Íde B. O’Carroll’s Bio

I am an Irish-born social researcher, author and former teacher. As a consultant researcher (O’Carroll Associates International Consulting), I worked for many years on some of the key social change issues in Ireland, Europe and the USA (see Commissions & Reports page). In 2014, I wound up my consultancy firm to concentrate on writing and later taught part-time at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. 

 I have been affiliated with Women’s Studies, Trinity College Dublin (1991-1999), Ireland House, New York University (2013-2017), the Center for Public Policy (2012-2013) and Department of Sociology (2018-2023) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

In 2021, the National Library of Ireland established the Íde B. O’Carroll Collection, research materials, in its National Archive. In 1990, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America established The O’Carroll Collection containing papers relating to the Models for Movers: Irish Women’s Emigration to America (1990/2015) project, its first holding on Irish women immigrants.

In addition to non-fiction books, commissions and reports, I also write fiction and poetry (in Irish/Gaelic and English). My short story “Eye Openers” was short listed for the Francis MacManus Short Story Competition and broadcast on Ireland’s national radio station, RTÉ in 2003. My poetry has been published on both sides of the Atlantic: “Seomra Buí/Yellow Room” in A Mighty Room: A Collection of Poems Written in Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom (The Emily Dickinson Museum, 2015); “Mná i mBoston/Women in Boston” is included in The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Vol. IV, 2002); “Georgia O’Keeffe” and “Síle na Gig” in The Turning Tide: New Writing from County Waterford, edited by Thomas McCarthy (Waterford County Council, 2002), and “Pyjama Man” in Charlie’s Chasing The Sheep: Stories from Lismore and Mitchelstown, edited by Annie G. Rogers, (Lismore Books, 2003).