 1. Dublin: Irish Refugee Council. Irish Refugee Council (2004) Information Note on Asylum Seekers and Accommodation Centres. Social Policy Information Note No. 1. Dublin: Irish Refugee Council. Irish Statute Book (n.d.) ‘Refugee Act, 1996’, Irish Statue Book, Office of the Attorney General, House of the Oireachtas, Government of Ireland. Available online at www.irishstatutebook.ie/1996/en/act/pub/0017/print.html#sec9. Accessed 20 August 2011. Irish Times (2001) ‘St. Patrick’s Day parades in Dublin and Cork cancelled’, Irish Times, 2 March. Lentin, R. (2003) ‘Pregnant silence: (en)gendering Ireland’s asylum space’, Patterns of Prejudice, 37:3, 301–22. Levitt, P. (2001) The Transnational Villagers. Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles: University of California Press. McConnell, D. (2004) ‘Government criticised for deportation’, Irish Times, 12 July. Available online at www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/ 2004/0712/108627453919.html. Accessed 20 August 2010. McDaid, J. (2001) ‘Press release: end of year statement on tourism performance’ (28 December), Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism, Irish Government. Mountz, A. (2011) ‘Where asylum-seekers wait: feminist counter-topographies of sites between states’, Gender, Place and Culture, 18:3, 381–99. ORAC (2010) Monthly Statistics, September 2010. Dublin: Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner. RIA (2007) Information website, Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Homepage. Available online at www.ria.gov.ie. Accessed 30 October 2007. RIA (2010) ‘Reception, Dispersal & Accommodation’. Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Available online at www.ria.gov.ie/en/RIA/Pages/Reception_ Dispersal_Accommodation. Accessed 20 August 2011. RIA Statistics (2005) Monthly Statistics, April 2005. Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Available online at www.ria.gov.ie/en/RIA/RIAApril05(A4). pdf/Files/RIAApril05(A4).pdf. Accessed 24 July 2010. RIA Statistics (2007) Monthly Statistics, October 2007. Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Available online at www.ria.gov.ie/filestore/publications/All_Centres_ Oct_2007.pdf. Accessed 24 July 2010. RIA Statistics (2009) Monthly Statistics, October 2009. Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

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Available online at www.ria.gov.ie/filestore/publications/All_Centres_ Oct_2009.pdf. Accessed 24 July 2010. RIA Statistics (2010) Monthly Statistics, April 2010. Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Available online at www.ria.gov.ie/filestore/publications/ RIAApril(A4)2010.pdf. Accessed 24 July 2010. RIA Statistics (2011) Monthly Statistics, June 2011. Dublin: Reception and Integration Agency, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Available online at www.ria.gov.ie/en/RIA/RIAJune(A4)2011. pdf/Files/RIAJune(A4)2011.pdf. Accessed 24 August 2011. Smith, A. (2008) ‘The Irish citizenship referendum (2004): motherhood and belonging in Ireland’, in D. Reed-Danahay and C.B. Brettell (eds) Immigration and Citizenship in Europe and the United States: Anthropological Perspectives. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 60–77. Smith, A. (2009) ‘A negotiated sharing of space: globalization, borders, and identity of African asylum seekers in Ireland’, in A.G. Adebayo and O. Adesina (eds) Globalization and Transnational Migrations: Africa and Africans in the Contemporary Global System. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 88–105. Smith, A. (2010) ‘Social/ Spatial Mapping of Asylum Seeker Accommodation Centres in Ireland, Geographic Information System (GIS) Interactive Website’. Available online at www.unbc.ca/anthropology/smith_research_ asylum_seekers.html. Accessed 10 October 2010. Ugba, A. (2007) ‘African Pentecostals in twenty-first-century Ireland: identity and integration’, in B. Fanning (ed.) Immigration and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 168–84. US Committee for Refugees (2003) World Refugee Survey 2003: Ireland. Washington, DC: US Committee for Refugees. UN UDHR (2011) ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, UN. Available online at www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/. Accessed 24 August 2011.

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INTERSECTIONS

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10 A countertopography of migrant experience in Ireland and beyond Deirdre Conlon

The political, theoretical, and methodological project I want to advance is one that constructs countertopographies linking different places analytically in order to develop both the contour of common struggles and imagine a different kind of practical response to problems confronting them. Katz (2001a: 722)

A countertopography invites geographers and scholars in allied disciplines to develop accounts of particular places and social groups with a view to elucidating the connections – or contour lines, to use Cindi Katz’s choice of terminology – across apparently disparate social and geographic locations. Through this process it is possible to identify the forces – almost invariably linked to globalization – that intertwine with these common spaces. In this chapter, I draw on Katz’s project to examine commonalities across ostensibly distinct migrant encounters with Irish society and to situate the remarkable demographic and social changes that have taken place in the Republic of Ireland1 in recent years within a broader social and political–economic context. This chapter draws from a broader study focused on historical popular cultural representations of emigrant women vis-à-vis the experiences of immigrant women in more contemporary Ireland. I examine intersections across the experiences of nominally different categories of migrant women in Ireland, and in keeping with the political intent of countertopographies, I gesture to avenues for extending this project to other groups and geographic locations with a view to developing situated understandings of global processes and to spur possibilities for engagement among migrant groups and across different geographic locations. A number of factors motivate the particular focus of this chapter. With a substantial body of research on recent migration in Ireland now in existence, scholars have recently highlighted potential trajectories for developing new

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strands and even more robust analyses of migration issues. Mac Éinrí and White (2008), for example, issue a call for more research that is theoretically rich, attentive to complex conditions and effects of migration, and that situates Ireland within a global context. This chapter registers and aims to respond to such calls. My focus here is also motivated by reflection on my experiences while engaged in research on migration in Ireland. There, over the course of interviewing women placed in nominally discrete categories as recent immigrants to Ireland, I listened to accounts of hopes and realities that reverberated across distinct social location, migrant category or formal immigration status in Ireland. Whether speaking with a refugee woman from Algeria, a recently returned Irish emigrant, an asylum seeker from Togo or a labour migrant from a European Union (EU) accession state, interviewees’ stories highlighted aspirations that were contradicted by material experiences, a sense of being in a provisional and impermanent place and social–material relations that resonated across migrant classifications. In this process, I came to question the lines through which migrants’ experiences are typically refracted, lines that more commonly differentiate race, ethnicity and migrant status. To use Katz’s terms, I began to notice the ‘contours of common struggles’ (2001a: 722) that connect across migrant women’s experiences in Ireland and beyond. As a result, this chapter represents an honest attempt to come to terms with the limitations of my own research approach and to grapple with the details of migrant women’s experiences in a manner that, while acknowledging their significance, runs counter to dominant approaches to research – my own included – on migration in Irish society in the comparatively recent past. The chapter proceeds as follows: first, I provide a brief overview of dominant trends and approaches to migration research in Ireland. Following this, I outline key elements of Cindi Katz’s project as they pertain to my aims in this chapter. Then, drawing on the framework that countertopography offers, I highlight the relations between interview accounts and global processes that shape migration and migrants’ experiences. Finally, I point to some of the ways in which this approach and analysis might be extended to other – apparently disparate – groups and locations. Overall, this chapter offers insight into the intersections between migrants’ experiences in Ireland and abstract processes that reproduce migrant strivings and compel migrant mobility in a global world.

Developing a countertopography from migrants’ experiences in Ireland Over the past fifteen years or so inward migration has become a familiar feature of Irish society, resulting in significant changes to the nation’s overall population profile (see Introduction, this volume). Considerable energy has been devoted to identifying and developing distinctive demographic and

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social profiles for various migrant groups in association with these changes. Initially, returning Irish migrants constituted a substantial group; this pattern echoed earlier periods when there was net in-migration (see Mac Éinrí, 2001; Ní Laoire, 2007). In more recent years, this trend has given way to greater numbers of labour migrants from new EU accession states, while asylum seekers and refugees have consistently constituted a smaller, though significantly more visible, category of immigrants to Ireland (Central Statistics Office, 2007; see also Mac Éinrí, 2007). Coinciding with these developments, a rich scholarship on migration in Ireland has also emerged. A good deal of recent migration research has tended to mirror the aforementioned categories by focusing attention on individual migrant groups and their distinct experiences (see for example, Conlon, 2009; Foreman, 2008; Krings et al., 2009; Lentin, 2004; Ní Laoire, 2008). In addition, and perhaps reflecting greater public attention, particular groups – most notably asylum seekers – have garnered considerably more research attention than others (see Mac Éinrí and White, 2008). There can be little doubt that focusing on discrete categories has been crucial to understanding the intricacies of migration as well as being important for the politics of recognition of minority communities in Irish society. Yet, one possible effect of focusing on particular groups in this manner is that exclusive migrant categories become solidified, apparent differences between groups naturalized, and intersections across migrants’ experiences are overlooked. Of late, several scholars have highlighted additional avenues for engagement and critical attention within the evolving body of research on Irish migration. For instance, Mac Éinrí and White call on geographers to expand their contributions ‘considering the value and insight a geographic lens might allow’ (2008: 162) in developing comprehensive theorizations and analyses of migration issues in local, regional and global contexts (see also Conclusion, this volume). Implied here is an understanding that by being attuned to matters of spatiality and boundary-making, to different spatial scales and their political and social implications, as well as to social productions of place and space, geographical analyses can offer valuable perspectives that complement and advance current analyses of migration in Ireland. This view resonates with Munck’s (2008) observations about the importance of scale in several recent analyses of migration and globalization. Other scholars highlight specific considerations such as the limitations of current categories and classifications used (Gilmartin and Migge, 2010; Gilmartin and Mills, 2008; see also Chapter 11, this volume). Recent work has also begun to address some of these issues; Loyal and Allen (2008), for example, examine linkages between different migrant categories and state-based racism under capitalism, while others have articulated the ways that migrant identities are multiply constructed across a range of social contexts (Anthias, 2008).

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Following these timely calls and contributions, I propose that Katz’s project on countertopography (Katz, 2001a, 2001b, 2004) offers a geographical perspective of considerable value in migration research. Katz’s concept of countertopography is a critical and multifaceted one. It draws on Marxist and feminist analyses and critically engages geography as well as processes of knowledge production that have gone hand in hand with the tools of geography. Most notably, Katz’s project critically engages topography, a familiar practice that entails ‘a detailed description of a particular location and the totality of the features that comprise the place itself’ (Katz, 2001a: 720), and a strategy which, according to Katz, has been deployed in deeply detrimental ways to facilitate the exploits of global capitalism. The task of developing a countertopography involves using these very same research and strategy-building tools in ‘non innocent’ ways (Katz, 2001b: 1215) in a manner that might work towards unsettling the use and exploitative practices to which topographical analyses have often been put. As part of this project, Katz invokes the metaphor of contour lines – traditionally used to denote specific geographic locations that are connected to other sites of the same elevation – as a way to envision a methodological and analytical process that, while being attuned to the particularities of place or social group, connects far-flung locations and social positions. In countertopography, contour lines represent not elevation but particular relations to global processes; these abstract processes touch down and embed themselves in the social experiences of differently located and positioned groups. As such, contour lines, and the project of countertopography more generally, offer a useful way to examine and connect people and practices across different social positions and in distinct geographic places. A countertopography emphasizes the nuances of local contexts in an effort to resist tendencies towards homogenizing the experience and impact of global political– economic and social processes associated with, for instance, migration. The contradictions inherent to these global processes are now well established (see for example, Hall, 1995; Trouillot, 2003); thus notions of homogeneity are abutted by tendencies towards increased fragmentation of social spaces and groups. Fragmentation is materialized through a host of practices including the development or construction of spatially segmented communities, targeted marketing to distinct ethnic or social class groups, and differentiated administrative procedures for different immigrant groups (for discussion see Conlon, 2010; Corcoran, 2006; Haase, 2007; Linehan, 2007; Mountz, 2011). While we might debate the potential merits and drawbacks of these simultaneous yet contradictory tendencies, in the context of a project on countertopography one effect is particularly noteworthy. Katz observes that these homogenizing and fragmentary impulses tend to work against connecting communities or mobilizing shared political responses to the unevenness

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and injustices of global processes. To counter this, the contour line offers an important conceptual and political tool. Because they connect different sites to abstract ideas such as assumptions that gird migrants’ aspirations to mobility, insecurity and flexibility, and thence to global capitalism, contour lines may provide insights about common grounds for social and political engagement among groups who are socially positioned in distinct spheres or in disparate geographic locations. The figurative, conceptual, methodological and political appeal of countertopography resonates broadly. As a result the project been taken up in various disciplines including literature, feminist studies and critical social science (see Karavanta, 2005; Pratt and Yeoh, 2003). It has also been used within a range of research settings, including discussions of gender and transnationalism, social movements in South America, and in developing critical methodologies for examining the intersections between research and activism in geography (see Koopman, 2008; Wright, 2008). Developing a countertopography of migration and migrant experiences in Ireland is especially appealing in light of the aforementioned calls to enhance geographically focused perspectives on the matter. Mac Éinrí and White note that ‘questions to do with locations, linkages, connections, place and space . . . are profoundly geographic questions’ (2008: 162); a countertopography attends to connections and linkages across the experiences of women who are differently located in the social and political terrain of recent Irish migration. Furthermore, as previously noted, scholars have also identified the need to locate Ireland ‘within globalised systems and movements of people, capital and things’ (Mac Éinrí and White, 2008: 164). Developing a countertopography involves examining how specific places, social positions and practices are connected to global processes so that the local and particular can be understood as spaces ‘whose entanglements with various global imperatives are the material forms and practices of situated knowledge’ (Katz, 2001b: 1214). In this way, countertopography presents a valuable framework for contributing to scholarship on Irish migration in a global context.

Tracing contour lines Pratt (2004) observes that the contour lines through which countertopographies are produced can be drawn in various ways. For example, to trace the continuities and discontinuities between global processes, sources of information might include historical narratives from different periods or detailed accounts of the relations between distinct institutions. In this chapter, I focus on migrants’ perspectives about their social experiences, which form contour lines connected to discourses and ideological assumptions that bolster capital’s need to ‘constantly expand’ its market, and in this process ‘to nestle

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everywhere, to settle everywhere, to establish connexions everywhere’ (Marx, 1987 [1848]: 16). I draw on interviews completed as part of a broader study that examined historical popular cultural representations of emigrant and immigrant women in Ireland vis-à-vis contemporary immigration. An interview phase focused on the day-to-day lives and experiences of migrants who arrived in Ireland at the tail end of the Celtic Tiger years in the midst of debates about birthright citizenship. Because the broader study was concerned with the role of gender in representations and experiences of migration, the participants interviewed and those discussed in this chapter are exclusively women (for discussion of other facets of the study see Conlon, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011). For the larger project, data collection included a content analysis of 200 newsprint discourses and policy documents and semistructured interviews with a total of forty women. Participants were recruited via contact with immigrant and emigrant advice centres, migrant service organizations and adverts in a multicultural newspaper (Metroeireann) and an online community bulletin board (www.activelink.ie). Interviews were completed over a nine-month period between October 2004 and June 2005. For the purposes of this chapter I focus on a subset of these interviews. At the outset of the study I intended to develop a small-scale, inclusive study that would detail the broad range of migrants and that would contrast migrant women’s experiences in contemporary Ireland against the backdrop of historical and political representations of emigrant and immigrant women in Ireland. In a small way, I hoped this project would help to serve as a corrective to the then dominant focus on asylum seekers, particularly in popular culture. In an effort to examine an array of migrant experiences in Ireland I recruited women who could be categorized as belonging to distinct migrant categories; these were returning former emigrants, EU migrants pre- and post-accession, and refugees and asylum seekers. To my surprise, my efforts to give an account of the variety of migrant categories and experiences were overshadowed by the resonances and connections between women’s stories. As I engaged with these women during interviews, it became evident that the experiences they wished to talk about were issues that overlap and spill across specific migrant categories. When analysing the interview transcripts recurring themes were distilled to focus on social experiences and social relations to institutions including work, school and community. In this manner, by accident rather than by design, I found myself tracing contour lines and articulating connections across the experiences of women who only nominally belonged in distinct categories, and whose lives were more aptly characterized as linked together and intertwined with global processes of capitalism. In tracing the contours that connect these women’s experiences I home in on a number of themes that connect across the accounts of being a migrant

