'Settling back'? A biographical and life-course perspective on Ireland's recent return migration

This paper uses a biographical and life-course perspective to explore some of the key narratives of return among return migrants to Ireland, focusing in particular on the themes of family, child-rearing, relationship breakdown and ‘settling down’. The ways in which return migrants use the concept of life-course transitions in order to make sense of and narrate their migration stories is explored. I argue that their narratives reflect a normative association of life stage with place, and that return migration reflects the ways in which key events in the individual life course transitions and family life cycles of 1980s emigrants have intersected with processes of economic and social transformation in Ireland. This occurs within the context of heteronormative and kinship-based ideals of Irish culture and of powerful myths of return. The data used in the paper is taken from the Narratives of Migration and Return research project, a north south cross-border project which assembled an oral archive of 92 return migrant life narratives. In the paper, I draw on 33 of the interviews conducted in the south, which focused on the cohort of return migrants who had emigrated in the 1980s

Complicating host-newcomer dualisms: Irish return migrants as home-comers or newcomers?

Popular discourses of contemporary Irish society are often structured on the basis of dualisms which oppose a perceived native/Irish/host community to an imagined foreign/non-Irish/newcomer community. This paper uses the example of Irish return migration to challenge these pervasive dualisms and to highlight the blurred nature of boundaries between host and newcomer. The paper draws on life narrative interviews with recent return migrants to reveal the ways in which they constantly move between the shifting positions of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’. Migrant narratives of home and return are conceptualised in terms of the ways in which home is inhabited and remembered differently with migration, and as a result is continuously being reprocessed. It is argued that neither home nor belonging are static constructs, and that return migrants constantly re-make and reproduce home and belonging. In this way, they ‘bring home’ to non-migrants the inherent instability of accepted concepts of place, identity and belonging, and in doing so, unsettle powerful imagined insider outsider dualisms

To name or not to name: reflections on the use of anonymity in an oral archive of migrant life narratives

This paper draws on an oral archive project on narratives of return migration in contemporary Ireland, as the basis for a discussion on the potential of life narrative research to destabilize meta-narratives and to contribute to the mapping of transformative geographies. It is argued that this kind of research requires the creation of safe spaces within which participants can tell their stories and articulate counter-narratives. At the same time, it is important to make their voices available to a wide audience and to recognize their authorial roles. There are contrasting perspectives in oral history and life narrative research on the use of anonymity to protect participants' identities, which reflect different disciplinary traditions and practices. The paper reflects on these different perspectives and on the process of designing a research project that draws on multiple methodological influences. It concludes that it is possible to facilitate access to these voices, while at the same time providing safe conditions for the articulation of counter-narratives, by providing anonymity where possible and desirable in agreement with the participant

The 'green green grass of home'? Return migration to rural Ireland

There have been calls recently to challenge some of the orthodoxies of counterurbanisation. This paper contributes to this by highlighting the complexity of rural in-migration processes, through a focus on rural return migration. There has been a significant increase in return migration to the Republic of Ireland (ROI) since 1996. The paper is based on the life narratives of some of the 1980s generation of emigrants who have recently returned to live in Ireland. It focuses on those Irish return migrants who spent a substantial part of their lives in the large urban centres of Britain and the US, and are currently living in rural Ireland. Their narratives of return are explored in terms of discourses of rurality, in particular through notions of a rural idyll and belonging/not belonging. It is argued that return migrants draw on classic counterurbanisation discourses in their narratives of return, but that these are interwoven with notions of family/kinship. Furthermore, the idyllisation of rural life is complicated by aspects of the specificity of the position of the return migrant. It is suggested that rural return migrants are positioned somewhere between locals and incomers, reflecting the complexity of Irish rural repopulation processes, and that the phenomenon of rural return complicates accepted understandings of counterurbanisation

'Girls just like to be friends with people: gendered experiences of migration among children and young people in returning Irish families

The gendered nature of children and young people's experiences of migration are explored in this paper, drawing on research with children in Irish return migrant families. The paper focuses on the ways in which gender dynamics both reinforce and complicate the children's complex social positionings in Irish society. It explores the gendered nature of the children's and young people's everyday lives, relationships with peers and negotiations of identity, through a specific focus on the role of sport, friendship and local gender norms in their lives. I suggest that gender articulates with other axes of sameness/difference in complex ways, shaping the opportunities for social participation and cultural belonging in different ways for migrant boys and girls

Systematic review of pharmacological therapies for the management of ischaemic pain in patients with non-reconstructable critical limb ischaemia

