Research Activities

Research Activities

The Irish Studies Centre is the premier academic centre for research about the Irish in Britain. When the Centre was established in 1986 there was very little published work about the Irish in twentieth-century Britian. It has therefore been a major goal of the Centre to transform this situation and in so doing contribute to the documentation and analysis of Irish migration and research on the Irish diaspora.

Commission for Racial Equality Report

The Irish Studies Centre was asked by the Commission for Racial Equality in 1995 to carry out a national survey about the Irish community. As a consequence of this and the subsequent research report Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain, the public profile of the Centre was considerably raised and Professor Hickman is now a regular media commentator on issues concerning the Irish in Britain.

The research report led to the recognition of the Irish in Britain as an ethnic group by many local authorities and other organisations, and to the inclusion of 'Irish' as a category in the 2001 Census. This report has had wide reaching implications, not only in the field of discrimination, but also in terms of support for Irish organisations campaigning to establish cultural and welfare programmes.

The Irish in Britain Research Programme

Since the publication of the CRE Report, the Irish Studies Centre has developed a reputation for policy orientated research. The borough-commissioned research report The Irish in Lewisham led to a policy of addressing the specific needs of the Irish community and incorporating them into the local authority's services and programmes.

In 1998, the Irish Studies Centre secured a grant from the Irish government to extrapolate all available information about the socio-economic position of the second and third generation Irish from existing databases. The report Second Generation Irish People in Britain: a demographic, socio-economic and health profile was published in 2001. Shortly afterwards the Centre undertook a national survey of the second generation Irish population with Prof Bronwen Walter at Anglia Polytechnic University, funded by the European Social Research Council.

International Research on Irish Migration and Diaspora

During the course of collaborative research about Irish migration and diaspora, Professor Mary Hickman has been Visiting Professor at New York University and Victoria University in Australia. She is currently engaged in comparative work on the Irish in New York City and London and is writing a book about the Irish diaspora.

For further information, contact Professor Mary Hickman at mary.hickman@londonmet.ac.uk