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woman in contemporary Ireland, namely migrants’ progress-focused aspirations, encounters that contradict and occlude these ambitions, and a sense of insecurity, impermanence or conditional relationships within Irish society. These materially situated social experiences form contour lines linked to broader and more abstract assumptions associated with insecurity, expansion and flexibility, which underpin capital’s global imperative. Put differently, as part of the process wherein capital must ‘settle everywhere’, migration – along with its entanglement with progress, insecurity and perpetual movement – has become ‘an integral way in which the world is imagined’ (Fortier, 2006: 314) as capital’s abstract assumptions inflect the desires, decisions and social–material practices of migrants regardless of category or location. Before highlighting these contours a countertopography demands that we identify the particularities and distinctive facets of specific social positions as a way to counter the tendency towards the homogenization of experiences. Table 10.1 provides an overview of specific demographic characteristics for those migrant women discussed in this chapter. It is immediately clear that there is a wide divergence of age groups, places of origin and length of residency in Ireland within these groups. Several distinctions are also evident between migrant categories. In general, women from accession states in the EU were younger and returning migrants older; those in the catch-all ‘other’ category had lived in Ireland longest, while new-accession state migrants had lived in Ireland for much shorter periods of time. Though not indicated in Table 10.1, education level and professional qualifications also differed between groups. All those in ‘return migrant’ and ‘other’ categories held university degrees, whereas half or less than half of the individuals in the remaining groups had completed higher-level education. Also, migrant status alone establishes certain differences between these groups. Thus even though factors such as financial resources influence levels of autonomy and migrants’ experiences generally, some groups, such as asylum seekers, are considerably more constrained because they are not permitted to work while their cases are pending, nor do they choose where they will live. In contrast, while workpermit holders are limited to a particular employer, they can exercise greater independence in decisions about where they reside, along with other aspects of social life. These differences between migrant categories clearly bear upon migrants’ social positions and highlight the need to attend to the specificity of material experiences. Doing so serves to bolster the important observation that ‘Ireland is not a homogeneous country’ (Bartley and Kitchin, 2007: 2) and migrants’ experiences in Irish society are far from uniform. Yet, it is also clear that attending to the specificities of differently situated lives ought not to be the only way we map migrants’ lives. As previously noted, when participants recounted their experiences, established delineations often became muddied and themes emerged that crisscrossed distinct

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Table 10.1 Participant age, place(s) of origin, names and length of residence in Ireland Migrant group

Age (yrs) (range and

Place of origin

Participants’ names

Living in Ireland

median for overall study samplea)

(overall study sample)

(as referenced in this chapter)

(of those referenced in this chapter – average no. months in Ireland)

Return migrants

33–58 45

Irelandb

Una, Katec

25

EU accession state migrants

21–33 27

Latvia, Poland

Beth, Ina, Lorraine

6.5

Asylum seekers

19–37 31.5

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria

Tayo, Tessa, Angela, Annette

25.25

Refugee status

30–43 36.5

Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana, Uzbekistan

Riva, Jennifer

40.5

New Zealand, France, UK, USA

Julie, Clarisse, Nancy

56

Other migrantd 29–35 33

Notes: Overall study included forty interview participants. b Returned from the USA and UK. c Participants’ names have been changed, at their request, to protect privacy. d ‘Other’ includes pre-expansion EU migrants, a work-permit holder and an individual holding dual citizenship. a

categories, and this propelled me to examine contour lines that connect these women in other ways. Victoria Lawson (2000) has observed that migrants’ stories are not simply accounts of individual experiences; instead, they also reveal a great deal about the discourses that surround processes such as global capitalist flows, neoliberal development and (post)modernity itself. By listening to migrants’ narratives, and examining themes that connect distinct categories, we can trace contour lines that enfold with broader discourses and processes that mould migrants’ lives. In the following sections I highlight three recurrent and interconnected themes: aspirations about migration and upward mobility, experiences that contradict these hopes, and a sense of precariousness or impermanence. These themes cut across migrant cate-

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gories, connect participants to logics of modernity, mobility, insecurity and flexibility, and embed them with these imperatives of globalized capital in complicit and, at times, contradictory ways. In this study, participants were invited to take part in a semi-structured, one-to-one interview. Interviewees were asked to discuss their prior knowledge about Ireland, their expectations, impressions, routines, experiences and future plans as a migrant in Irish society. I present excerpts from several participants’ narratives before placing these in broader political– economic and theoretical context in the concluding section. Migrants’ aspirations and contradictory encounters In their narratives, regardless of migrant category, each of the women indicated that migration and aspirations of progress and upward mobility went hand in hand. Progress-oriented aspirations included the desire to advance individual goals, to improve aspects of their social and material lives, or to contribute more broadly to knowledge and material economies in Ireland or in their country of origin. These were articulated in various ways. For instance, for Beth the decision to leave Poland was prompted by her hopes of pursuing an education: ‘I want to go to college in Poland and it’s very, very expensive, so I must come here’ (interview, 7 May 2005).2 For Lorraine, the decision to leave her children with their grandmother in Lithuania was spurred by a desire to enhance her family’s material wealth and future opportunities for her two children. Tessa echoed the aspirations of these migrants, noting that she ‘came to Ireland to give my daughter a better chance [and] to be secure, stable financially, and independent’ (interview, 7 October 2004). Many interviewees aspired to pursue or continue to develop professional careers. Several were enrolled in professional training or university programmes, and even where refugee status claims stymied this process, a number of these migrants were motivated to independently pursue progress-focused goals. Riva’s narrative is a case in point. She had been forced to leave Uzbekistan, where she had a very successful career in accountancy, because of discrimination and increasing vulnerability for herself and her family associated with their ethnic minority status. Once she arrived in Ireland and while waiting for a decision about her case, she noted: ‘I had a desire to work. I spent a lot of time studying [by] myself . . . I didn’t want to waste time, I paid for the course myself [though] I couldn’t afford the university because of the fee, but I did courses because I wanted to pursue my career in accountancy in Ireland’ (interview, 18 October 2004). Tayo described her aspirations more reciprocally; she had trained as a biochemist and believed her training could be of benefit, noting: ‘when I got here I discovered that Ireland is a developing place and, actually, I can develop with Ireland, and I can invariably be useful to Ireland’ (interview, 22 October 2004). In her

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narrative, Julie, who had lived and worked in Ireland for over three years, resounded a similar sentiment. After detailing her training and professional experience in surveying and housing advocacy, she noted that she was motivated to come to Ireland to take up a job that combined these areas, and where, as she believed, interest in addressing housing issues along with her extensive expertise would enable her to contribute to ‘developing new ideas’ (interview, 29 October 2004). Although social encounters with individuals and some organizations such as migrant support groups were positive on the whole, migrants’ optimism and aspirations contrasted with their material experiences across a number of settings, including work, schools and with government institutions that administer migration. Matters associated with employment align most directly with the aspirations outlined above; therefore, I focus on some of the experiences migrants recounted in the workplace and related settings, which contradicted their aspirations, and that also connected individuals across different categories. To continue Julie’s narrative, she went on to describe the reception her ‘new ideas’ received; instead of being welcomed, she found that her ‘ideas got slapped back and it seemed those who did the least and just toed the line got promoted’ (interview, 29 October 2004). Una, too, observed that her experiences jarred with what she had hoped and expected; she noted, ‘it’s been quite a surprise . . . I’m someone who can get on with it, use my own initiative, helping people to progress in their careers, [but] it’s totally different here, you work to policy.’ She continued, ‘I think I have a lot to offer but I don’t think that’s acknowledged at all’ (interview, 3 November 2004). Others felt their aspirations were thwarted by favouritism shown to nonmigrant job applicants and employees who were Irish. As Kate explained, when she applied for jobs she was told: ‘You’re not an exact match, you haven’t done exactly this, and you’ve been over there, what do you know about anything here?’ (interview, 2 November 2004). Riva too recounted that she ‘had a lot of interviews, they look at my CV, my experience in accountancy, but eventually the priority is given to Irish people or they offer me a really low salary, with which, really, you won’t be able to survive here’ (interview, 18 October 2004). In a similar vein, Ina, who was employed, noted that she was told of plans for layoffs in the food-processing factory where she worked ‘and I go first because I’m not Irish . . . I know many people this has happened to’ (interview, 7 May 2005). And Clarisse observed how she was often reminded that she was an outsider when ideas and suggestions she made, at work and non-work settings, were met with the response, ‘Oh but you’re French you don’t know how things are done here’ (interview, 31 October 2004). For some, restrictions on employment during the asylum process were a real blow to their hopes: as Angela observed, ‘no-one wants to

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go to a place where they are made to sit down and do nothing’ (interview, 14 October 2004), and Annette resounded this perspective noting, ‘our potential is wasted; this [asylum] system is a terrible system’ (interview, 28 October 2004). Almost all the women interviewed expressed ways in which their goals and aspirations collided with experiences ‘on the ground’ where they were reminded how, as migrants, their knowledge was limited, their perspectives were different, and potential contributions were irrelevant or irreconcilable with policy or need.3 While the exact character of their experiences was specifically situated and varied among these women, we can trace contour lines through the common expression of progress-oriented aspirations and the recurrence of encounters that stymie or upend migrants’ upward mobility. Migration, impermanence and perpetual flexibility In the face of these experiences, a common response to questions about future plans prompted migrants to talk about a sense of insecurity, the impermanence of their stay in Ireland and the possibility of moving elsewhere. For some, this instability was tied to pending decisions about refugee status; for example, Angela noted: ‘We are not here, we are not there, we are nowhere [and] anything can happen . . . they can bring your deportation letter anytime, you don’t know where you’re going . . . I don’t even know where I stand’ (interview, 14 October 2004). Similar experiences as well as the impact of this state of limbo are well documented in migration research in Ireland and elsewhere. Even those who had been granted refugee status felt unsure about their future in Ireland, as Jennifer observed: ‘Everyone’s shaky now, even if you have your papers you don’t even know where you stand now.’ She went on to note: ‘I mean I’ll definitely go home one day but for the meantime I’ve got kids here [so] I think I belong’ (interview, 14 October 2004). For others, decisions to stay or leave Ireland were contingent upon job opportunities or because they felt personally or professionally constrained in Ireland. This was voiced by Nancy, who had hoped to meet a suitable partner but found ‘dating in Ireland to be one of the most frustrating aspects of living here. That’s one of the reasons I’m thinking of getting out’ (interview, 3 May 2005), as well as Julie, who explained that her decision to move to Canada ‘feels like a burst of fresh air because Ireland feels almost claustrophobic’ (interview, 29 October 2004). Adopting a more philosophical view, Clarisse observed: ‘things get marginally better, you give yourself carrots [but] you’re an outsider in both places. . . . Now I’m thinking of moving to Canada, maybe moving is the nature of what you become as a migrant’ (interview, 31 October 2004). Finally, Kate’s response to a question about her future captures several of the sentiments expressed: ‘The reality is you’re an outsider here as well, and maybe this realization is something I need to embrace . . . I didn’t come back

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saying I’m going to stay here for the rest of my life . . . whether I stay here or not is for another day, so I’m open about where I go or where I am’ (interview, 2 November 2004). It is evident that these perspectives and decisions differ for different women. In addition, we might apprehend these accounts in various ways: as pragmatic reactions to precarious or untenable situations, as an indication of resilience and adaptability, and as expressions of a ‘generalized subjective insecurity’ (Bourdieu, 1998: 83) that tags along with capital’s global trek. At the same time, it is also clear that there is a common thread of insecurity and impermanence across migrants in ostensibly discrete categories.

From contour lines to global processes and beyond Beyond noting these common threads, a question remains as to how we make sense of migrants’ experiences in relation to global processes and broader theoretical contexts. In other words, how do we move from these glimpses of situated lives and interconnected themes to a countertopography of migration? The narratives presented here indicate migrants’ desires to develop and progress. They also suggest a belief that migration and upward mobility converge, and aspirations of development, whether individually or as part of modern society, can be materialized in migration. Of course, such hopes are neither new nor unique to migrants’ aspirations. As fundamental ideological assumptions of modernity these ideas are part of longstanding discussions that include thinkers ranging from Kant to Foucault. Nor are migrants’ interests in pursuing such goals new to migration studies specifically. A cursory review of research attention to push and pull factors or migrants’ perceptions and expectations makes clear that the pursuit of upward social mobility and material wealth are commonly expressed aspirations across a plethora of contexts (see for example, Halfacree, 2004; Jordan and Brown, 2007; Massey, 1999; Silvey and Lawson, 1999). In addition, echoing the experiences recounted here, where migrants are thwarted in achieving their ambitions, researchers have also highlighted how migrants’ material experiences often contradict their aspirations of upward mobility. As Lawson observes, ‘migrants’ stories often reveal the empirical disjuncture between expectations of migration produced through dominant discourses of modernization and the actual experiences of migrants’ (2000: 174). Beyond this, the narratives presented here also indicate that the material experiences that collide with migrants’ hopes and expectations spur insecurity and a sense of impermanence. This, in turn, often prompts migrants to consider whether or not to stay put, to return home or to migrate elsewhere. In this manner, migrants’ perspectives and material practices perpetually

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reproduce a desire and demand ‘to nestle and to settle’, as well as to move, elsewhere. These interconnected practices thus instantiate abstract processes of insecurity, expansion and flexibility that are essential to the workings of global capital. Put somewhat differently, within a political–economic context where capital demands the ‘absolute reign of flexibility’ (Bourdieu, 1998: 97), migrants’ desire for progress and upward mobility, along with the perpetual practice of movement, mean that ‘mobility is put to work to produce desires, anxieties, . . . identities, and so on in the imagining [and production] of the globalized world’ (Fortier, 2006: 314). In this way, capital’s abstract assumptions are absorbed within the desires, decisions and social–material practices of migrants regardless of category or location. The goal of a countertopography, according to Katz, is to connect disparate groups who share common grounds for engagement and possible action in response to globalization’s far from innocent imperatives. This chapter has highlighted some distinctions but more significantly the intersections across migrant women’s experiences in one geographic location. It seems reasonable to suppose that migrants in Irish society are not alone in being entangled with global capitalism in the manner I have suggested, thus a further step in developing this countertopography would entail detailed description, comparison and analysis of the ways in which migrants both propel and are propelled by desires and their contradiction, insecurities and a perpetual need for flexibility in other locales. I want to suggest that by situating migration in Ireland in a global political–economic context, this chapter has laid the grounds for such an undertaking. Like Katz, I hope this work ‘might encourage and enable the formation of new political–economic alliances that transcend place and identity [such as the categorization and social positioning of migrants] and foster a more effective cultural politics to counter the imperial, patriarchal, and racist integument of globalization’ (2001b: 1216).

Notes 1 Hereafter referred to as ‘Ireland’. 2 At their request, participants’ names have been changed to protect privacy. Also, the decision not to indicate migrant status here is deliberate and, in keeping with countertopography, is informed by an interest in focusing on lines of connection despite different social or geographical location. 3 Interviewees who had been granted refugee status were distinct in this regard; with the exception of Riva they expressed having positive encounters in pursuing their professional goals. Some did, however, indicate other domains where they felt thwarted or that outsider status was reproduced; for instance in encounters with the school system, Jennifer (interview, 14 October 2004) noted that teachers more frequently complained about the behaviour of black children than their white peers.

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Hall, S. (1995) ‘The local and the global: globalization and ethnicity’, in A. King (ed.) Culture, Globalization and the World System. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 19–40. Jordan, B. and P. Brown (2007) ‘Migration and work in the UK: mobility and the social order’, Mobilities, 2:2, 255–76. Karavanta, A. (2005) The Global, the Local and the Woman– Labourer–Immigrant: Reconfiguring the ‘Local’ , Re-thinking the ‘Global’ in Women’s ‘Counter-topographies’. Raw Nerve Books. Available online at www.travellingconcepts.net. Accessed 3 May 2010. Katz, C. (2001a) ‘Vagabond capitalism and the necessity of social reproduction’, Antipode, 33:4, 708–27. Katz, C. (2001b) ‘ On the grounds of globalization: a topography for feminist political engagement’, Signs, 26:4, 1213–34. Katz, C. (2004) Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children’s Everyday Lives. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Koopman, S. (2008) ‘Cutting through topologies: crossing lines at the School of the Americas’, Antipode, 40:5, 825–47. Krings, T., A. Bobek, E. Moriarty, J. Salamonska and J. Wickham (2009) ‘Migration and recession: Polish migration in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland’, Sociological Research Online, 14:2. Available online at www.socresonline. org.uk/14/2/9.html. Accessed 30 June 2010. Lawson, V. (2000) ‘Arguments within geographies of movement: the theoretical potential of migrants’ stories’, Progress in Human Geography, 24:2, 173–89. Lentin, R. (2004) ‘Strangers and strollers: feminist reflections on researching migrant m/others’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 27:4, 301–14. Linehan, D. (2007) ‘“For the way we live today”: consumption, lifestyle and place’, in Bartley and Kitchin (eds) Understanding Contemporary Ireland, 289–300. Loyal, S. and K. Allen (2008) ‘Rethinking immigration and the state in Ireland’, in A. Lentin and R. Lentin (eds) Race and State. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 209–28. Mac Éinrí, P. (2001) ‘Immigration into Ireland: trends, policy responses, outlook’, Irish Centre for Migration Studies, University College Cork 2001. Available online at http://migration.ucc.ie. Accessed 1 October 2004. Mac Éinrí, P. (2007) ‘Immigration: labour migrants, asylum seekers and refugees’, in Bartley and Kitchin (eds) Understanding Contemporary Ireland, 236–48. Mac Éinrí, P. and A. White (2008) ‘Immigration into the Republic of Ireland: a bibliography of recent research’, Irish Geography, 41:2, 151–79. Marx, K. (1987 [1848]) Manifesto of the Communist Party (Bourgeois and Proletariat). Marxist Internet Archive. Available online at

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www.marxists.org. Accessed 30 June 2010. Massey, D. (1999) ‘Why does immigration occur? A theoretical synthesis’, in C. Hirschman, J. DeWind and P. Kasnitz (eds) Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience. New York: Russell Sage, 34–52. Mountz, A. (2011) ‘Where asylum-seekers wait: feminist counter-topographies of sites between states’, Gender, Place and Culture, 18:3, 381–99. Munck, R. (2008) ‘Migration, globalisation and the politics of scale’, Translocations, Migration and Social Change, 4:1, 142–8. Ní Laoire, C. (2007) ‘The “green green grass of home”? Return migration to rural Ireland’, Journal of Rural Studies, 23:3, 332–44. Ní Laoire, C. (2008) ‘“Settling back”? A biographical and life-course perspective on Ireland’s recent return migration, Irish Geography, 41:2, 195–210. Pratt, G. (2004) Working Feminisms. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Pratt, G. and B. Yeoh (2003) ‘Transnational (counter)topographies’, Gender, Place and Culture, 10:2, 159–66. Silvey, R. and V. Lawson (1999) ‘Placing the migrant’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89:1, 121–32. Trouillot, M.-R. (2003) Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World. New York: Palgrave. Wright, M. (2008) ‘Gender and geography: knowledge and activism across the intimately global’, Progress in Human Geography, 33:3, 379–86.

