Pandemic Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora in Germany

This book reflects on how the pandemic impacted upon qualitative social research, but also how it affected the lives of the members of the Irish diaspora on the European continent. The crisis acted as a pressure cooker for those ‘living abroad,’ transforming distance and migration situations to resemble times gone by, when travel was far more prohibitive and emigration felt more permanent. At the same time, ‘expat lives’ were being thrown headlong into a new future, shaped more profoundly than ever by digital means. This work is a close examination of how Irish migrants in Germany construct their Irishness and, in doing so, maintain their belonging to Ireland across a geographic distance transformed by the pandemic. This work seeks to draw out the underlying patterns and meanings in the day-to-day practices of Irishness by members of Ireland’s putative diaspora in Germany by interweaving a multitude of ethnographic vignettes and rich interview material with relevant and interestingtheoretical concepts. Interlocutors see Ireland as a site of personal memory – good, bad and in-between – and of meaning-making practices. Ireland is deeply personal to them; that understood, their practices of belonging to Ireland are nonetheless embroiled in the political goal of making Ireland visible abroad.