Between the foundation of the new Irish state in 1921–22 and the early 1970s approximately one-and-a-half million people left independent Ireland, the vast majority travelling to Britain. Demography, State and Society is the first comprehensive analysis of the twentieth-century Irish exodus to Britain. Meticulously researched, using an exhaustive range of previously unused source materials, this book provides a detailed examination of the many ways in which migration shaped twentieth-century Irish society. The book focuses on a number of vital themes, many of them rarely mentioned by previous studies: state policy in Ireland; official responses in Britain; gender dimensions; individual migrant experience; patterns of settlement in Britain; and the crucial phenomenon of return migration. A major study of Irish migration, this book also offers much that will be of interest to scholars, students and general readers in the wider fields of modern British and Irish history.

This is one of the most significant works to date of the history of Irish migration in any period or place.'

Donald M. MacRaild

Exhaustive, well written, thoroughly researched, and wider-ranging than might be inferred from the title…'

Source: International History Review

…this is excellent comparative British and Irish history as well as a major contribution to migration studies. The depth of scholarship and the range of sources make this quite the best book on the subject: it is certainly the best history of Irish migration to twentieth-century Britain.'

Source: Irish Studies Review