Zulu

Ireland has been deeply marked by emigration. Painting a portrait of the Irish, this book explores this phenomenon by looking at one town, Roscrea, County Tipperary, and the effect the departures have on those who remain behind. It also looks at the changed nature of recent emigration to the US.

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For generations Ireland has been deeply marked by emigration. This book explores this phenomenon by looking at the departure of the people from one town in Ireland - Roscrea, County Tipperary - and the effect it has on those who remain behind. Joan Mathieu's grandmother, Sara, left Roscrea for New York in 1912 at the height of the Irish emigration and so the book becomes both a personal exploration as well as a more general portrait of a community defined by absences. In Roscrea, Mathieu observes the differences between the generations: from the superstitious old relatives to the young house-mates who work at the local ribbon factory; the rebellious Catholic schoolteachers to the more-or-less settled travellers. Mathieu also talks to the recent Irish immigrants in New York and she discovers that - with the advent of cheap transatlantic flights - the whole process of emigration has changed and it no longer means that people leave for good. These "new" Irish do not establish roots in their new world and are, surprisingly, met with antagonism from the established Irish-American community.