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11 Unbounding migration studies: the intersections of language, space and time 1

Bettina Migge and Mary Gilmartin

Introduction: disciplinary borders As the foreign population of Ireland grew at unprecedented rates, it began to receive much academic attention. This early academic work, predominantly located within sociology, social policy and education (see, for example, Devine, 2010; Fanning, 2007),2 has shaped the study of contemporary migration to Ireland in two important ways. The first is through the definition of the object(s) of study, where research activities focus on specific, often marginalized, (national) ‘communities’ of migrants and their particular experiences of migration, often in a reactive way (Mac Éinrí and White, 2008). The second is through methodology, with a focus on factive or realist interpretations of interview data. While the body of academic research on migration to Ireland has grown substantially in recent years, it is bounded by these substantive and methodological preoccupations. We work within disciplines that have made more limited contributions to the study of contemporary migration to Ireland. In the case of linguistics, this relative lack of research is not entirely surprising. Sociolinguistic research has a relatively short history in Ireland and most of the research in linguistics has focused on Irish and on structural linguistic and applied issues relating to Irish and, to a much smaller extent, on Second Language Acquisition (Lemée and Regan, 2010). There is, however, a growing tradition of research on the pragmatics of Irish English (see Barron and Schneider, 2005; Vaughan and Clancy, 2011). In contrast, geography has a longer presence in Irish universities, and an established tradition of research on Irish migration, specifically emigration from Ireland. Despite this, geographers have been slow to engage in research on contemporary migration to and from Ireland, with the

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exception of a few key individuals (see Gilmartin and White, 2008; Mac Éinrí and White, 2008). In the course of a previous project (Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative (MCRI), 2008), we discovered a shared interest in how and why migrant experiences, and their narration, change, as well as a shared frustration with the fact that the practice of migration research in Ireland was not drawing from a sufficiently broad theoretical base. We also realized that, as a sociolinguist and a geographer, we shared a common fascination with context. For the sociolinguist, that context is connected to language practices – how linguistic practices change, and how these changes are instrumental in negotiating people’s (temporary) alignment (or lack thereof) with people, places and other imaginative spaces. For the geographer, that context is connected to place and space: where conversations take place, how those conversations invoke to specific places and are implicated in socio-spatial relations. Our similar interests, and our at times different perspectives and disciplinary approaches, shape the questions we ask and the ways we respond to stories. In this chapter, we want to show how working with people from other disciplines has shaped our current research on migration and integration in Ireland. We discuss how we collaboratively defined the object of our research, the methods of data collection and preparation for research, and how we attempt to analyze the data. Through this contextual approach, which brings disciplinary insights into language, space and time into conversation, we show how our challenge to the disciplinary bounding of migration studies opens new possibilities for understanding migration as a process and as a lived experience.

Defining objects, populations and goals This chapter is based on our experiences as researchers on a two-year project funded by the IRCHSS.3 The project focused on two migrant cohorts, distinguished only by year of arrival in Ireland. We chose 2004 and 2007 as the years of arrival: the first because it corresponded to European Union (EU) enlargement and a significant increase in migration to Ireland, and because it meant a considerable length of time as a migrant; the second because, as our study started in late 2008, it allowed us to meet people early in their time in Ireland. We recruited sixty participants from eighteen different countries, and we generally interviewed each participant at least twice in the course of the research. Interviews were primarily conducted in English.4 Although people’s competence levels varied, none of the interviewees expressed unease to being mostly ‘limited’ to English during the interview. Like many other researchers on migration to Ireland, we also employed a qualitative research approach.

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However, following current trends in the humanities, our project adopts a constructivist approach. We set out to explore how social categories (e.g. nationality, community, gender and migrant) are constituted in migrants’ narratives of lived experience in Ireland, and how they impact on migrants’ perceptions of Ireland and Irish society and influence negotiations of their own social identities in Ireland. Our project did not focus on pre-existing nationally based networks of people or so-called ‘communities’ because both our previous project (MCRI, 2008) and current research in the humanities and social sciences has highlighted the fact that people with similar objective social characteristics (e.g. gender, class, ethnicity) may well have very different views and patterns of behaviour due to differences in life histories and aspirations. People’s behaviour is not geared towards reflecting or conforming to uniquely defined social categories, but actively negotiates (the content of) social categories and their orientation to them. Consequently, people’s behaviour is performative in nature; people act as individuals designing their social behaviour in accordance with the kinds of social personae they want to display to others and their understandings of the types of personae that are socially available. Viewed from this constructivist perspective, nationality, like other frequently invoked social categories, cannot be assumed to determine or explain social behaviour per se or influence it to the same degree for all its holders; its relevance has to be explored through careful consideration of a range of socially relevant factors. Rather than focusing on specific national groups, we thus consciously opted for a bottom-up approach that treats people as individuals rather than as ‘members of communities’ and let each individual define their specific characteristics, of which nationality is just one. We asked people to self-select in order to avoid politically convenient and often necessary presentations of ‘the migrant’ and to get a broad range of people. Self-selection was instrumental in assuring that our sample was representative of the diversity of people who have come to Ireland. According to the 2006 Census, around 66 per cent of the people with nationalities other than Irish living in Ireland were from the EU (Central Statistics Office (CSO), 2008). Our sample reflects this diversity, in that 50 per cent of our interviewees come from EU-10 (e.g. Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia), 18 per cent from EU-15 and 32 per cent from outside the EU. It expands on existing studies/samples in that it includes a number of EU-15 (e.g. the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain) and non-EU migrants from other predominantly English-speaking countries such as Australia, the USA, Canada and South Africa. These broad migrant groups have to date received only marginal attention in the literature despite their relative numerical importance among migrants to Ireland (Gilmartin and White, 2008). While there is some attention to people coming from accession countries, for example from

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Poland and Lithuania (see, for example, Gilmartin et al., 2008; Kropiwiec with King-O’Riain, 2006; Nolka and Nowosielski, 2009), many detailed academic studies focus on specific non-EU migrants and make little attempt at comparison across types of migrant groups (exceptions are King-O’Riain, 2008; MCRI, 2008). In line with the constructivist approach adoped by this study, our study focuses on people’s perspectives and feelings (e.g. I’m validated; I have friends; I like where I live; the weather is bad) rather than ‘hard facts’ (e.g. I can easily find a job; I earn a lot; taxes are low) because it is these personalized issues that make or break people’s decisions to align with a place and to make it their home. We privilege a critical and dynamic analytical approach to migration over a descriptive and static one. We do not take what people say as objective final truth, but rather as projections of current or temporary perspectives on their lives, their various roles, and their views and feelings about Ireland and/or their countries of origin. People’s perspectives are dependent and interested, being a function of various factors such as their current self-conception, their mood, the locale of the interview, their rapport with the interviewer and their ease with being interviewed. For instance, we noticed that the same person may express quite different views about the same matters due to changes in their private or work life, where we meet them, who the interviewer is and whether the relationship is formal or informal. This has important methodological implications for research on migration. People have to be interviewed more than once in order to understand the factors that lead to change. These factors are often quite mundane and are not always consciously assessible to interviewees. In order to come to a comprehensive understanding of these issues, researchers have to develop a critical understanding of their own role (or that of the interviewer), the physical and social context of the interview, and the performative nature of narratives, including interviews. Answers and questions are always a function of people’s views of life and themselves in the contemporaneous context, rather than a neutral account of knowable facts. To address these issues, we typically interviewed people twice, in different locales and at different times defined by interviewees, and with different interviewers. The issue of selfpresentation is central to our analysis.

Methods of data collection Like many other researchers interested in migration to Ireland, our main method of data collection is the interview. Within the discipline of geography, the role of the interview in migration research has grown in importance in recent years, as geographers move away from previously dominant quantitative approaches to the study of migration. In this shift towards qualitative

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research methods, the interview is perhaps the most widely used and practised technique. However, there are limitations to how the interview is structured and used within geographic research on migration. Broader theoretical concerns – such as power relations between the interviewer and interviewee – are certainly highlighted (Secor, 2010). In practice, however, the interview is most often treated uncritically, as a repository of facts, and reported verbatim in presentations and publications. In contrast to geography, in sociolinguistics (and linguistic anthropology) discussions about methods of data collection have figured prominently. Initially, sociolinguistics dealt with strategies for overcoming the ‘observer’s paradox’: researchers want to observe what people are doing when they are not being observed, but the only way to find out is through observation. Since people’s vernacular or relaxed style of speaking is only practised in settings where speakers feel relaxed and unobserved (Milroy and Gordon, 2003), William Labov (1972) argued that researchers have to carefully match their interviewees’ demeanour and background, avoid formal, status-based professional behaviour and make the data collection event as relaxed and spontaneous as possible in order to minimize the impact of the researcher. In principle, this means that researchers should attempt to steer clear of the typical formal interview format and closely approximate a peer-like conversational setting. Thus, researchers met in interviewees’ homes, organized group interviews with people who regularly interact, challenged interviewees’ views and made reference to/talked about their own experiences. Although much criticism has been levelled at the sociolinguistic interview and its usefulness as a data collection tool for research on language variation and change,5 it remains one of the most commonly used methods. However, there is a growing trend towards data triangulation. Drawing on ethnographic methods, researchers also rely on participant-observation (Eckert, 2000) and audio-recordings of spontaneous everyday interactions. The interview is also increasingly used as a way to gain a structured insight into people’s (language) ideologies. Triangulation has significantly improved understandings of the local social structure, including the kinds of social groupings and categories that are salient, the social practices and ideologies linked to them, and the role of language in their construction (Eckert, 2000; Ochs, 1992). The influence of developments in sociolinguistics was evident in our approach to the interview. People who took part self-selected, and chose when and where we would meet. Thus, interviews took place in settings as diverse as bars and coffee shops, in people’s homes or places of work, and at any time that suited the interviewee, including evenings and weekends. We carried out many interviews together, so there were often three, and at times more, people in conversation. The interview itself was in theory semi-structured, but often did not follow this structure closely. We followed the threads

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of conversation introduced by the participant, and also commented on issues and answered questions posed by the interviewees in order to facilitate genuine interaction. Indeed, the interplay between us, as interviewers, was crucial to how the conversation developed. We often commented on our own experiences as migrants, or questioned each other on our views, as part of the interview process. These conversations often continued after we had finished recording the interview or, on occasion, when we remained in contact with participants later. We also resumed the conversation up to a year later, when we met for a follow-up interview that made no attempt to follow similar structures, but rather reflected on the previous interviews and the way in which the participant narrated the intervening time. This approach was not without its difficulties. When we interviewed together, we were often uncomfortable or impatient with the other’s interviewing style. When we interviewed alone, we often missed out on conversational cues that the other person would have followed, particularly related to that person’s area of research interest. We were often sidelined by our particular preoccupations at the time of the interview, whether that was discrimination, housing, work or current political events. In short, we were forced to reflect critically on our positionality during each interview, and to fight against any assumption that we were, or could be, neutral in this process. Similarly, we were forced to interrogate the constructed nature of the interview narrative, and look for the ways in which participants told stories that were not quite consistent in either space or time.

Analysing data From this research, we have gathered three specific sources of primary data: the interview recordings, the interview transcripts, and our observations in and around individual interviews as well as the interview process. In analysing these data, we look at the interactions between all three sources in a form of triangulation. In this way, we draw on work within sociolinguistics, particularly discourse-based research that focuses on social concepts and their linguistic instantiation (Ochs, 1992). This research shows how social categories and the meanings that instantiate them are negotiated through alternation between codes, including styles of speaking, the use of certain speech acts or interactional routines and interactional devices (e.g. turntaking, the use of silence, overlapping speech and hedging). This research also revealed that people’s conceptions of social categories – including conceptions of the self and other, and their sense of belonging – and the ways to negotiate them do not only vary across people and cultures, but are inherently variable even within the same society. People constantly negotiate and renegotiate them in everyday interactions through verbal interaction. Thus, social

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facts are dynamic and contingent on everything else in the context. Changes are often incremental and only emerge through detailed analysis of situated texts or discourses. In our analysis of the interviews it is thus not sufficient to simply focus on what Pavlenko describes as ‘subject reality’: using content and thematic analysis to ultimately present ‘a laundry list of observations, factors, or categories, illustrated by quotes from participants’ (2007: 167).6 In order to fully capture the social dynamics of migrants’ lives as they are encapsulated in their narratives, we have to pay attention to what is being said and how it is said as well as what is not being said. Therefore, in our analysis, we see that during the interview, we tend to focus on the content – specifically what is said – and take note of the context. Afterwards, we reflect also on what is not said (by us and by the participants) in the interview, on the form of language, and on the broader context for the interaction (Pavlenko, 2007). Understanding migrants’ perspectives: negotiating the self across time and space We want to illustrate our analysis in progress through a case study of one of our research participants, Mike.7 Mike was the fourth person we interviewed as part of this project, and he got in touch with us after a friend distributed a request for participants at his place of work. We first met on a snowy February night in 2009, when Mike came to Bettina’s home for the interview. The second interview was in March 2010, when Bettina met with Mike in his office. Mike moved to Ireland from the UK in May 2007 to take up a job as an architect. He had arranged a job prior to his move, and had remained in the same job since arriving in Ireland. He was thirty years old when we first met him. In the context of research on migration to Ireland, Mike is both usual and unusual. As a UK national, he is a member of the second largest migrant group in Ireland, though, paradoxically, the group about which least is known. However, in contrast to the majority of UK nationals in Ireland, he lives in Dublin city in rented accommodation, he is single and he does not have children. Mike is a skilled labour migrant, and he works in a construction-related activity, like the majority of men from the UK living in Ireland. With Irish parents, he may well see himself as ethnically Irish, as is the case with around 17 per cent of UK nationals living in Ireland (CSO, 2008). He moved to Ireland partially because he has always had an affinity for the country due to many happy summers spent in Ireland during his childhood (see Chapter 1, this volume, for a more detailed discussion). We have presented Mike based on the information he gave us during the two interviews, and in the broader context of UK migration to Ireland. We have limited means of verifying Mike’s narrative: we do know where he works, but we have to take his word about his marital status, where he lives and his parents’ background. This is a broader issue with interview-based research on

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migration in the social sciences: migrant narratives are most often accepted as representations of reality, despite the clear ways in which they serve as dynamic social constructions of identity and place. If we analyze the interview as a site of social construction, then it is possible to identify other patterns of interaction that shape and influence the ways in which Mike presented himself to us. When we first met Mike, in a context that was familiar to us but unfamiliar to him, he was hesitant and reluctant. A standard, factive transcript of that first interview does not fully capture that hesitancy, evident in the qualifiers, pauses, reformulations and hedges that permeate his talk. For example, when we asked him how he is seen in the west of Ireland, where his parents grew up, he replied in a tentative manner: ‘I don’t know I kind of hope that they kind of, yes they wouldn’t kind of see us as kind of a stranger back there like you know that so.’ In some instances in social science research, ‘I don’t know’, ‘I hope’ and the repetitive ‘kind of’ might be edited out to provide a more fluid narrative about the meaning of belonging. Although these hedges do not add referential information, they are vital for understanding an interviewee’s positioning to the referential information (i.e. the content of the sentence); in this case, Mike suggests that he’s unsure about whether or not he’s viewed as an outsider among his Irish family. In this first interview, there are moments when Mike relaxes – most often when he tells a joke or laughs. However, when we directly questioned him, particularly on personal issues, he was very tentative. His engagement with us, and in the process of story-telling, was deliberate and guarded: he was clearly in control of the level and type of information he was willing to share. A year later, when Bettina arrived at his workplace unannounced for the second interview, Mike interacted quite differently. Although objectively speaking his personal situation was rather uncertain – many people had been let go from his workplace and the salaries of the remaining people had been reduced significantly – he was less guarded in his responses to questions. For instance, he let Bettina know that he had a girlfriend – he did not mention romantic relationships in the first interview – and disclosed the fact that he and a sibling owned land and farmed in the west of Ireland. He kept emphasizing how happy he had been and even went so far as to say that a move to the UK would be entirely work-oriented, suggesting that Ireland had now become the place he called home. This change was also reflected in his language use: he employed comparatively few hedges even when talking about personal issues and his speech was not hesitant and involved few reformulations. While there are several possible reasons for the changes in his selfprojection (he may have felt more comfortable in his workplace; he may have preferred speaking to one person rather than two; he may have felt there were no negative consequences from the first interview; or he may have felt more

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secure in the way his life had developed), careful analysis of non-referential information revealed that objective factors such as job security, level of income and overall economic situation are not reliable indicators of people’s inner states and their feelings of belonging and well being. Contrasting the two interviews allowed us to identify some factual omissions during the first interview, and also allowed us a glimpse of the variable nature of Mike’s selfpresentation and how he narrated this change. The role of an interviewer in migrants’ narration of the self Interviewers are central to the interview process, but their role is often obscured because they are often explicitly written out of transcripts or quotations. In the discipline of geography, beyond the almost obligatory confessional paragraph that provides academic and/or personal context for the study, the practice of the interview is rarely interrogated. Yet, the interactional nature of the interview is central to how narrative and meaning are constructed. How we as interviewers question, listen and respond shapes the ways in which interviews develop, and how we position ourselves matters. Methodological guides in geography, for example, often suggest the need for selective self-disclosure by the interviewer for fear of damaging a rapport with the interviewee (Valentine, 2005). This assumes, however, a level of fixity about the identity of both interviewer and interviewee, rather than recognizing the range of voices both take on in the interaction of the interview. In the first interview, which happened early on in the research project, it is clear to see how Mary (the geographer) was guarded in what she said and in how she interacted with Mike: her questions are short and to the point, and she gives little information about her own views. In contrast, Bettina (the sociolinguist) is much more forthcoming about her own experiences as a migrant both in order to put Mike at ease and in order to entice him to give his own opinions, saying ‘but here everybody knows a brother and a sister and whatever. It’s actually quite frightening if you think about it when you are from the outside because like how are you going to push in?’ In the second interview, Bettina is just as forthcoming, and she also exchanges information with Mike about social welfare benefits. At this time, perhaps reflecting her preoccupations at that point, Bettina was clearly most interested in questions of work and cost of living, and in how Mike was coping with the recession in Ireland, though at the same time trying to reassure him (and herself) that ‘there are probably lots of people who are in the same and even worse situations’.

