Introduction

This book is a celebration of the American-Irish by the American-Irish. This book is about the Americans who have chosen to run away and move to Ireland after falling in love with the country. Americans who have moved here later in life to start anew. Americans who moved here because they found a slower pace of life, a better quality of life. Americans who moved here because of an Irish spouse. Americans that have moved here as a career choice and never went home. They've moved to Ireland and this is their home.

When one visits another country, one cannot help but feel that everything is so absolutely bright and new and different. It is no wonder why everyone loves to travel - you get to scoop up all of the pretty things about this new country, pack them in your suitcase and pin them up as fond memories.

But when you permanently move, you suddenly begin to also see this new country for what it truly is. You see the way a city breathes, a healthcare system works, how politics sway, a whole new group of people think - and for the American, that another world exists outside of America.

The Americans that have moved to Ireland are a new kind of identity, a new kind of culture. An identity that isn't quite Irish-American as many will not have Irish descent. This new identity surpasses being only American because now they've adapted to a new country. It is the American-Irish that have developed and taken on everything that Ireland has thrown at them as they came rushing in with rose-coloured glasses and made this experience into something their own. The American-Irish are fiercely independent. They come from a history of pioneers who have dreamt big and travelled far for a better future. And this book is a collection of their journeys, missions, dreams, and realities of moving to Ireland.

This book comprises interviews, stories, and surveys on the American-Irish. You'll find that their choice of words, spellings, phrases, and opinions sway somewhere between Irish and American. This is the voice of the American-Irish.