Background Critical limb ischaemia (CLI) is a severe manifestation of peripheral arterial disease, characterised by chronic ischaemic rest pain, ulcers or gangrene. Management of ischaemic pain is challenging in patients with no options for revascularisation and optimal pharmacological therapies have not been established.Objectives To identify and evaluate the effectiveness of pharmacological therapies to treat ischaemic pain secondary to non-reconstructable CLI.Methods This systematic review was reported in accordance with PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guideline. Comprehensive searches of three electronic databases, a PubMed-related articles link search, grey literature search and hand-searches of the bibliographies of relevant papers and textbooks were performed. Studies recruiting adult patients with CLI of any aetiology were eligible for inclusion. Surgical and revascularisation procedures, and all invasive interventions were excluded.Results Of 792 studies, six met full inclusion criteria. These studies researched the use of intravenous lidocaine, intravenous ketamine, oral gabapentin and the combination of transdermal buprenorphine and epidural morphine/ropivacaine infusion. All studies showed an improvement in severity of ischaemic pain in CLI but with varying side effect profiles and quality. The extracted studies showed substantial heterogeneity and therefore a meta-analysis was not performed.Conclusion The pharmacological management of pain secondary to non-reconstructable CLI is a challenging review topic. No recommendations of pharmacological agents can be made following this review but a number of novel approaches to manage pain in this cohort have shown positive results and require further investigation

Making space for ambiguity: the value of multiple and participatory methods in researching diasporic youth identities

This article explores the use of participatory methods in a research project with young people in return migrant families. In-depth children-centred participatory research was conducted with children and young people who had moved to Ireland with their Irish return migrant parents during the recent ‘Celtic Tiger’ era. I argue that the use of multimodal and participatory methods in research with young migrants enables participants to express multiple identities and complex narratives of self. People frequently perform different identities in different contexts, but young migrants in particular, because of the disruptions and incoherences associated with their migrancy and their complex social and cultural positionings, can express ambiguous and apparently contradictory narratives of self. Recognising that research is a process of coconstructing meaning, I highlight the importance of using multimodal methods in research with young migrants, showing how different modes of coconstructing meaning can allow different and ambiguous narratives of self to be articulated

A systematic review of the effectiveness of palliative interventions to treat rectal tenesmus in cancer

Background:Rectal tenesmus is a distressing symptom in patients with advanced cancer and challenging to treat. There is lack of consensus on the appropriate management of tenesmus in this patient population.Aim:To identify and examine the effectiveness of interventions to palliate rectal tenesmus caused by advanced cancer when surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy are no longer treatment options.Design:A systematic review of the literature following standard systematic review methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidance.Data sources:A comprehensive search of the electronic databases MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library was conducted from date of inception to April 2016. PubMed ‘related articles’ search, grey literature search and hand-searches of the bibliographies of relevant papers and textbooks were also performed. Non-cancer patients were excluded. Any studies involving surgery or radiotherapy to treat tenesmus were excluded. Studies involving interventions to treat pelvic pain syndromes without specific outcome measures on severity of tenesmus were excluded. The quality of the studies was assessed using a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence–recommended quality assessment tool.Results:From 861 studies, 9 met full criteria and were selected. All were case series investigating the use of pharmacological interventions (diltiazem, nifedipine, methadone, mexiletine hydrochloride, lidocaine and bupivacaine), anaesthetic interventions (lumbar sympathectomy, neurolytic superior hypogastric plexus block), and endoscopic laser interventions. The included studies showed substantial heterogeneity, and therefore, a meta-analysis was not feasible.Conclusion:From this review, we identified a significant gap in research into the palliation of rectal tenesmus. A multimodal approach may be necessary due to the complexity of the pathophysiology of tenesmus. Future research should focus on randomised controlled trials of drug therapies whose potential effectiveness is suggested by case series

Tell me about yourself: migrant children's experiences of moving to and living in Ireland

During the past ten years, much attention has been directed to immigration and integration issues in Ireland, but, with some notable exceptions to date, very little focusing on children or young people. In this context, the need for research and initiatives which allow migrant children’s own voices to be heard is extremely important. Our research project, Migrant Children, aimed to address these gaps and to provide children’s and young people’s perspectives on issues relating to recent immigration to Ireland. The project was centred on an investigation of children’s and young people’s experiences of immigration and integration in Irish society. The aim was to explore the social worlds of migrant children and youth in Ireland from their own perspectives.Final Report of the Marie Curie Excellence Team project. Migrant Children: Children’s and young people’s experiences of immigration and integration in Irish societ

Naming the parts: a case-study of a gender equality initiative with academic women

YesThis paper aims to seek to contribute to current debates about the effectiveness of different types of gender equality interventions in the academic context. This paper presents an argument for the need to move beyond an individual-structural dichotomy in how such interventions are perceived. The paper draws on an action-research case-study, the Through the Glass Ceiling project, to challenge the idea that “individual”/single-actor interventions serve only to reinforce underlying inequalities by attempting to “fix the women”.It is suggested that actions that support women in their careers have the potential to achieve a degree of transformation at individual, cultural and structural levels when such actions are designed with an understanding of how individuals embody the gendered and gendering social structures and values that are constantly being produced and reproduced within society and academia. The case study highlights the benefits of supporting individuals as gendered actors in gendering institutions and of facilitating the development of critical gender awareness, suggesting that such interventions are most effective when undertaken as part of an integrated institutional equality agenda. By calling attention to the ongoing mutual construction of actors and practices in organizations, this paper seeks to make both a conceptual contribution to how we understand the (re)production and potential transformation of gender relations in academia and to influence wider policy dialogues on diversity at work.FP