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Narrating social space Just as the interview itself is a social construct, geographers also argue that space is socially constructed. In this way, interview narratives are as implicated in constructing space as they are in the process of identity formation. Bringing a geographic imagination to these interviews means that we paid attention, both in the interview and afterwards, to how Mike described places and his relationship with them. In the first interview, Mike spoke about Ireland as a place filled with emotion and meaning because of his family connections: a place he would spend holidays, a place he wanted to live in, and a place – particularly the west of Ireland – where he hoped he belonged. Despite this, he struggled when we asked him where he thought of as home, finally saying that he supposed it was the town in the UK where he grew up and his mother and some of his siblings still lived. Interestingly, his idea of Ireland was quite bifurcated. On the one hand, he spoke of the romanticized west, where aunts and uncles and cousins live, where his mother hoped to return, where he and his brother are seen as special, and where he thought he might like to be in ten years’ time. On the other hand, he currently lives in Dublin, and in this first interview spoke of the place as young and vibrant, with a great music scene and with lots of opportunities for socializing in the ‘smaller kinds of pubs’ he likes. He showed his ‘insider’ knowledge of Dublin in that first interview, making disparaging comments about Temple Bar and saying that his knowledge of the city ‘would be kind of so you know like somebody who was brought up here but you know’. By the second interview, Mike was much more certain about feeling at home in Dublin and in Ireland. ‘I don’t want to move,’ he said, while recognizing that limited work opportunities might leave him with no option. Later he said, ‘Yes well I have just been very happy about how the move went and enjoyed my time here and it was just, I don’t know, a lot of the people then when you are talking about going over to the UK, it seems like all the roads lead to London and I wouldn’t be that keen to head to London’ – this was in contrast to the first interview, when he told us he had job interviews in London before moving to Dublin, and said ‘I think London would be like be a pretty exciting place to live as well like it’s’. When Mike talked about moving to the UK in the second interview, he did so from a perspective that suggested that he now considered Ireland home: ‘because whatever happens, even if I was to go away, I would always have the plan to come back, it wouldn’t be like I would be going back over to the UK, it would be just to go for a period of time to let things settle and to see what happens in the market here and to see where it is going to go and where the work is going and that, and then to come back.’ In all his narratives of moving in the second interview, he invoked the figure of his girlfriend – an Irish woman who works in the same business, and who by then appeared central to his decision-making.

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In the case of Mike, we can see how the three sources of primary data thus inform each other and lead to new insights into the process and experience of migration. The interview provides factive data, certainly, but these data are contingent, being shaped by the interactions between all participants in the event, and influenced by its particular context. Our analysis of these data is influenced by the form of the interview, as evident in the audio recordings and in our recollections of its nature. In Mike’s case, re-examining the audio recordings highlighted his hesitancy and reluctance when faced with particular kinds of questions. The contexts for the interviews – in different spaces, with different participants, and framed by rapidly changing social and economic circumstances – also influenced both their form and content. They also raised different questions about how to make sense of what we were told and not told, and what we observed. That interviews are not simply repositories of objective facts became particularly clear when we examined how Mike’s narratives of migration changed over time.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have argued that migration research in Ireland is in thrall to a specific set of research practices that prioritize marginalized communities and a particular form of qualitative analysis. As a result, there are significant gaps in our knowledge of migration to Ireland and in our awareness of migrant experiences. We have also argued, more broadly, that disciplinary approaches to migration studies are bounded by the dominant research practices that emerge in specific disciplines. Within geography, this is of particular relevance in the tendency to treat interviews as repositories of facts rather than as social constructions; within linguistics, this is of relevance because of the prioritization of language ideologies over other forms of social construction. Our study of migration to Ireland thus challenges the ways in which migration research is bounded in a variety of ways. In defining the object of study, we have significantly broadened the definition of ‘migrant’, moved beyond a community-based approach to migrant experiences and paid particular attention to the question of self-presentation. In our methodology, we have used insights from recent waves of sociolinguistics to challenge conventional structures and practices of the interview. In our analysis, we have prioritized language form as well as content, and highlighted a range of social constructions – including space – that emerge from the interaction. We have shown this in practice through our analysis of interviews with just one respondent, Mike, but he is definitely not unique. Our analysis shows, on one level, the unreliability of the interview as a source of facts, but it also shows the richness of the interview as a source of information about social interac-

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tion and social construction, all key aspects of the migrant experience. This analysis involves a level of analysis of the self-presentation of the researcher that is often missing from migration research. Our approach to migration research thus prioritizes context, and analyses language and space over time. We aim to expand the ways in which the interview is understood in migration research, in Ireland and more broadly, drawing on insights from sociolinguistics, but expanding them to consider ideologies other than language. In doing so, we also aim to expand the ways in which migration in Ireland is theorized and understood. Attention to the intersections of language, space and time thus led us in new, and often perplexing, directions. Time complicates and changes migrant experiences and stories; socio-spatial narratives alter; and language, as a means of getting at migrant experiences, is unreliable yet also illuminating. And all of these are framed by changing contexts, for us as researchers and for the people we meet, at a range of different scales. Paying attention to the complexities of narrated and emplaced migrant experiences in all their ‘throwntogetherness’ (Massey, 2005) is messy and difficult, but it helps us to unbound migration studies and deepen our understanding of migration and the migrant experience, in Ireland and further afield.

Notes 1 An earlier version of this chapter was presented by Mary Gilmartin at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Washington DC, 15 April 2010 in the session on ‘Contemporary Geographic Research on (Im)migration 4: Immigration and the Politics of Belonging and Identity I’. 2 This is in contrast to academic research on emigration from Ireland, which is dominated by historians and, to a lesser extent, historical geographers. 3 The project, entitled ‘Towards a Dynamic Approach to Research on Migration and Integration’, ran from December 2008 to December 2010, and was funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. We were the Principal Investigators on this project. 4 Only one interview was carried out in a language other than English (German). 5 People do not respond in the same way to similar conversational strategies or topics, and language use or styles of speaking vary not only in relation to the context (formal/informal) and topic, but also in relation to other dimensions such as the audience (Bell, 1984), the relationship between interviewer and interviewee, and the identities assumed by the interlocutors (Coupland, 2001; Eckert, 2001). The interview is a specific speech style that is not common to all communities (Briggs, 1986). 6 Within geography, a more nuanced approach is suggested by Wiles et al. (2005), though in the context of health research. 7 ‘Mike’ is a pseudonym.

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References Barron, A. and K.P. Schneider (2005) The Pragmatics of Irish English. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Bell, A. (1984) ‘Language style as audience design’, Language in Society, 13:2, 145–204. Briggs, C.L. (1986) Learning How to Ask. A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Central Statistics Office (2008) Census 2006: Non-Irish Nationals Living in Ireland. Dublin: Stationery Office. Coupland, N. (2001) ‘Language, situation, and the relational self: theorizing dialect-style in sociolinguistics’, in P. Eckert and J.R. Rickford (eds) Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 185–210. Devine, D. (2010) Making a Difference? Immigration and Schooling in Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Eckert, P. (2000) Linguistic Variation as Social Practice. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Eckert, P. (2001) ‘Style and social meaning’, in Eckert and Rickford (eds) Style and Sociolinguistic Variation, 119–26. Fanning, B. (ed.) (2007) Immigration and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Gilmartin, M. and A. White (2008) ‘Revisiting contemporary Irish migration: new geographies of mobility and belonging’, Irish Geography, 41:2, 143–9. Gilmartin, M., J.A. O’Connell and B. Migge (2008) ‘Lithuanians in Ireland’, Oikos: Lithuanian Migration and Diaspora Studies, 5:1, 49–62. King-O’Riain, R. (2008) ‘Target earning/learning, settling or trampolining: Polish and Chinese immigrants in Ireland’, Irish Geography, 41:2, 211–23. Kropiwiec, K. with R. Chiyoko King-O’Riain (2006) Polish Migrant Workers in Ireland. Dublin: National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism. Labov, W. (1972) ‘Some principles of linguistic methodology’, Language in Society, 1: 97–120. Lemée, I. and V. Regan (2010) ‘Gender, identity and context in French L2 acquisition: the year abroad’, in V. Regan and C. Ní Chasaide (eds) Language Practices and Identity by Multilingual Speakers of French L2: The Acquisition of Sociostylistic Variation. Modern French Identity Series. New York: Peter Lang, 107–20. Mac Éinrí, P. and A. White (2008) ‘Immigration into the Republic of Ireland: a bibliography of recent research’, Irish Geography, 41:2, 151–79. Massey, D. (2005) For Space. London: Sage.

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MCRI (2008) Getting On: From Migration to Integration – Chinese, Indian, Lithuanian and Nigerian Migrants’ Experiences in Ireland. Dublin: Immigrant Council of Ireland. Milroy, L. and M. Gordon (2003) Sociolinguistics: Method and Interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Nolka, A. and M. Nowosielski (2009) ‘Poles living in Ireland and their quality of life’, Journal of Identity and Migration Studies, 3:1, 28–46. Ochs, E. (1992) ‘Indexing gender’, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 335–58. Pavlenko, A. (2007) ‘Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics’, Applied Linguistics, 28:2, 163–88. Secor, A.J. (2010) ‘Social surveys, interviews and focus groups’, in B. Gomez and J.P. Jones (eds) Research Methods in Geography. Chichester: Blackwell, 194–205. Valentine, G. (2005) ‘Tell me about . . . using interviews as a research methodology’, in R. Flowerdew and D. Martin (eds) Methods in Human Geography: A Guide for Students doing a Research Project. Harlow: Pearson (2nd edition), 110–27. Vaughan, E. and B. Clancy (2011) ‘The pragmatics of Irish English’, English Today, 27:2, 47–52. Wiles, J.L., M.W. Rosenberg and R.A. Kearns (2005) ‘Narrative analysis as a strategy for understanding interview talk in geographic research’, Area, 37:2, 89–99.

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12 Context, scale and generation: the constructions of belonging Jamie Goodwin-White

Introduction As Ireland became a country of net immigration, the immigrants who came to Ireland were unprecedentedly diverse in terms of background, skills and demographic characteristics. The one thing they all had in common was their immigration to a country with limited experience of immigration, and one which was experiencing significant economic, urban and cultural change. The boom–bust cycle in Ireland provides a focused period within which to study integration of immigrants under rapidly changing economic and societal conditions. Other countries of immigration have experienced these changes over many decades, and have populations shaped by previous generations of immigrant settlement, as well as regional labour markets shaped by long waves of boom and bust (Castles and Miller, 2009). Is Ireland’s alembic a useful one? What can this concentrated influx of immigrants tell us about integration under golden periods of economic development and cultural change and also in harder times? How will these drivers of migration shape integration for the future of the immigrants who stay? What challenges do they (and Ireland, in its guise as a new country of immigration) face now? Although Ireland’s story is only now playing out concurrently with fierce negotiations over bank bailouts and proposals from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), we can look to several indicators that will prove critical. Accounts of integration, and indeed the theoretical development of integration perspectives, originated in other countries of immigration (most significantly, here, from the USA, Britain and Australia) although they are increasingly employed in European discussions.1 These provide several major themes that suggest avenues for enquiry into the national and sub-national contexts of immigration faced in Ireland. It is hoped that looking at Ireland’s experiences may also yield fruitful redevelopment of theoretical perspectives

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on integration. While these latter are beyond the scope of this chapter, I suggest they might help us elaborate the contours of immigrant integration under changing economic and demographic conditions. In this chapter, then, I analyze some of the labour market arguments that have framed discussions of economic integration elsewhere, including questions about working conditions and labour market competition (are immigrants gaining a foothold in the economy, are they ‘taking jobs’ from the Irish-born, how different are their employment conditions from the Irishborn?), and begin to link this analysis to broader questions of societal segregation in terms of citizenship, residence and access to education. These quotidian conditions are the basis of concerns over immigrant integration, in that they shape ‘the warmth of the welcome’ (Reitz, 1998) immigrants initially receive and how that changes over time. They also shape continuing realities of contact and distance with the rest of Ireland’s population, as well as prospects for the second generation to live equal lives with the Irish-born of Irish-born parents. In addition, they say a good deal about how Ireland will configure itself as a country of immigration, rather than simply as a country of temporary guestworkers or as a secondary overflow country of asylum. If Ireland’s economy recovers, especially relative to others, there is little doubt immigration will exceed emigration once again, and Ireland may then join the ranks of countries with long histories of immigration and native populations comprising individuals with many diverse ancestries. This is when integration becomes more than a theoretically academic exercise. With that potential future in mind, I would like to turn to the empirical focus provided by Ireland to answer integration questions emanating from countries with longer experiences of immigration. I hope that answering these questions will also shed light on the current and emerging contexts of integration for immigrants in Ireland. Another possibility provided by Ireland’s relatively recent immigration experience is the chance to reframe these questions in more promising ways. Specifically, Ireland offers: 1) a chance to assess labour market integration in ways that connect more directly with social/cultural integration through an emphasis on the processes of inequality; and 2) a related opportunity to pursue less racialized and more useful investigations into the processes of segregation.

