Models for movers oral history project records, 1986-1990

íde B. O'Carroll was born in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland, and taught in Cork for a number of years before moving to Boston, Mass., in 1986. A founder of the Irish Women in Boston group, she also set up a media collective, Trasna na dTonnta/Across the Waves, and has been a consultant for film, television, and radio documentaries on Ireland. With an M.A. in history from Northeastern University (1989), she was a doctoral student at Harvard Graduate School of Education when she donated this collection. Her master's thesis consisted of a history of Irish women immigrants and relied heavily on a number of oral histories, most conducted in the Boston area. This work was revised and published as Models for Movers: Irish Women's Emigration to America (Dublin: Attic Press, 1990).

Models for Movers focused on three waves of emigration from Ireland in the twentieth century: 1920s, 1950s, and 1980s. The study concerned the question of choice: why some Irish women chose to emigrate to the U.S.A. rather than remain in Ireland, or move to Britain. The thesis of the study is that Irish women, half consciously, half unconsciously, rejected an Irish society that was oppressive to women and chose to move to the U.S.A., where they would have greater independence and control over their lives. Many of the interviews therefore contain information on life in Ireland as well as in the U.S.A.

These women availed themselves of the unique pattern of female chain migration, by which a female relative or friend in America aided the immigrant with money for passage and offered support and work on arrival. This pattern had been established by Irish women in the nineteenth century, who encouraged and often financed one another's move to the U.S.A.

Oral histories are a central source for any understanding of Irish immigrant history. These immigrant women seemed to have little time to sit and write, and seldom saw the value of writing about their "ordinary" lives. Theirs is primarily an oral history, passed from generation to generation, or as it is expressed in the Gaelic, "o ghlun go ghlun" (from knee to knee). Over a four year period (1986 1990), íO'C made contact with many Irish immigrants. Only after extensive preliminary discussions were certain individuals interviewed; this decision was made because of limited time. Listening copies of unrestricted interviews are available to researchers. The taped interviews were later transcribed; some were edited, remaining as true to the original source as possible. None of the transcripts was proofread.