Íde B. O’Carroll’s Bio

Irish-born social researcher and author

Íde B. O’Carroll, PhD is a social researcher, author and teacher, who lives in Amherst, Massachusetts (USA) and Lismore, Waterford (Ireland).

As a consultant researcher (O’Carroll Associates International Consulting), Íde worked for many years on some of the key social change issues in Ireland, Europe and America (see Commissions & Reports).  In 2014, she wound up her consultancy firm in order to concentrate on writing. She was a Visiting Scholar at Ireland House, New York University, from 2013-2017, and Visiting Scholar at the Center for Public Policy, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, from 2012-2013. From 2018-2023, she was an Adjunct Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she taught courses on the Sociology of US Migration and Migration & Belonging. 

She is currently working on a new book that traces the transformation of Irish society entitled Thirty Years of Change, Ireland, 1993-2023.  

In 2021, the National Library of Ireland’s, National Archive, established the Íde B. O’Carroll Collection, research materials.

Irish Transatlantics, 1980-2015 (Cork Uni. Press, 2018)

This book tells the story of 1980s Irish migrants who lived through a time when Irish-US migration became transnational, aided by return migration and technological advances that enabled them to maintain transatlantic connections. Resident now in Ireland or America, the people profiled describe how they lived their lives ‘here’ and ‘there’ in ways unimaginable to earlier generations. Though many were ‘undocumented,’ they successfully organized and lobbied to reform US immigration in their favor. Since the US is no longer the primary long distance destination for departing Irish, theirs is a unique story.

In 2017, she published ‘Across the pond: Connections to Marriage Equality Ireland’ in Crossing the Threshold: The Story of the Marriage Equality Movement (Merrion Press).

In 2015, Cork University released a revised twenty-fifth anniversary edition of her book Models for Movers: Irish Women’s Emigration to America. This edition offers a critical gender analysis of Irish society during the three migration waves of the twentieth century, 1920s, 1950s, 1980s, to illustrated conditions for women prior to departure. The oral histories detail how each woman created an independent life for herself in America, often in the face of multiple challenges there.  All materials relating to this original study are housed at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard University (the O’Carroll Collection).

Íde writes fiction in English and in Irish/Gaelic. Her short story “EyeOpeners” was short listed for the Francis MacManus Short Story Competition and broadcast on Irish radio, RTÉ (2003).  Her poetry has been published on both sides of the Atlantic: A Mighty Room: A Collection of Poems Written in Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom (The Emily Dickinson Museum, 2015), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Vol. IV, 2002), and The Turning Tide: New Writing from County Waterford (2002).

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Thirty Years of Change: Ireland, 1993-2023, is a project that began in early 1990s, when Íde was a Research Associate at the Centre for Women’s Studies, Trinity College, Dublin. Meeting again with Irish women she interviewed thirty years ago, she documents their perspectives on the changes they have witnessed in Irish society.

2018 (Book) Irish Transatlantics, 1980-2015

This book tells the story of 1980s Irish migrants who lived through a time when Irish-US migration became transnational aided by return migration and technological advances that enabled them to maintain transatlantic connections. Resident now in Ireland or America, the people profiled describe how they live their lives ‘here’ and ‘there’ in ways unimaginable to earlier generations. Though many were ‘illegal’, they successfully organized and lobbied to reform US immigration in their favor. Since the US is no longer the primary long distance destination for departing Irish, theirs is a unique story that marks the end of Irish emigration to America as we have known it.

REVIEWS – Irish Transatlantics, 1980-2015 (Cork Uni. Press, 2018)

“Íde introduces us to the next iteration of bonds that tie the present to the past and the here with the there. Modern Irish immigrants are ‘transatlantics,’ bridges connecting Ireland and the US who can live in two places simultaneously and contribute significantly to both.”
Prof. Marion R. Casey, Ireland House, New York University

“At turns uplifting and, at others, heart breaking, Íde creates a compelling portrait of how this generation of Irish families live their lives across borders. Researched with empathy and care, their stories suggest new insights about earlier migration and foreshadow future trends.”
Prof. Peggy Levitt, Transnational Studies Institute, Harvard University.

“A century ago, when people left the west of Ireland for Boston or New York, they held wakes for them…because the presumption was they would never return. The modern Irish do return, then go back, and have a foot and a piece of their heart and soul on both sides of the Atlantic. They are Transatlantics. No one is better suited to tell this important story of a changing culture than Íde B. O’Carroll.”
Kevin Cullen, Columnist, Boston Globe Newspaper:

“With Models for Movers, and Irish Transatlantics, O’Carroll has compiled a rich and textured account of mobility between Ireland and the USA from 1920 to 2000s.” Prof. Breda Gray, University of Limerick, author, Women and the Irish Diaspora.”
Breda Gray, author, Women and the Irish Diaspora.