Across the Sea to Ireland: Return Atlantic Migration before the First World War

Abstract

Are return migrants 'losers' who fail to adapt to the challenges of the host economy, and thereby exacerbate the brain drain linked to emigration? Or are they 'winners' whose return enhances the human and physical capital of the home country? These questions are the subject of a burgeoning literature. This paper analyze a new database culled from the 1911 Irish population census to address these issues for returnees to Ireland from North America more than a century ago. The evidence suggests that those who returned had the edge over the population as a whole in terms of human capital, if not also over those who remained abroad.

Cohort Component Population Estimates for Ireland, 1911–1920: a New County-Level Dataset for Use in Historical Demography

“…We assume that immigration follows a similar spatial pattern to emigration, and allocate immigrates to counties based on county emigration patterns. This is not a heroic assumption given that immigration at the time mostly constituted returning emigrants, who would return to their families in their home counties (Fernihough and Ó Gráda, 2019). Indeed, from over 14,000 Irish returnees that appear in US passport document data for the years 1890-1920, almost three quarters claim family-related reasons as their return motivation (Dunnigan, 2012).…”