‘Always up for the craic’: young Irish professional migrants narrating ambiguous positioning in contemporary Britain

Abstract

This paper explores the experiences of recent Irish highly qualified migrants who, having left post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, arrive in post-‘Peace Agreement’ Britain. Our paper contributes to understanding the enduring salience of place and how expressions of identities are framed by specific place-based factors as well as by temporality. We explore how these migrants’ narratives, as ‘successful’ professionals, are framed by complex intersections of historical legacies and changing socio-economic and intra-EU migration patterns. We consider the extent to which residual anti-Irish stereotypes remain, or indeed have re-emerged since the economic recession, and how these negative perceptions may impact on expressions of Irishness. Focusing on accents and other markers of identity, we discuss how Irishness may be constructed through a spectrum of visibilities at different times and in different places. This spatial-temporal perspective may help to go beyond a simplistic, one dimensional ethnic lens by highlighting the contextualities of identities.

Keywords:

• Irish migration
• highly qualified
• visibilities
• accents
• stereotypes

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank all the study participants who gave so generously of their time.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This project was supported by the Third Sector Research Centre and the Irish in Britain organisation (www.irishinbritain.org).

Notes

1 The Peace Agreement was signed on Good Friday, 1997, and marked a watershed in British/Irish relations and resulted in ceasefires between the opposing military forces in Northern Ireland.

2 During the height of the armed conflict in Northern Ireland and the bombing campaigns undertaken by the Irish Republican Army in Britain, Irish people living in Britain were subject to suspicion, surveillance and arrest as instituted in the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

3 There is insufficient space here to present a detailed history of Irish migration or British/Irish relations. This has been discussed extensively elsewhere, see for example (Akenson, 1993; Jackson, 1963; Walter, 2001).

4 The term Celtic Tiger refers to the Republic of Ireland. Throughout the paper we focus on migration from the Republic. The position of people from Northern Ireland who move to Britain is more complex.

5 This figure may not be accurate as it only includes new arrivals and some Irish people may already have British national insurance numbers from previous periods of work, including student summer jobs, in Britain.