John Gibney

That gets enough attention.

What we're trying to do is explore the social history, whether it's rural, urban institutions, entertainment, the cinema.

We're trying to paint a picture of the world in which these people lived.

Yeah, and I mean, you know, don't forget a census form can... It can tell you a story or point towards a story, you know?

I mean, not every emigrant returned, but you do get some that would have come back, you know?

I mean, there was one... When we were researching the book, there was one family living in Limerick City, for example, where...

I think the father-in-law was born in New York and was listed as speaking English and Irish.

Now, it's not clear whether or not where he got the Irish.

Like, did he do Irish classes in Limerick?

Or had he grown up with a familiarity of Irish in a diaspora community in New York?

Because there were plenty of Irish speakers, you know, in the New York of the early 20th century.

So you do see a small number of immigrants coming back.

Some would have done well, like, you know, Kate O'Malley says that she mentions that, you know, her ancestors would have come back and

established a business over here, having done reasonably well in the US, or accrued enough capital to do that.

As well as that, though, there'd be an immigrant or foreign-born population within the Irish Free State.

And not just in terms of people from outside the island of Ireland.

There would have been a substantial number of people from Northern Ireland.

But you also would have plenty of other nationalities within there.

And pretty much, if you think of it in real terms, every town or city

or village mentioned in the census, seems to have someone who was born, living there, that was born outside the island of Ireland.