‘You’ll Have to Start Learning Irish Now’: Irish Return Migration and the Return of the Second Generation to the Connemara Gaeltacht Region

Abstract

The experience of displacement as the result of emigration has been a dominant feature of Irish life for many generations. While migration from Ireland was traditionally viewed as being permanent, and statistics pertaining to returnees have been scanty until recent years, literary and folkloric evidence attest to the presence of returnees in most regions of the country even before the turn of the twentieth century (Schrier 1997/1955; see Fitzgerald 2005). Emigration remained a constant feature of Irish life for much of the twentieth century until an unprecedented return flow occurred in the 1970s and again in the 1990s and early 2000s as a result of rapid economic growth. The experiences and challenges faced by these returnees has been the focus of an increasing body of academic literature. The aim of this chapter is to review that literature and contextualise my own research on the cultural and linguistic challenges faced by second-generation return migrants to the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht region of Connemara. My discussion regarding this group of returnees contributes to ongoing research on the subject of Irish return migration and highlights the attempts of second-generation return migrants to resolve any identity conflict resulting from their response to heritage language loss and acculturation post-return.