Guest Editorial: Finding Home through Motion: Contemporary Migration to Ireland

Abstract

The introduction to this special issue of Irish Geography discusses three papers that emerged from the 45th Conference of Irish Geographers held in Galway in 2013. Essentially, the papers insist upon recognising the complex human geographies of migration and mobility, drawing upon different theoretical, methodological and analytical frameworks. The papers coalesce around the concept of home which is embedded in processes of migration. Doyle and McAreavey’s paper adds to the literature on housing and immigrant settlement, highlighting the complexity of migrant integration in Northern Ireland. Their paper also highlights how something as mundane as setting up home has the potential to change socio-cultural geographies at a granular level. Cawley and Galvins’s paper focuses on continuities and change in the migration process, noting the temporal endurance of transnational connections among migrants who have returned to Ireland. Their paper acknowledges the circular flows of mobility associated with transnational migration, highlighting that return to one’s country of origin is more than just another circulation within the migratory process. Hanafin’s research extends the discussion of return to children of emigrants and their parental homelands, highlighting the complex geographies of belonging that emerge for second generation returnees. Taken together, these papers provide important insights into transnational migration processes, in which Ireland is both an origin and destination. Additionally, they suggest that the various spatial, social, and cognitive practices constituting home must be conceptualised in a way that embraces the fluidity of home for migrants.