Returning to Ireland from Australia 1880-1925

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses Irish migrants and their descendants who returned either permanently or temporarily to Ireland in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. Data for return of Irish-born migrants is uneven, so one of the best sources for those born in Australia and living in Ireland is in the Irish censuses of 1901 and 1911. In this analysis, we use Australian-born people present on the census nights as an approximate measure of those migrants who had previously left Ireland and then returned with Australian-born children, recognising that this is also an imprecise measure. We match data points from the census returns with demographic data to fill in the background of selected returnees. Key findings are that Australian-born women were disproportionately represented in census data. In order to capture a broader sample of Irish migrants who returned to Ireland, we also analyse visiting and temporary return through a case study of one migrant group from Limerick who settled in rural colonial Victoria.