Background Especially in the case of labour migrants, integration is often assessed along economic lines. A significant body of literature seeks to ascertain whether immigrants’ wages catch up with those of the native-born over time and across generations, and whether or not immigrants’ early labour market segmentation in host societies diminishes with time (Borjas, 1985, 1995;

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Borjas and Katz, 2006; Card, 2007; Holzer, 2011). For the most part, these studies control for educational background and other characteristics, such that immigrants are compared with similarly skilled or qualified native-born workers. In addition to comparing similar workers’ labour market outcomes and thus isolating the effect of nationality, these studies also associate integration with the eventual move to a job and salary consistent with one’s background, regardless of national origin. Although immigrants’ labour market rewards may be inadequate to the qualifications at first, it is argued, they should eventually integrate and be in jobs suited to their background (see Borjas, 1985, 1995; Chiswick et al., 2005; DiNardo et al., 2000; Smith, 2006). Researchers argue that this process of economic integration is critical for social cohesion as well as for national economic productivity (Barrett and Duffy, 2008). Along these lines, Chiswick et al. (2005) propose a U-shaped model for assessing integration as the evolving relationship between immigrants’ qualifications and their employment. Immigration marks the bottom of the U, as migrants may initially take lower-skilled jobs in the host society before gaining cultural capital and climbing back towards a higher-status position warranted by their qualifications (now in the host society). Barrett and Duffy (2008) apply this to the Irish context. They find this model difficult to apply to Ireland because of the relative recency of immigration and inadequate longitudinal data on immigrant employment. Using available cross-sectional data, they note that interpretations of economic integration using the Chiswick et al. model are fraught, as recent Accession migrants have lower skills profiles than earlier migrants, who tended to have skills profiles equivalent or superior to Irish-born workers. Despite difficulty applying the model to the current Irish situation and available data, the authors suggest that Ireland provides a good test case for questions of economic integration in a potentially favourable environment since Accession migrants faced little discrimination as Europeans entering a booming economy. They also caution, however, that the persistence of immigrants in low-wage occupations threatens integration.2 O’Connell and McGinnity’s 2008 Immigrants at Work report uses a specially designed discrimination survey of Asians, Africans and Eastern Europeans in Ireland in conjunction with existing statistical data, and emerges considerably less sanguine about immigrant experiences in the Irish labour market. They find that immigrants from non-English-speaking countries and some ethnic Asian jobseekers report discrimination in the labour market, and they also note significantly high levels of unemployment for Blacks in Ireland generally (although many of these latter are asylum seekers and thus ineligible for employment). Although their findings are not as clear as could be wished, they point to several critical institutional factors

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that may stymie integration. Among these are the limiting of employment to those asylum seekers who have already attained refugee status, and the inability of those from non-English-speaking countries to attain the language skills required for high-waged professions. They also find immigrants making wages lower than expected by their educational level. Recent reports on the high wage premium for public sector workers (Central Statistics Office, 2009; Kelly et al., 2009) suggest another barrier to high-waged jobs for migrants from non-English-speaking countries, in that public jobs require strong English-, and occasionally Irish-, language skills. In only two years, of course, the Irish labour market has changed dramatically. In 2007, immigrants were no more likely than the Irish-born to be unemployed (Barrett et al., 2006) – although labour market immigrants by definition should be even less likely to be unemployed. More importantly, the recession was not yet in full swing in 2007 – and by 2008 (as I will show below) immigrants were certainly losing jobs before comparable Irish workers. Looking at labour market integration in Ireland must take into account the extraordinary conditions that brought migrants here – since this is the context with regard to which integration occurs. This involves looking to another literature that shifts attention to where immigrants fit into emerging and rapidly changing labour markets, and at models that rely on available longitudinal, if aggregate, labour force survey data. Since the increase in immigration was contemporaneous with a booming economy, and since Ireland has historically had a long history of emigration, the question of where immigrants slated into a booming and then receding labour market is an obvious one. A recent Prime Time report (RTÉ, 2009) documented hostility directed at immigrants, driven by the idea that they had taken jobs from natives, driving wages down and Irish unemployment up – even as the Central Statistics Office and the Economic and Social Research Institute produced reports demonstrating that immigrants were losing jobs first (Central Statistics Office, 2008, 2009; O’Connell and McGinnity, 2008). The question is not unique to Ireland, and previous US research seeks to answer the question of how immigrants fit into expanding or contracting labour markets (Card, 2001, 2007; Goodwin-White, 2008; Wright and Ellis, 1996, 1997). On the most fundamental level, the ability of immigrants to secure employment in changing economic conditions is critical to their prospects for integration. On a more theoretical level, the perception that immigrants undermine the prospects of native-born workers, especially in a recession, can also threaten their prospects for integration through driving discrimination and hostility. This has been a practical problem in Ireland, and one documented in the media and academic accounts (Fanning, 2009; O’Connell and McGinnity, 2008; RTÉ, 2009; Titley et al., 2010). Although Ireland can lay some claim to providing an initially welcoming environment, the welcome wore thin as the recession got well under way. In the

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section that follows, I examine the timing of employment change for various nationality groups over the period from 2007–10. I look at who gained, kept and lost jobs among different nationality groups, and consider what impact occupational segmentation may have had on how immigrants and natives fared in a rapidly changing labour market. This analysis will answer some of the questions about immigrant–native job competition and the impact of occupational segmentation, and will lead to consideration of how labour market conditions may condition integration.

Analysis Using data from the Central Statistics Office’s Quarterly National Household Surveys, I look at occupational sector gains and losses for Irish, UK, Accession, other European Union (EU) and non-European birth groups from the second quarters of 2007–10 to examine how the boom–bust transition conditioned these groups’ employment patterns. Further, I decompose nation-wide employment shifts by means of a shift-share analysis. This technique is often used by planners and analysts for general economic industry or regional analysis, but has been developed more specifically to examine shifts in the ethnic division of labour by Wright and Ellis (1996, 1997). Here, the shift-share allows comparison of how different nationality groups experienced Ireland’s labour market under the shifting national economic conditions of 2007–10. It decomposes overall employment change to account for 1) what would be expected for different groups given the changing national economy (National Growth Effect; NGE); 2) the occupational mix or segmenting of each group under changing economic conditions (Industrial Mix Effect; IME); and 3) the ‘group shift’ (GS) relative gains and losses of each group relative to others in terms of labour market share. The relative importance of each component for each nativity group is also shown. This allows us to see how enormous recent shifts in the Irish economy produced a changing occupational structure shaping the context for immigrant integration – a context shaped by an immigrant /native division of labour and timing of employment gains and losses. Before that, it is useful to see a summary of the overall labour market changes for the period. Table 12.1 shows the all-industry gains and losses by nativity group for 2007–10, with percentage changes for each of the three years. Between 2007 and 2008, the overall number of jobs was virtually unchanged, and there was less than a 1 per cent decrease in the employment of Irish workers. The tail end of the Celtic Tiger is apparent in the entry of other groups: there were 3 per cent more UK migrants employed in Ireland than in previous years, as well as 7 per cent more Accession migrants and 13 per cent non-European migrants. Other EU migrants may have started to

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Table 12.1 Annual percentage employment change by nationality group, 2007–10a Nationality

2007–8

2008–9

2009–10

2007–10

All Irish UK EU-13 Accession Other

0.001 –1 3 –10 7 13

–8 –6 –8 11 –25 –20

–4 –2 –24 –29 –13 –10

–12 –9 –28 –29 –31 –17

Total job losses (000s)b 254.8 168.9 14.7 10.0 47.3 13.9

Notes: a Nationality categories are as grouped by the Central Statistics Office’s Quarterly National Household Survey. The EU-13 includes all pre-2004 EU countries excepting the UK and Ireland. Accession migrants are from the EU 16–27 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania). ‘Other’ migrants are from any non-EU country. b These data are rounded to the hundred by the Central Statistics Office. Rounding may mean that percentages do not sum to 100. Source: Central Statistics Office, Quarterly National Household Surveys 2007–10 (Quarter 2).

return home, as there was a 10 per cent decline in their numbers from 2007–8, although a similar increase in this group the following year could be due to potential repeat contracts or some circularity of migration flow. By the second year (the second quarter of 2009), however, all other groups had started to lose employment. The overall loss (matched by those from the UK) averaged 8 per cent. Irish nationals lost employment more slowly, at a rate of 6 per cent. Accession migrants lost one-quarter of their jobs between 2008 and 2009, and non-EU migrants lost one-fifth of their employment. By the second quarter of 2010 (the most recent data available at the time of writing), the Accession migrants had lost an additional 13 per cent of their employment, and other groups were starting to match these losses. Migrants from the UK lost nearly a quarter of their employment and non-Europeans lost an additional 10 per cent over the previous year’s losses. Overall job losses were 4 per cent over the year, and Irish losses just under half of this at 2 per cent. Thus, over the three-year period ending in June of 2010, all European migrants had lost nearly one-third of their jobs, and non-Europeans had lost nearly one-fifth. Overall job loss was at 12 per cent, with Irish job loss coming in under this average at 9 per cent (accrued mostly in 2008–9). Total job losses for the three–year period are displayed by nationality in the final column of Table 12.1. These employment shifts are not surprisingly tied directly to the jobs that built the Celtic Tiger and subsequently crashed along with it. Sixty per cent of the job losses were in construction, and 25 per cent in industrial jobs, with 10

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per cent in the longer-declining agricultural sector. There were also some gains in health, education and social services jobs (about 10 per cent), probably in response to an increased and changed population over the period. That said, it is interesting to look at which groups lost (and in some instances, gained) jobs across sectors.3 From 2007–10, the profile for Irish workers looks rather like this overall average, although they lose construction jobs much more slowly and less dramatically, and gain a larger share of new healthcare jobs. Unionization may have prevented harsher job loss for these workers: 25 per cent of construction jobs and 50 per cent of healthcare jobs are occupied by members of trades unions, and Irish workers are more than twice as likely to be unionized as are immigrant workers (Central Statistics Office, 2009). UK workers had massive job losses in construction, and the information and communications sector, but some significant gains in administrative jobs. Accession migrants had massive losses across all sectors (nearly 70 per cent of their workers were in construction, and nearly all of these jobs were lost), with only a very small gain in information communications. Other EU workers faced substantial losses in professional jobs, and lost almost all of their employment in construction and transportation – with no employment gains in any sector. And non-Europeans lost construction and other jobs as well, although their employment in health jobs was stable and they made some small gains in education and transport. Table 12.2 presents the results of a shift-share decomposing the job growth and loss for each group in Table 12.1. Following Wright and Ellis (1996, 1997) the shift-share decomposes current group and sector-specific employment for 1) an overall growth effect (NGE), 2) an industrial mix effect (IME), and 3) a Group Shift effect (GS). It yields insights into who lost out because of how the economy did overall, who lost out because of unfavourable occupational composition, and which groups gained or lost employment share relative to other groups – adding greater understanding of the processes driving the overall employment loss. The first component of employment change, the NGE, simply predicts the losses (or gains) that would accrue to each group were the national-level employment changes shared proportionally.4 The job loss due to overall economic collapse (NGE) is absolutely highest for Irish workers (there are many more of them), but proportionally highest for the Accession migrants (with non-EU migrants a distant second). Significant Irish job losses started in the second half of the period, after other groups had already suffered major employment losses. Comparing these figures with the final column of Table 12.1, which again reports actual losses by group, allows us to see which groups lost relatively more or fewer jobs than would have been expected overall.5 More importantly, the other two components of the shift-share make clear how each group experienced these losses. The IME captures the job loss

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Table 12.2 2007–10 shift-share decomposition, by nationality (000s) Shift component

2007–8

2008–9

2009–10

2007–10

National Growth Effect Irish UK EU-13 Accession Other

–0.95 –0.03 –0.02 –0.08 –0.04

–146.74 –4.44 –2.51 –13.64 –6.91

–68.16 –2.02 –1.35 –5.02 –2.69

–216.76 –6.30 –4.01 –18.57 –8.92

3.55 0.12 0.19 –4.23 0.23

3.56 0.38 0.92 –6.69 1.69

–1.16 0.60 0.61 –1.27 1.43

7.18 0.52 1.66 –13.06 3.42

–18.66 1.63 –3.21 10.82 9.70

32.03 0.24 5.77 –28.26 –9.76

33.56 –10.03 –8.30 –10.94 –3.96

47.89 –8.42 –5.75 –28.58 –4.92

Industrial Mix Effect Irish UK EU-13 Accession Other Group Shift Effect Irish UK EU-13 Accession Other

for each group attributable to a group’s disproportionate representation in certain occupational sectors.6 The IME is strongly and mostly positive for Irish workers throughout, indicating that Irish workers were not losing jobs as a result of being concentrated in declining industries (like construction). This changes to a slight negative for Irish workers by 2009–10, as they started to experience losses in the heavily-hit construction sector (where they had avoided significant losses until this point). The IME remains positive for UK, EU-13 and Other workers throughout the period, even as Irish losses in construction turn their IME negative by 2010. These groups are not concentrated in declining industries, and Other workers (requiring permits) are concentrated in still-growing industries, as indicated by their strongly positive IME. In contrast, the Accession migrants have a very strong negative IME, as they were overwhelmingly concentrated in industries that crashed throughout the entire period between 2007 and 2010. I will discuss this point further in the following section, as it speaks to theoretical debates over ‘immigrant jobs’. The GS is the final element of the decomposition, and one that allows analysis of the question of whether some workers are replacing each other in jobs, or holding on to jobs disproportionately as other groups lose out.7 Over the 2007–10 period, this effect is strongly positive for Irish workers and

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negative for all other groups. In 2007–8 GS is negative for Irish workers and positive for other groups. However, since there is little significant Irish job loss in this year, the negative GS simply indicates that as other groups enter the labour market with Accession and other immigration the proportion of Irish workers declines. This is reversed by 2008, when the Irish share of the labour market increases as other groups lose employment. This means that the GS effect turns negative first and most dramatically for the Accession migrants (who lose 28 per cent of their share of jobs by 2009 and another 11 per cent the following year). The effect is slower and less dramatic for non-EU migrants (whose shares decline 10 per cent by 2009 and another 4 per cent by 2010). UK and EU-13 workers fluctuate throughout, but lose group share overall. By 2010, UK and other EU migrants have lost nearly 10 per cent of their employment share, and GS is negative for all (again, especially Accession migrants) with the exception of Irish workers.

Discussion The overall analysis points to the fact that the Celtic Tiger was fuelled by what are often termed ‘immigrant jobs’ in the literature – those jobs that would not have been present without immigrants and immigrants who would not have been present without jobs (Goodwin-White, 2008; Waldinger and Lichter, 2003). Much of the discussion of ‘immigrant jobs’ developed in the quite different context of the USA, where undocumented workers are in illegally low-paid, non-permanent, poorly compensated jobs concentrated in household services, landscaping, agriculture and manufacturing. In theory, these jobs would not exist without a supply of immigrants as no native worker would accept these employment conditions. Although the undocumented component of unemployment is constrained in Ireland, and the workers in the Household Survey data are legally employed, a portion of the ‘immigrant jobs’ theory is evident in the analysis here. Quite simply, the Celtic Tiger was in large part a product of the location of foreign companies with foreign workers in Ireland – and a boom in the construction industry made possible not only by the hubris of international and domestic financing, but also by the labour demand of young workers recently given access to employment across Europe. Not only did migrants not take jobs from Irish workers, they also lost them first when the economy collapsed – in large part because they were concentrated in the jobs of the Celtic Tiger bubble. Although the question of what happens when formerly undesirable ‘immigrant jobs’ become attractive to even native-born unemployed workers is enticing, it is hardly germane in that there are no longer vacancies. These jobs came and left with the migrant workers that once occupied them. None of this is tremendously surprising to anyone in Ireland, although the sheer magnitude of overall job loss and the

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proportion explained by the occupational segmenting of these immigrants is starkly evident. On the theoretical side of the integration question then, the hostility directed at immigrants as the economy collapses is misdirected (with the possible exception of immigrant bank managers or property developers or chief executive officers who decided to take investment elsewhere). If this is realized, then the vaunted Irish hospitality towards immigrants may continue as a boon to integration and a flourishing multicultural society. On the more pragmatic side, the continued concentration of migrant workers in declining industries, along with lower levels of job protection than native workers, means that they will either leave (in which case future integration is a nonissue) or that their integration is threatened indeed by serious economic insecurity. There is also no doubt that pronounced wage gaps are another threat to integrating into Irish society (O’Connell and McGinnity, 2008), especially as dramatically lower wages stand to provide a challenge to new workers and their families finding a foothold before it is pulled out from under them. There are grave implications for the Irish-born second generation here, as children suffer from economic and social insecurity and parental stress. This has been greatly exacerbated for non-Europeans by recent legislation limiting work permits and encouraging deportation of the foreign-born parents of Irish-born children, as well as restrictions in Irish citizenship law limiting automatic birth citizenship to the children of a long-resident parent (Joyce, 2009). The sign that Ireland, as a country of emigration whose native population has long existed outside Ireland, would give credence and legislative response to suggestions of ‘citizenship tourism’ was a very strong sign indeed of the limits to integration. Fanning and Mutwarasibo’s incisive genealogy of Irish neoliberalism and the 2004 citizenship referendum provides some critical understanding of the immediate historical context within which Ireland’s context of integration was established (Fanning and Mutwarasibo, 2007). More importantly, most economic versions of integration are overly restrictive in their argument that integration relies upon similar immigrant workers having similar outcomes to native workers. Although the need to control comparisons is important, and the resulting ability to assess the discrimination attributed to nationality is critical, to do so neglects the role of selection – especially in new countries of rapidly changing economic conditions and immigration like Ireland – where there are no similar immigrant workers. Non-EU labour migrants in Ireland are selected on the basis of their differences with native workers just as they are in other countries (Borjas, 1995; DiNardo et al., 2000; Piore, 1979), and this is arguably true for EU migrants as well, even as the mechanisms for differential selection are less formal. Yet the reasons why integration theorists articulate concern – that of

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social cohesion or unrest – arguably inhere whether ‘similar’ immigrants are unemployed, or whether immigrants are so dissimilar as to live entirely separate lives – lives under which the assumptions of integration themselves make little sense. The difficulty is in connecting economic accounts of integration to social ones. What will a lack in economic integration, whether defined as a failure to catch up in wages to similarly skilled native workers or as a segmented occupational profile, mean for social integration? Although the threats of social exclusion or a lack of social cohesion are often noted in the economic integration literature, how are these produced?

