Moving Through Ireland: Narratives of Polish Multiple Migrants

While many accounts of migration focus on settlement in the destination, this chapter analyses the narratives of Polish multiple migrants moving through Ireland. Ireland has experienced mass inflows from Central and Eastern European member states post-2004 EU enlargement. I describe how some young people migrated for a plethora of reasons, including adventure, exploration and/or independence, while for others moving to Ireland was related to setting up a family. I apply a life course perspective to analyse these flows, examining Polish migrants’ narratives in the light of broader social, political and economic contexts. A focus on moving through highlights the dynamics of migration processes over time and space, and the ways in which they can be constructed as moving forward and backward. The story of Polish migrants moving through Ireland thus describes a less-known face of international movements. The empirical analysis is based on the Web-based qualitative panel study from the MULTIMIG project. The study included semi-structured interviews with Polish multiple migrants, defined as people who migrated internationally twice or more. The analyses are based on nine interviews with informants whose migration trajectories at some stage passed through Ireland.