Being English in Ireland

The fourth instalment in our series of posts by BAIS postgraduate bursary winners comes from Victoria Brown (Queen Mary, University of London). Victoria used her bursary funding to conduct preliminary research in the Republic of Ireland for her thesis on the experience English emigrants in Ireland.

“Do you mean Irish people who have moved to England?” is the question I hear the most when I tell people that I am researching English migration to Ireland. Whilst the repetition could get boring or annoying it’s quite galvanising in terms of knowing that I have hit on a project that not many people have thought about before.

My PhD thesis explores how English people who have moved to Ireland experience belonging and home, with a focus on those who migrated after 1960 and before 2019. English people in Ireland form a significant but under researched group set within a complex and entangled historical relationship between both countries. Research into in-migration to Ireland has increased in the past thirty years as more people from outside of the country have made it their home, and with this, who ‘gets’ to be Irish takes on a new meaning. Yet, there is an absence within this existing research of attention to English migration to Ireland.

To give some attention to this topic, my fieldwork consists of in-depth qualitative interviews with English people living in Ireland, and the bursary that I received from the British Association for Irish Studies, as well as contributing toward my overall fieldwork allowed me to undertake a week of preliminary research during October 2019. With little known about English migration to Ireland in more recent years, my assessment on the whereabouts of English migrants within Ireland is based upon existing research on the locations of UK nationals within the country. According to the Irish Central Statistics Office the five counties with the most UK nationals as residents are Co. Cork, Dublin City, Co. Donegal, Co. Mayo and Co. Kerry (CSO, 2019). A combination of these statistics and having some contacts in the area led to me concentrating most of my October visit in Co. Donegal.

I had three main aims to achieve during the week of preliminary fieldwork – gather ‘on the ground knowledge’ to help plan the larger fieldwork periods in 2020; recruit participants and conduct the first interviews of the project. I’m happy to say that the week was a great success and I’m delighted to tell you a bit more about it here.

Interviewing

Knowing that I would only be in Ireland for a week, and that the visit would consist of several activities relating to the fieldwork, I carried out very minimal recruitment in the lead-up to the trip. This meant that I was able to arrange meetings with a manageable number of participants for the first real outings of my interview schedule during semi-structured conversations. It was wonderful to put faces and voices to names whilst exploring a wide range of topics from English identity to watching Irish Gogglebox!

Recruiting participants

Armed with an envelope of homemade leaflets and a head full of advice I visited villages, towns and cities distributing details about my research. My first stop was before I’d even collected a car – a friend from Mayo living in London told me she was sure there was an English person working at the airport and that it would be as good as any a place to start! Over the course of the week I visited Sligo City, Killybegs, Donegal Town and Letterkenny with lots of smaller stops along the way. Reactions were varied: a book seller in one town raised an eyebrow at the suggestion of English people living locally, whereas a gift shop owner further west was very specific about the place where English people in the town would eat out and drink!

‘On the ground’ knowledge

I’ve been back in London for less than a fortnight, but that’s been plenty of time to reflect. I’ve made adjustments to the interview schedule that I feel allow for more flow in the topic areas. Conducting interviews in border areas has broadened my perspective on how I might approach conversations with future participants in similar geographical locations. In terms of ‘on the ground’ knowledge, the visit confirmed my belief that a car would be required to allow the best maximisation of time within a limited budget; I became aware of alternative accommodation options and was introduced to a multitude of recruitment ideas by people I who I met along the way.

This visit has helped build solid beginnings for the fieldwork stage of my PhD and it would not have been possible without the support of the British Association for Irish Studies – financially through the bursary but also through the connections that I have made as a member over the past two years. With this in mind I would like to thank all those involved with the British Association for Irish Studies, the bursary committee and as well as everyone who I met during my visit to Ireland.

Vikki Barry Brown is a PhD researcher in the School of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London. Vikki’s project examines belonging and home in the context of English migration to Ireland since 1960. Prior to joining QMUL in September 2018, Vikki undertook a Masters in Social Research at the University of Leeds where she carried out qualitative research into ‘Brexit Irish’ passport holders.

*All images are property of the author.