Conclusions: linking economic and social integration It is tempting, if depressing, to argue that immigrants will now integrate into an IMF-directed Ireland where jobs are scarce and working conditions not what they once were – that in fact immigrants, like natives, will have witnessed a golden economic period and its subsequent decline. And to a certain extent, this is true. Migrants will integrate, surely, if they do not emigrate, but the crucial point is that they will integrate into a vastly unequal society. Thus, just as in other host societies, migration then becomes something more usefully assessed across generations – by looking at the children of immigrants who grow up in Ireland (who will, for the most part despite changing legislation, hold Irish passports if they remain in Ireland). Recent news reports show mixed-ethnicity classrooms singing High School Musical’s ‘we’re all in this together’ in Irish (RTÉ, 2009), and yet issues of segregated labour markets, immigrant vulnerability in the labour market and the education of immigrant children are all connected. There are some accounts of the processes of segregation already to hand, and linking economic integration under boom and bust to how these play out is crucial. Previous to the asylum boom and accession of the 2000s, there was little concern with how children integrated in Irish schools (Barrett et al., 2006). Migrant children, coming as they did from equivalent or higher backgrounds to Irish children, normally fared at least as well in school. This is obviously no longer the case. In addition, the overwhelmingly Catholic educational system allows schools to take Catholic children first, leaving nonCatholic, mostly immigrant children with a constrained set of educational choices. Ireland’s rapid population growth has massively increased population pressures on schools, complicating the competition for places and resources (especially for help in dealing with children whose first language is not English). Added to these pressures is the fact that Ireland’s rapid growth (and especially Dublin’s) has meant immigrants living where they can access housing either in new areas or in older areas abandoned by the native population. Both situations are resource-poor and face intense competition for

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scarce schooling and other infrastructural resources (demographically, immigrants comprise more young workers and young families than the native population). And a recent report that the student populations of Dublin’s top universities were overwhelmingly from fee-paying schools (Donnelly, 2010) – again, predominantly Catholic and competitively selective – means that consequences of poorer economic and labour market conditions, threaded through the spatial realities of access to housing and education and compounded by fewer financial resources all around, have grave implications for many immigrant children as well as for inequality in Ireland more generally. Greater labour market vulnerability, unemployed parents, and curtailed welfare benefits and citizenship – all of the hallmarks of the burst Celtic Tiger bubble – fall on everyone but disproportionately on immigrant families. Ireland’s recent immigration history means that there is little to fall back on – a few years of insecure and low-paid employment is certainly not enough to establish a cushion for future shortfalls, and arguably Ireland’s near-decade of economic boom produced few societal cushions resilient to debt reduction programmes. A critical part of thinking about integration, as Smith (2006) reminds us, is to look not only at the explanation of the skill sets immigrants bring with them for where they fit into the new labour market, but of the skills they acquire in the host society and the prospects for occupational mobility. This is where Ireland’s only recent migration experiences mean not only that we cannot properly test for integration but that thinking on integration needs much concerted further development. This involves, as I have suggested above, substantive investigation of how labour market inequalities (as well as fallacious perceptions of immigrants displacing native workers) threaten opportunities for social integration and how this threat can be attenuated. Reciprocally, the processes of segregation need investigation. The language of re/dis-placement, whether in the labour market or classrooms or neighbourhood maps, precludes the idea of integration and forecloses some of its possibilities. However, Ireland’s relatively recent immigration history may make it possible to avoid the racialized segregation polemics that have dominated popular and professional discourse in both the USA and the UK, concentrating instead on how segregation works. As Simpson (2004) has stressed with regard to the UK, rather than stigmatizing poor immigrant neighbourhoods, we should try to critically analyze poverty and its spatial production. Gilmartin and Mills (2008) capture the importance of this in a thoughtful caution of the territorial trap of mapping Ireland’s immigrants, a caution that should emanate more often in response to increasing media accounts in Ireland (and the USA) of immigrants ‘changing the complexion’ of previously mostly native areas. They also identify that mapped concentrations are useful

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only in that we think of them as a pattern resulting from an underlying process – such as those effectively producing the dark blotch of the detention centre. Segregation, after all, is a dynamic process, and it would be as easy to map the concentrations of affluent migrants that keep others out and concentrated elsewhere. Finney and Simpson’s work countering the language of self-segregation in Britain provides a critical example of why this is so important (Finney and Simpson, 2009). Ireland has a unique opportunity to avoid racialized discussions of spatial difference through critical accounting of the processes (rather than the bodies) that produce these spaces, and an opportunity, still, to speak of integration rather than ghettos.

Notes 1 See, for example, the Migrant Integration Policy Index at www.mipex.eu. Accessed 30 September 2011. 2 This argument has been made elsewhere (see Green, 1999; Holzer, 2011; Papademetriou et al., 2010; Smith, 2006). 3 Sector-specific and group-specific data were compiled from the same Central Statistics Office data and are easily accessible on the website (or by request from the author). The tables are not reprinted here for space considerations. 4 It is calculated by multiplying the group (i)-specific employment (E) in the first part of the period by the national growth (Gn) rate over the period t–> t+1: (NGEi (t>t+1)=Eit*Gn). 5 Migrant groups lost about twice as many jobs as would have been expected (although Other migrants fared slightly better than this), and Irish workers lost about 20 per cent fewer jobs than population proportionality would predict. 6 IMEi(t–>t+1)=Eit(Gsn–Gn) is calculated by multiplying the group and sector (s)- specific employment by the difference between the growth rate of that sector and the overall labour market. 7 This is often termed the ‘competitive effect’, as it is seen to measure groups’ relative successes or failures in gaining employment. This is less relevant to the case at hand as the recession and accession were contemporaneous (i.e. many migrants were completely new entrants to the labour market), and so I have chosen to use Wright and Ellis’ term ‘Group Shift’. It is calculated as the group-specific employment (Eit) multiplied by the difference between the sectoral employment growth of group i and the nation overall: GSi(t–>t+1)= Eit(Gis–Gin).

References Barrett, A. and D. Duffy (2008) ‘Are Ireland’s immigrants integrating into its labor market?’, International Migration Review, 42:3, 597–619. Barrett, A., A. Bergin and D. Duffy (2006) ‘The labour market characteristics and labour market impacts of immigrants in Ireland’, Economic and Social Review, 37, 1–26. Borjas, G. (1985) ‘Integration, changes in cohort quality and the earnings of

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immigrants’, Journal of Labor Economics, 3, 463–89. Borjas, G. (1995) ‘Assimilation and changes in cohort quality revisited: what happened to immigrant earnings during the 1980s?’, Journal of Labor Economics, 13:2, 201–45. Borjas, G. and L. Katz (2006) ‘Evolution of the Mexican-born workforce in the United States’, NBER Working Paper 11281. Available online at www.nber.org. Accessed 30 September 2011. Card, D. (2001) ‘Immigration inflows, native outflows, and the local labor market impacts of higher immigration’, Journal of Labor Economics, 19:1, 22–64. Card, D. (2007) ‘How Immigration Affects US Cities’, Center for Research and Analysis of Migration Working Paper No. 11/7, University College London. Castles, S. and M. Miller (2009) The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World (4th edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Central Statistics Office (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) Quarterly National Household Survey (2nd quarters). Available online at www.qnhs.cso.ie. Accessed 30 September 2011. Chiswick, B.R., Y.L. Lee and P. Miller (2005) ‘Longitudinal analysis of immigrant occupational mobility: a test of the immigrant integration hypothesis’, International Migration Review, 39, 332–53. DiNardo, J., D. Card and E. Estes (2000) ‘The more things change: immigrants and the children of immigrants in the 1940s, the 1970s, and the 1990s’, in G. Borjas (ed.) Issues in the Economics of Immigration. Chicago, IL: National Bureau of Economic Research for University of Chicago Press, 227–70. Donnelly, K. (2010) ‘Fee-paying school students dominate entrants to UCD’, Irish Independent, 21 October. Available online at www.independent.ie. Accessed 30 September 2011. Fanning, B. (2009) New Guests of the Irish Nation. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Fanning, B. and F. Mutwarasibo (2007) ‘Nationals/non-nationals: immigration, citizenship and politics in the Republic of Ireland’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30:3, 439–60. Finney, N. and L. Simpson (2009) Sleepwalking to Segregation? Challenging Myths about Race and Migration. Bristol: Polity Press. Gilmartin, M. and G. Mills (2008) ‘Mapping migrants in Ireland: the limits of cartography’, Translocations: Migration and Social Change, 4:1, 21–34. Goodwin-White, J. (2008) ‘Placing progress: contextual inequality and immigrant incorporation in New York and Los Angeles’, Economic Geography, 88:3, 303–41.

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Green, David A. (1999) ‘Immigrant occupational attainment: integration and mobility over time’, Journal of Labor Economics, 17, 49–79. Holzer, H. (2011) Migration Policy and Less-Skilled Workers in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Available online at mpi.org. Accessed 30 September 2011. Joyce, C. (2009) Annual Policy Report on Migration and Asylum 2009: Ireland. Dublin: European Migration Network and Economic and Social Research Institute. Kelly, E., S. McGuinness and P. O’Connell (2009) ‘Benchmarking, social partnership and higher remuneration: wage settling institutions and the public–private sector wage gap in Ireland’, Economic and Social Review, 40:3, 339–70. O’Connell, P.J. and F. McGinnity (2008) Immigrants at Work: Ethnicity and Nationality in the Irish Labour Market. Dublin: The Equality Authority and The Economic and Social Research Institute. Papademetriou, D.G., M. Sumption and A. Terrazas (2010) Migration and Immigrants Two Years After the Financial Collapse: Where Do We Stand? Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Available online at www.mpi.org. Accessed 30 September 2011. Piore, M. (1979) Birds of Passage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reitz, J.G. (1998) Warmth of the Welcome: The Social Causes of Economic Success for Immigrants in Different Nations and Cities. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. RTÉ (2009) ‘Prime Time Immigration Report’, 21 May. Simpson, L. (2004) ‘Statistics of racial segregation: measures, evidence and policy’, Urban Studies, 41:3, 661–81. Smith, J.P. (2006) ‘Immigrants and the labor market’, Journal of Labor Economics, 24:2, 203–33. Titley, G., A. Kerr and R. King-O’Riain (2010) Broadcasting in the ‘New Ireland’: Mapping and Envisioning Cultural Diversity. Dublin: Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. Waldinger, R. and M. Lichter (2003) How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Division of Labor. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Wright, R. and M. Ellis (1996) ‘Immigrants and the changing racial/ethnic division of labor in New York City, 1970–1990’, Urban Geography, 17: 317–53. Wright, R. and M. Ellis (1997) ‘Nativity, ethnicity and the evolution of the intra-urban division of labor in metropolitan Los Angeles, 1970–90’, Urban Geography, 18: 243–63.

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Conclusion: the place of migration Mary Gilmartin and Allen White

In late 2011, the Irish Times began a new initiative called ‘Generation Emigration’. Introducing the initiative, Ciara Kenny wrote that it was aimed at the ‘current generation of mobile Irish citizens’, in the context of a ‘mass exodus’ from Ireland (Kenny, 2011). ‘Generation Emigration’ publishes blog entries and opinion pieces, and hosts discussions and links to features on emigration and to support and information groups. While on one level it attempts to offer a different perspective on contemporary migration – emphasizing the role of technology in maintaining connections, and indeed using that technology to create an online community of recent migrants – it also reinforces the exceptionalist tendencies we identified in the Introduction to this edited volume. Crisis-riven Ireland is portrayed as a place that Irish citizens leave, rather than as a place that people – Irish and otherwise – continue to move to as well as leave. In compiling this collection of essays, we sought to expand the range of ways in which migration to and from Ireland is conceptualized. Through three cross-cutting themes – networks, belonging and intersections – we aimed to explore migration as a ‘multi-vectoral phenomenon’ (Papastergiadis, 2000: 35) that cuts across spatial and temporal boundaries. The chapters thus range from Ireland to Canada to Australia, from the nineteenth century to the present day. However, they have at their core a concern with the migratory process, centred on Ireland but with broader implications for the ways in which migration is conceptualized. In this collection, migration is alternately conceptualized as a socio-economic process, as the experiences of current or previous migrants, as a mediated social practice, and as an arena for social and public policy. Taken together, the chapters allow us to view migration to and from Ireland as a holistic process with complex and multiscalar geographies and histories. This focus on the migratory process, broadly defined, serves to re-assert the importance of a place-based approach to the study of migration.

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In this chapter, we outline the rationale for a place-based approach. We argue that the three cross-cutting themes – networks, belonging and intersections – are connected by their articulation of an expansive understanding of place, and that attention to this conceptualization of place offers new insights into the study of migration. Following this, we show how this collection of chapters – with a focus on Ireland, broadly conceived – shows the potential of a place-based approach to migration, and we conclude with reflections on how this could shape the future study of migration in a range of different contexts.

Developing a place-based approach to migration Our understanding of place draws on recent developments within the discipline of geography which begin with the understanding of place as a ‘meaningful location’ (Cresswell, 2004: 7). In contrast to earlier theorizations that define place in ideographic terms (what makes a place different and unique) or in terms of borders and boundaries (what separates one place from another), contemporary understandings of place emphasize connections, networks and linkages, as something that is ‘constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus’ (Massey, 1991: 28). Massey (2005) supplements these ideas, arguing that place is ‘thrown-togetherness’, meaning the ways in which diverse elements come together to shape a particular place at a particular time, and how this links a place to the wider world. These fluid definitions of place challenge ideas of fixity: a place does not have essential, unchanging characteristics; it is not merely a container for social action. Place, in this way of thinking, is shaped by various processes; such as global economic restructuring, neoliberalism, state policies and local institutions, all of which weave together in different ways, producing different outcomes. Migration is one such process, shaping places in a variety of ways: by the history of migration, by the practice of migration, and by ideas or understandings of migration (the ‘migration ideology’, in the phrase of Carling and Akesson, 2009). Yet the study of migration in place rarely captures this fluidity and ‘thrown-togetherness’. Instead, the contemporary study of migration in place tends to rely on these earlier theorizations of place as fixed, bounded and unique. As a consequence, approaches to migration studies in place tend to focus on the ways in which migrants alter places, with an often unstated assumption that change occurs only because of the actions of migrants. For example, one topic that receives significant attention is the identification of areas where migrants are residentially clustered or concentrated (Peach, 2003). A second topic is the extent to which migrants engage in ‘ethnic entrepreneurship’, with a consequent impact on landscapes (Oliveira

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and Rath, 2008). A third topic is the way in which migrant social and cultural organizations emerge and are involved in the process of ‘place-making’ (Gill, 2010), with a specific focus on how migrant place-making leads to conflict or contestation. Though rarely articulated in these ways, all of these bodies of research have a tendency to theorize places as relatively stable and fixed prior to the advent of a particular flow of migrants, and to explain changes as a reaction to migration, rather than as a fundamental characteristic of all places. The difficulties with some current place-based approaches are highlighted in critical discussions of the continuing influence of ‘methodological nationalism’ on the study of migration (Glick Schiller, 2009; Wimmer and Glick Schiller, 2002). This takes a variety of forms, from reliance on largescale state-sponsored surveys of migration (e.g. through censuses), to more qualitative studies of migrants or migrant groups within national boundaries, particularly when such studies focus on national groups within national boundaries, such as Turks in Germany (Ehrkamp, 2006), Poles in the UK (Burrell, 2009), Albanians in Italy (King and Mai, 2008) or Britons in France and Spain (Benson, 2010; O’Reilly, 2000). Other ways in which the limitations of methodological nationalism appear are through studies of migrant incorporation within national boundaries, such as Denmark (Østergaard-Nielsen, 2003), Spain (Izquierdo et al., 2009) and Ireland (Barrett and Duffy, 2008), or across a range of European countries (Kahanec and Zimmerman, 2010). While recent studies have attempted to move beyond these boundaries (most notably Favell, 2008; Wills et al., 2010), in general studies of migration in Europe continue to focus on national territories as containers for ethnic and/or national identities. While these place-based studies capture some, and at times many, of the complexities and richness of migration as a process and the migrant experience, they remain fragmented, bounded by artificial distinctions between immigration and emigration, between different categories of migrants, and by different methodological approaches to its study. So how might this fragmentation of migration research be overcome? One possible approach is to see migration not as a stand-alone process, but as a crucial component of society and of social change in the modern world. In other words, we need to study migration in context: as Samers suggests, ‘this relationship between differential migrations and space is best understood through greater attention to spatial metaphors’ (2010: 300). Place, as a key spatial metaphor, offers an innovative way to overcome the fragmentation of migration research. A place-based approach to the study of migration inverts the conventional relationship between migration and place. Rather than focusing on how migration alters place, the emphasis instead is on how place – broadly defined – provides new insights into migration and the migratory process. In advocating for a place-based study of migration, this proposal

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follows calls made by Glick Schiller and Çaglar (2009) for locality-based migration studies. Glick Schiller and Çaglar focus particularly on cities: they claim that cities are too often seen ‘as containers that provide spaces in which migrants settle and work’ (2009: 177), rather than places that are actively shaped by migrants as well as by global capital and neoliberal restructuring. Cities, they argue, offer an alternative means to studying migrant incorporation (for examples of city-based studies, see; Neill and Schwedler, 2006; Nell and Rath, 2009; Price and Benton-Short, 2008; Wills et al., 2010). Their argument goes some way to asserting the importance of place-based studies of migration, but is limited because of its focus on urban sites and immigration. Extending this place-based focus to sites beyond the urban, and to broader migratory movements, permits a different theorization of the relationship between place and migration. The three themes that underpin this edited collection – networks, belonging and intersections – offer more holistic ways of understanding this relationship. A networks approach focuses on the connections between places and people: some well established; others more unexpected or surprising. A focus on belonging emphasizes the contingent nature of people’s relationships with place, and the impact migration has on both personal and structural understandings and experiences of these relationships. Meanwhile, intersectionality offers a way to understand how the category ‘migrant’ intersects with other social categories, for example gender, class or race, and how the nature of these intersections changes over space and time.

A place-based approach: the Irish example While the three themes of networks, belonging and intersections all offer fluid and expansive understandings of place, we want to develop this further with a focus on two key and interconnected issues. The first relates to what this collection of essays says about a particular place, Ireland, and its relationship to migration. The second relates to the broader question of what this focus on place contributes to our understanding of the migratory process. In the introduction, we argued against the ‘exceptionalist’ tendencies of research into migration to and from Ireland. Many of these chapters show how patterns of migration to and from Ireland are, in fact, a component of broader movements of people around the world. William Jenkins’ chapter is located within the context of intensified transatlantic mobility from the seventeenth century onwards, while Angèle Smith’s discussion of asylum seekers in twenty-first-century Ireland contributes to a broader discussion of asylum within the European Union (EU). Specifically, Smith’s description of the experiences of asylum seekers in direct provision centres in Ireland corroborates other accounts of Europe as a ‘Fortress’ or as a ‘gated

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community’ (Van Houtum and Pijpers, 2007). Meanwhile, Patricia O’Connor’s account of contemporary Irish migrants in Australia shows the various ways in which current migratory patterns are linked to, and respond to, migration movements in previous times. However, the chapters also illustrate the specific constellations of migration to and from Ireland. O’Connor highlights the particular form of migration from Ireland to Australia in the 1980s and 1990s. In their focus on diaspora, Boyle et al. show the spatial and temporal extent of migration from Ireland, as evident in the range of diaspora groups and activities they discuss. Meanwhile, Bronwen Walter’s chapter, with its focus on the ‘entanglements’ of families spread between Ireland and England, highlights how the two countries are mutually important sources and destinations for migration. Other chapters highlight more recent migrations to Ireland. Deirdre Conlon’s chapter focuses on the wide range of recent female migrants to Ireland: returning Irish, migrants from the EU and West and North Africa, as well as North America and Australasia. The chapter also highlights the diverse ways in which migrants enter Ireland: as EU nationals, as labour migrants, or as refugees or asylum seekers. The diversity of recent migration to Ireland is also a feature of the chapter by White et al., which considers the experiences of children who have moved to and now live in Ireland. In contrast, the chapters by Kerr et al. and by Coakley discuss more specific groups of recent migrants to Ireland – those from Poland and China, as well as from a range of African countries. The chapters in this book thus offer an insight into the complicated patterns of migration to and from Ireland, and on the ways in which these patterns both mirror and differ from broader patterns of the movement of people. They also highlight the range of institutions that enable, facilitate or obstruct migration and/or processes of incorporation, thus allowing for a scalar analysis of migration in place. Key institutions include the state, organized religion and capital, all of which operate at scales that range from the local to the global. Jenkins illustrates how transnational ethnic and political networks organized around key local institutions (Orange Lodges in Ulster and Canada) facilitated the speaking tours of Loyalist Protestant ministers. Here local institutional geographies are shaped through successive waves of migrants (including visitors like the ministers). These local geographies also acted as the context within which appeals to transnational (British and imperial) political and socio-cultural identities could be made intelligible. For Gray, the multiple responses of the Irish Catholic Church to flows and flux of migrants to and from Ireland reflect the ways these processes change and transform the institutional landscape in surprising, often unpredictable ways. While the future for the Irish Catholic Church in Irish society in the wake of successive scandals surrounding child abuse is far from certain, what is certain is that in the area of migrant integration in Ireland the church

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is earning for itself a reputation as a key institutional actor. Boyle et al. explore how the complexity of contemporary migration flows requires multifaceted and multiscalar institutional and policy responses and diaspora strategies. However, the authors note the differences between how diaspora is imagined by state and national agencies and the realities of more local-led initiatives. Thus the institutions that migrants access or which work with or on behalf of migrants operate at the intersection of complex multiscalar processes, whereby local places are shaped and changed through global processes but simultaneously act to shape and change these processes. People and their accounts of their lives are, ultimately, at the heart of migration studies. In different ways each of the chapters in this collection provides insights into the ways in which migrant lives are shaped through their location in, and experience of, different places. These may be children and young people today (see White et al.) or those looking back to their childhoods and childhood holidays (see Walter). In either case experiences and memories are part of childhoods that are constructed around a longing for identity and belonging and how these are (or are not) rooted in specific places. Furthermore, Migge and Gilmartin explore how the narratives that people produce about their lives are shaped through the context and places where interviews and research encounters occur. However, while the study of migration most often focuses on people who migrate, it is also important to pay attention to those who do not move. Just as it is problematic to study poverty without also studying wealth, or urban areas without also considering rural areas, a study of migration that does not also include ‘immobility’ misses out on key connections and insights. In this vein, Kerr et al. raise important points about deeply globalized societies like Ireland where global forces and factors impact in quite fundamental ways on national sovereignty. Transnational migrant life is but one of a dense network of transnational flows that shape and mould local places in complex ways. Goodwin-White shows how the labour market experiences of different national groups in Ireland have changed in different ways throughout a period of savage economic contraction prompted by a devastating global recession. She shows how migrants from the EU-12 have been disproportionately affected by job losses and unemployment, while job losses among native workers were significantly fewer than expected if losses were proportionately distributed among national groups. The study of connections, in relation to migration, most often focuses on transnationalism or translocalism. Yet, as Dunn suggests, ‘the nature of transnationalism is dramatically affected by place, to which there has been too little attention paid’ (Dunn, 2008: 4). Coakley shows how African transnational migrants in Ireland negotiate intercontinental connections and local place connections as part of their everyday lives. However, migrants’ enthusi-

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asm for integrating into local communities in Ireland is challenged by their need or responsibility to maintain these transnational social fields, and hampered by a lack of family and meaningful local social networks. In addition the ways in which places may be connected to other, often unexpected, places creates a context for a more in-depth analysis of the migratory process. For Conlon, these connections are explored through the experiences of migrants placed at different points in Ireland’s migration hierarchies. Taken together these narratives make concrete the abstract worlds of the expansion, uncertainty and flexibility of globalized neoliberal capitalism. Different places – including home, Ireland as a place to settle, and other places to which migrants feel the pressure to move on to – act to constitute and frame Conlon’s ‘countertopographies’: the contour lines that connect seemingly disparate people and places, while paying attention to their particularities. Landscape is most often characterized as material; as the visible form of the physical world. Studies of migrant landscapes (at times described as ‘ethnoscapes’) tend to focus on bounded spaces, such as ghettos or enclaves, Chinatown or Little Italy. Equally important for understanding the migratory process, however, is the extent to which particular landscapes are constructed in exclusionary or inclusionary ways, and how these may change over time. Smith illustrates how the legal, social and political isolation faced by specific migrants in the Irish immigration system – asylum seekers – is reflected and constituted through their marginalization and distancing from day-to-day Irish life and social interaction. Asylum seekers are mainly housed in direct provision centres, where daily regimes and house rules, mealtime and other restrictions act as a constant reminder of their place at the margins of Irish life. Yet landscape is also symbolic: it carries meanings and ideologies, and in this way may become a source of conflict and contestation. The symbolic meaning of landscape is discussed in Walter’s account of childhood visits to an idealized west of Ireland, in Migge and Gilmartin’s discussion of Ireland as a landscape filled with emotion and meaning, and in the discussion by White et al. of landscape as potentially exclusionary for young people. The Ireland that emerges from these varied chapters is a complex, multifaceted place, shaped by the migratory process in numerous ways. The first is through the actual movements of people: leaving Ireland, returning to Ireland, moving to Ireland and moving within Ireland. These movements are both historical and contemporary: indeed, contemporary movements are, and continue to be, shaped by historical patterns, as a range of chapters suggest. These movements are sometimes for shorter periods, sometimes for longer periods, yet have significance in this context. Thus the holidays described by Walter are important in understanding the relationship between place and mobility, as are the longer-term movements described by

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O’Connor. The second way in which Ireland is shaped by migration is through the experiences of people who move and those who remain in place. In some instances, the chapters chart these experiences using quantitative methods, for example in Goodwin-White’s discussion of labour market outcomes. However, the qualitative research methods employed in many chapters offer more direct and emotional accounts of these experiences. In particular, the ways in which migration disrupts, challenges and alters established senses of identity – for both individuals and groups – are brought to light in diverse ways. O’Connor shows how the experience of migration leads migrants to question their own sense of identity, both in relation to their place of origin and their current place of residence. Migge and Gilmartin outline this process of questioning at work over a longer period, through their use of repeat interviews in the context of contemporary Ireland. Ireland is also shaped by migration through the institutions that emerge or change in order to respond to movements of people across borders. A key institution is the state, and the contradictory impulses of the Irish state in relation to migration are apparent in this collection. On the one hand, Boyle et al. show the ways in which the Irish state provides support for an extensive range of diaspora activities, ranging from welfare assistance and languagelearning to funding extensive business networks. The effect of these various activities is to extend the geographical reach of the Irish state. On the other hand, Smith demonstrates the ways in which the Irish state simultaneously bounds and restricts its geographical reach, particularly in its treatment of asylum seekers who live, effectively, in a spatial and social limbo. However, other institutions beyond the state play a significant role in migration. Gray describes the ways in which the Irish Catholic Church firmly established the concept of the ‘vulnerable migrant’ in relation to discourses of migration from and to Ireland, and sought to provide support to and advocate on behalf of vulnerable migrants in a range of local, national and transnational contexts. The Irish Catholic Church thus operates at a range of interconnected scales, in a variety of places, to reframe debates about migration and migrants. Though the institutions they describe operate at very different times and with different political outcomes in mind, there are parallels between the loyalist speaking and fundraising activities outlined by Jenkins, and the diasporic nation-building and economic strategies outlined by Boyle et al. Finally, a fourth way in which Ireland is shaped by migration lies in the impact migration has on the meaning of place. The meaning of Ireland changes when people move to or from the country. That meaning is individual and collective, material and imagined. For example, it can take the form of ‘protecting’ Ireland as a space by increasing restrictions on migration to the country, in the process making the lives of migrants in Ireland more difficult

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and more fraught. Equally, it can take the form of extending the imagined boundaries of Ireland, to include the broader diaspora in a definition of a place-based identity. It can be a site of exclusion, where people who live in the country are constructed as different and out of place. Equally, it can be a site of inclusion, as people develop close and lasting ties to their environments. These different meanings are held and acted on simultaneously, in ways that are at times contradictory and conflictual, and at times expansive and inclusionary. These different ways of thinking about the relationship between migration and place, grounded in the ever-changing context of Ireland, illustrate the ways in which attention to place reframes our understanding of the complexity of migration as a process, and its centrality to the experience of contemporary social life.

Looking forward Migration remains one of the key issues facing globalized societies in the contemporary world. The issue of migration receives considerable attention from academics, policy-makers, practitioners and the general public, as societies seek to cope with changing flows of migrants, changing demands for migrant labour, and the changing impacts of migrants on host and sending contexts. Within Europe, for example, migration is a key issue at a variety of different scales. For the EU as a whole, migration to Europe – particularly labour migration – is seen as crucial to address the region’s demographic challenge. Low birth rates and high life expectancy, combined with relatively low retirement ages, mean that the EU labour force is contracting. As the Reflection Group on the Future of the EU 2030 commented, ‘migrant labour will be part of the solution to Europe’s future labour and skills shortages’ (2010: 24). The Reflection Group specifically highlighted the need for ‘skilled immigrants’, and this points out a second way in which migration matters in contemporary Europe. The borders of Europe are increasingly fortified against most migrants from outside the EU, with only those migrants classified as ‘skilled’ welcome in the EU. Some commentators describe this as ‘Fortress Europe’, or alternatively as a ‘gated community’ (Van Houtum and Pijpers, 2007), and suggest that the enactment of borders or gates to prevent particular migrants entering the EU is a fundamental aspect of European identity. In short, migration matters because it helps to define European-ness. At the national level, migration also matters, because control over migration remains one of the important ways in which nation-states assert sovereignty. Thus, nation-states in Europe develop their own migration and integration policies. There are efforts to develop a common European migration policy, but three countries (Ireland, UK and Denmark) do not participate. However, national differences are most apparent in the realm of integration policies,

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which vary significantly from country to country (MIPEX, 2007). Migration also matters at local and regional scales, as different places encounter migration in very different ways, whether this is the recent influx of young European migrants into the rural Central Alentejo region of Portugal (Fonseca et al., 2004), or the presence of African migrants in Turin (Merrill, 2006), or Antipodean adventurers in London (Conradson and Latham, 2007). In the midst of a Europe-wide recession, migration also matters because of the ways in which it serves as a safety-valve for people and places negatively affected by the economic downturn. Given its political, economic, social and cultural significance, it is crucial that migration remains a key area of study for academics and policy-makers. There has been a significant increase in research on migration in recent years. Yet, as Castles observes, ‘we still lack a body of cumulative knowledge to explain why some people become mobile while most do not, and what this means for the societies concerned’ (2010: 1566). Castles points out some of the reasons why this might be so, including the dominance of a ‘migration as problem’ discourse. This is despite the reality that migration has been a central component of social life, and social change, over centuries. Castles makes the convincing argument that the migratory process needs to be examined in conjunction with other processes of social change. Such a social transformation perspective on migration offers the possibility for theoretical development in migration studies, particularly through what he calls ‘middlerange’ theories that consider the ways in which places are connected and these relationships mediated (Castles, 2010: 1582). For Castles, the emphasis is on particular socio-economic transformations, and on how these relate to and influence human mobility at a range of different, though interconnected scales. In this Conclusion, we have argued that a focus on place offers an alternative route to developing such a middle-range theory of migration, a theory that complements Castles’ focus on social transformations. Places, we suggest, are remarkable for their thrown-togetherness, and a place-based approach to the study of migration offers insights into the migratory processes that link together the movement of people and the impacts of those movements, at a range of levels, and in a manner that stretches across and challenges spatial and temporal borders. These ‘countertopographies’ offer new ways of imagining the world, and the place of migration within that world. In this collection of essays, our focus is on Ireland. We believe that Ireland, defined in an expansive manner by the contributors to this collection of essays, offers an excellent site in and through which to think differently about migration and the migratory process. From the perspective of Ireland, such an approach moves us beyond the tendency towards exceptionalism that dominates accounts of migration to and from the country, and instead sees the long and complicated story of a place washed over with ‘wild tides’ of

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‘invasion, colonization, emigration, exile, nomadism, and tourism’ (Solnit, 1998: 7). More broadly, a place-based approach moves the study of migration beyond fragmentation, and towards a more holistic understanding of the migratory process in all its complexity.

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community: the two-faced border and immigration regime of the EU’, Antipode, 39:2, 291–309. Wills, J., K. Datta, Y. Evans, J. Herbert, J. May and C. McIlwaine (2010) Global Cities at Work: New Migrant Divisions of Labour. London: Pluto Press. Wimmer, A. and N. Glick Schiller (2002) ‘Methodological nationalism and beyond: nation-building, migration and the social sciences’, Global Networks, 2:4, 301–34.

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Index Note: ‘n’ after a page reference indicates the number of a note on that page.

accents English 22–3, 28, 30, 123 Irish 102–3, 107, 154 and migrant identities 154, 155 see also language accession states migrants in Ireland from 189 experiences of 215, 218–19, 220–1 migration to Ireland from 185, 201–2, 217 see also Central and Eastern European; European Union; Lithuania; Poland African/Irish young people 127–8 see also African migration African migration and economic transfers 136–8 and family life in Ireland 139–41 to Ireland 133–4, 166 and loneliness in Ireland 143–4 and transnational families 135–7 and transnational links ‘home’ 144 see also African/Irish young people; Afro-Irish identity; Nigeria African parenting difference with western practices 141–2 Afro-Irish identity 139 Agnew, J. 91 Allen, K. 185 Anti-Racism Network Ireland 66 Antonsich, M. 7, 147, 151, 159 Argentina Irish migration to 2 asylum seekers 3, 10, 133, 164–80, 185, 189, 215 and deportation 172, 174, 193, 222 and exclusion from Irish society 166–7, 169, 171–3, 175, 177–8

research and focus on 117, 188 services/support for 60, 66–9 see also direct provision; ORAC; refugees Atlantic Philanthropies 66, 87, 95 Australia Catholic Church in 58 ethno-national Irish identity in 155–7 Irish migration to 2, 63, 148–50 ‘White Australia’ policy 148 Axhausen, K. 100, 110 Barrett, A. 215, 216, 223, 230 belonging and child migrants 118–19, 124–5 essentialist notions of 6–7 and ethnicity 129, 147 and language 129 and migrants 7 sense of 9, 125, 127, 153, 155, 164, 165, 167, 177, 178, 204 transnational 6, 98, 127, 159 see also non-belonging; not-belonging Berger, J. 55, 68 Blair, T. 32 Borjas, G. 214–15, 222 Brah, A. 31, 37, 147, 159 brain drain 1, 81 Bressey, C. 139 Britain Catholic Church in 58 support for emigrants 59–61, 63 Irish migration to 2, 4, 17, 20, 63 migration to Ireland from 31, 205 see also England; Scotland; United Kingdom Brody, H. 20 Burnley, I.H. 150, 160 Bushin, N. 118, 119, 121

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242 Çaglar, A. 231 Canada Catholic Church in 58 diaspora strategy 84, support infrastructure 91–2 Irish migration to 2, 8, 36, 193 Orange Order in 38, 40, 45, 47 Casanova, J. 55–7 Casey, Fr. E. 59 Castells, M. 8, 55, 66, 72, 73, 74 Castles, S. 237 Catholic Church 8 see also Irish Catholic Church CEE see Central and Eastern European Celtic Tiger and diaspora strategy 86 and emigration from Ireland 4, 86 and immigration to Ireland 4, 17, 117, 188, 217, 221, 224 Central and Eastern European children in Ireland 120, 122–3, 126–7 see also accession states; European Union; Lithuania; Poland child migration in Ireland 118–20 research on 117–18 in the West 117 see also migrant children and young people China diaspora strategy 84, 86, 89 migration to Ireland 105–6 Chiswick, B.R. 215 citizenship and belonging 7, 151 and culture 66 curtailment of 224 debates in Ireland 129, 188, 222 and diaspora 84, 86, 92–3, 94 inclusive 133 policies and children/young people 119 referendum 166, 222 uptake in Australia 151, 155 civil society responses to migration 55, 65, 66, 72, 73–4 Common Travel Area 167 Cooke, Rev. H. 37, 49 Corkey, Rev. W. 49 counter-cultural migration 3 countertopography 8, 183–7, 189, 195 Crooks, Rev. L. 49 Crosscare Migrant Project 60, 67, 92

I NDEX Dahinden, J. 110, 111 Department of Foreign Affairs 63, 88, 89, 91 Irish Abroad Unit 64–5, 89, 93 Emigrant Support Programme 63, 91–2, 93 Devlin, P. 5 Dexy’s Midnight Runners 32 diaspora Chinese 106–7 and citizenship 84, 86, 92–3, 94 and development in country of origin 83–4 and government interventions 90 and Ireland 98 and Irish Catholic Church 57–65 and loyalism 8 strategy 86, 93–5 and transnational practices 81–2 see also Irish diaspora difference and migrant children 122–4, 127, 128–9 between migrant groups 189 naturalized 185 and second-generation Irish in England 19 see also Othering DÍON 59 direct provision and asylum system in Ireland 164–5, 167–9 daily life in 169–71 and dispersal policy 172–3 and exclusion in Ireland 166–7 and family life 173–4 transient lives of asylum seekers in 174–5 see also RIA ‘domopolitics’ 98 Drew, T. 42 Dunn, K. 154, 233 Dwyer, C. 139 Ejorh, T. 133 employment and asylum seekers in Ireland 173, 189, 192–3 change in Ireland 217–22 favouritism shown to Irish workers 192 and Irish women in Britain 21 migrants and 215

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I NDEX in Ireland 101, 105, 191–3, 208, 215–16, 221 see also labour markets; unemployment England Irish migrants in 17–18, 20, 31 second-generation Irish in 19, 22–4, 27, 31, 157 ULARU campaign in 39–40 see also Britain; United Kingdom Enterprise Ireland 87, 88, 90 ethnicity and belonging 129, 147 and identity 36, 128, 201 and inequality 139 EU see European Union Europe Irish migration to 2 state, church and civil society in 74 European Union migration to 236–7 migration to Ireland from 132–3, 185, 200–2 migration within 99, 101 see also accession states; Central and Eastern European; Lithuania; Poland exceptionalism 110 and migration in Ireland 3–4, 228, 231, 237 Fahey, T. 69–70, 151 family life in Ireland for African migrants 139–41 and migrant identities in Australia 157 mixed heritage 24–7 obligations 135–7 stem family in Ireland 18 visits 19–30 to Northern Ireland 27–30 to west of Ireland 20–4 Fanning, B. 119, 151, 152, 199, 216, 222 Featherstone, D. 50 Ferriter, D. 1 Finney, N. 225 first-generation migrant children 118 returning Irish migrants 17 Fitzgerald, P. 4 Fortier, A.-M. 125, 156, 189, 195 Gamlen, A. 84, 89, 90

243 gender and asylum in Ireland 166 and belonging 147 and childhood 31, 124, 128 and countertopography 187 and home 158 and homesickness 158 and migration 10 lived experiences 201 see also migrant women ‘Generation Emigration’ 228 Georgiou, M. 99 Gilmartin, M. 101, 185, 200, 201, 202, 224 Gilmore, Fr. B. 63, 69 Glick Schiller, N. 6, 230, 231 global capitalism 185–9, 195, 234 global consumer culture and migrant children/youth 124–8 and peer groups 125–7 Global Irish Economic Forum 88–9, 94 Global Irish Network 88 globalization 10, 98, 183, 185, 195 Gowan, O. 45 Group Shift Effect see labour markets Gubert, F. 137 Gutting, S. 134, 138 Halfacree, K. 134, 194 Hanna, Rev. H. 37, 39–40, 42 Hannam, K. 7 Hewitt, J. 41–2 Hickman, M. 18, 33n1, 58, 148 Hilliard, Fr. A. 70 home and asylum seekers in Ireland 164, 168, 170, 174 and belonging 6–7, 147 and children 125, 140–1 and gender 158 meaning to Irish migrants in Australia 157–8 media use by migrants in Ireland Chinese 106–9 Polish 102–5 ownership 140 and second generation Irish migrant families 17, 19–20 as social space 208 visits 17–24 see also homesickness homelessness Irish in Britain 59, 93

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244 Home Rule Bills 36, 39, 42, 49 homesickness 158 see also home Hopkins, R. 26 ICB see Irish Chaplaincy in Britain IECE see Irish Episcopal Council for Emigrants IMF 213, 223 IMF/EU bailout 10, 213 India diaspora 88 diaspora strategy 84, 86, 89, 92 Industrial Development Agency 87, 90 Industrial Mix Effect see labour markets integration 98–9, 213–14, 222–5, 236–7 and asylum seekers 166–7 of Irish migrants 59–65 and transnationalism 98–100 International Monetary Fund see IMF intersectionality 6, 7–8, 231 interviews context and place 208 and identity formation 208 and role of interviewer 207 as site of social construction 206 see also research methodology Ireland emigration from 2–4, 59, 149–50, 228 immigration to 2–4, 132–4, 167, 213–14 religious change in 65 return migration to 3, 87, 120, 123, 138 see also Northern Ireland; Republic of Ireland; return migration Ireland Funds 87, 88, 91 Irish Apostolate USA 60, 64 Irish Bishops’ Conference 60, 64, 67 Irish Catholic Church 8 and immigrants to Ireland 8, 65–73 and Irish clergy and religious in North America 58 and Irish diaspora 57–65 and Irish emigrants 8, 59–65 and NGO sector in Ireland 69–70 as a sending and receiving church 56 as a transnational institution 56–7 Irish Chaplaincy in Britain 63 Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas 60, 93 Irish diaspora in Canada 8 and Industrial Development Agency (IDA) 88–9

I NDEX and Irish Abroad Unit 89–90 and philanthropy 91–2 relationship with Ireland 80 and response to the global financial crisis 86–8 voting rights for 93 see also diaspora Irish Episcopal Council for Emigrants 59–61, 63–4, 67 Irish Technology Leadership Group 88 Irish Travellers 59, 60–1, 63 ITLG see Irish Technology Leadership Group Johnson, W. 43 Johnston, W. 40, 41, 43, 47 Kane, Rev. R.R. 36–51 Katz, C. 8, 126, 183–4, 186–7, 195 Kennedy, W. 41 Kenny, C. 228 Komolafe, J. 133 labour markets 214 changes 217–19 Group Shift Effect 219–21 and ‘immigrant jobs’ 221 Industrial Mix Effect 219–20 and integration 214–17 National Growth Effect 217, 220 shift-share analysis 219–21 see also employment; unemployment Labov, W. 203 Lambkin, B. 4 landscape of Canada 49 of French Canada 48 institutional 232 Irish 19 migrant 229–30, 234 global human rights activism 70 philanthropic 87 language barriers 171, 216 and belonging 129 classes for migrants 69, 123, 173 ideologies 203, 209–10 and media programming 103 and network capital 100 use by migrants 6, 102, 156, 199–200, 206 see also accents

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I NDEX Larsen, J. 100, 110 Lawson, V. 190, 194 Levitt, P. 22, 33, 56–7, 64, 176 Lithuania migration to Ireland from 65, 202 see also accession states; Central and Eastern European; European Union Loyal, S. 185 Loyalist network-building 36 Mac Éinrí, P. 3, 117, 133, 184, 185, 187, 199, 200 McDonagh, M. 32 McDonagh, S. 32 McDowell, L. 6, 7, 8, 147 MacLaughlin, J. 1, 20 Maguire, P. 29–30 Maguire, Rev. W. 49 Martin, Archbishop D. 71 Martin, M. 88 Massey, D. 210, 229 media and Chinese migrant community in Ireland 105–9 and everyday life 99–100 and migrants 9 and minority groups 101 and network capital 100, 104, 106, 109, 110 and Polish migrant community in Ireland 100–5 and transnationalism 100, 102 see also mediascape mediascape 103–5 methodological nationalism 99, 230 migrant categories and countertopography in Ireland 187 limitations of 184 and migration studies 209 and research methodologies 201 see also first generation; migrant children and young people; migrant women; second generation; vulnerable migrants migrant children and young people 9 and consumption practices 124–8 and difference 127, 128–9 discourses of 122–4 and family holidays 18 and immigration/citizenship policies 119

245 memories of summer holidays 8, 20–4, 30–3 and racism 24–8 and schools 22, 119, 122–4, 129, 140–1, 223–4 vulnerability of 117–18 see also child migration migrant media 9 see also media migrant women and countertopographies 184, 186–7 in Ireland aspirations and upward mobility 191–3 common experiences 188–9 and entanglement in global capitalism 195 experiences at work 192–3 instability in daily economic life 194 see also gender migration ideology 229 migration studies and disciplinary boundaries 199–200 a place-based approach to 229–31 and qualitative interview methodologies 202 and the significance of context and time 210 Miller, D.W. 45, 48 Miller, K. 1, 2 Mills, D. 45 Mills, G. 101, 185, 224 mixed race second generation Irish in England 24–7 mobility and belonging 147 children and young people 119, 129, 157 and citizenship 100 and individualization thesis 100 labour 100 and media use 99 migrant 11, 184 occupational 224 and socio-economic transformations 237 temporary 150 upward 158, 190–1, 191–3, 194–5 see also new mobilities paradigm Moran. J. 31 multiculturalism and Australia 148–9 and broadcasting 105, 107

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246 and Ireland 132, 138, 222 Munck, R. 185 Mutwarasibo, F. 222 National Growth Effect see labour markets national identity and diaspora 86 and labour market outcomes 215–23 and migration 230 as a social category 201–2 National League branches 40, 41 neoliberal global capitalism 190, 231, 234 governance 74 state restructuring 74 network capital 100, 104, 106, 109, 110 network-making power 55–6, 57, 66, 72, 73 new mobilities paradigm 5, 7 see also mobility New Zealand Catholic Church in 58 diaspora strategy 84, 86, 89 Irish migration to 2 Nigeria diaspora strategy 84 migrants in Ireland from 65, 133, 166 migration to Ireland from 166 Ní Laoire, C. 31, 151, 159, 185 non-belonging 10, 165, 169, 177–8 North America see Canada; United States of America Northern Ireland Australia and immigrants from 151–7 visits to 27–30 see also Ireland; Troubles not-belonging 118, 122–4 O’Farrell, J. 31 O’Farrell, P. 2, 148–9 Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner see ORAC Ogborn, M. 37, 38 ORAC 132, 164, 166 see also asylum seekers; refugees Orangeism 45–8 Orange Order 29 in Canada 38 and geography of the Irish diaspora 45–6 and Home Rule 38–40 in the United States of America 44

I NDEX Othering of African migrants in Ireland 139 and experiences of child migrants 122–4, 128–9 see also difference Parkhill, W. 43 Parnell, C.S. 37, 38–9, 40, 41, 42, 48 Patterson, Rev. W. 49 Pavlenko, A. 205 place and belonging 6–7, 125, 129, 147, 151, 159 and identity 11, 164–5, 166, 176, 195, 206 migrant relationship with 124–5, 208 and migration 2, 5, 10–11, 229–31, 237–8 and Ireland 231–6 see also social space Poland migration to Ireland 100–2, 191, 201–2 see also accession states; Central and Eastern European; European Union Polish satellite services 102, 127 Potts. J. 41 Pratt, G. 32, 187 Prevention of Terrorism Act 18 Pries, L. 138, 147, 154 Protestant Irish identities 8, 36 Irish migrant identities and Britishness 151–3 Irish migrants 40 race and asylum seekers in Ireland 166 and Irish Catholic Church 71 and migrant experience in Ireland 3, 120, 139, 184 see also ethnicity; mixed race; racial segregation; racism racial segregation 224 racism 139 anti-Irish 80 in Ireland 27, 138, 185 Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration 2 Reception and Integration Agency see RIA Refugee Appeals Tribunal 164 refugees definition 164

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I NDEX in Ireland 3, 67–9, 133, 185, 191, 193, 216, 232 see also asylum seekers; direct provision; ORAC; Refugee Appeals Tribunal religion importance for asylum seekers 176 see also Catholic Church; Irish Catholic Church; Protestant religious change in Ireland 65 remittances 80, 82–3, 86, 87, 93, 135–7 social 58, 70, 73 Republic of Ireland 17, 27, 28, 31, 57, 65, 66, 80, 121, 148, 183 see also Ireland research methodology and analysis of interview transcripts 204–5 children centered 120–2 and qualitative interviews 203–4 see also interviews return migration diaspora 82 experiences of 192, 193–4 to Ireland 3, 17, 87, 120, 123, 148, 157, 189 see also Ireland, return migration to RIA 149, 167, 174 see also direct provision Roddy, Sr. J. 67, 70 RTÉ 92, 216, 223 St Patrick’s Day 156 Samers, M. 230 Saunderson, Col. E. 39, 48 Saxenian, A. 81, 88 schools 22, 58, 119, 122–4, 129, 140–1, 188, 192, 223–4 Scotland 17 diaspora strategy 84, 86, 88, 89 ULARU campaign 40 see also Britain; United Kingdom second generation 150 childhood visits 22, 32 and integration 214, 222 Irish and English accents 28–9 Irish in Australia 157 Irish in England 17–18 dimensions of difference 19 shift-share analysis see labour markets Shitta-Bey, T. 118 Simpson, L. 224, 225

247 Smith, G.H. 36–50 social space 147, 154, 159, 172, 176, 186, 208–9 see also place sociolinguistics analysis 204, 210 data collection 203, 209 Solnit R. 5, 11, 238 South Africa Irish migration to 2 Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants 64, 86 transatlantic networks 38, 42, 49 translocal geographies 6 see also translocalism translocalism 5, 106, 233 see also translocal geographies transnational belonging 6, 159 communication 175 communities 119, 176 diaspora practices 81–3 economic fields 135–7 families 135, 144 family life and African migrants in Ireland 135–9 and Irish migrants in Australia 154 migration 6 networks 17–18, 32–3, 50, 88, 99, 106 social fields 138–9 space(s) 33, 124–5, 147, 154, 158, 159, 165, 169, 176 transnationalism 32, 104, 154 and integration 98–100 and migration studies 110, 233 Troubles 19, 27–30 Ugba, A. 133, 176 UK see United Kingdom ULARU 36, 38, 39–40, 42–4, 50 Ulster Loyal and Anti-Repeal Union see ULARU unemployment 217–21 of asylum seekers 215–16 of migrants 221 role of immigrants 216–17 see also employment; labour markets United Kingdom migrants in Ireland from 31, 123, 205 employment gains and losses 217–22

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248 migration to Ireland from 133, 201, 205 see also Britain; England; Scotland United States of America Catholic Church in 58, 63 immigrants and labour market 216 Irish diaspora in 88 Irish migration to 2, 63, 148 migration to Ireland from 65, 201 USA see United States of America Valentine, G. 7, 207 Vertovec, S. 6, 18, 99

I NDEX vulnerable migrants 59, 60, 63, 64, 65, 72, 86, 92, 93, 117–18, 235 see also migrant categories Walsh, J. 31 Walters, W. 98 Whelan, K. 1–2 White, A. 3, 117, 118, 119, 121, 184, 185, 199, 201 work see employment; labour markets; unemployment