About

DIASPORA is a major five-year project that explores questions around drinking, recreational drug use and mental health among Irish people. The project is based at the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, in the School of History, University College Dublin, and funded by the European Research Council. It addresses key questions which speak to themes of migration and the impact of the ‘drunken Irish’ label on Irish people at home and abroad. 

DIASPORA traces these themes from 1945 up to the present day. It covers waves of migration from the 1950s to the 2008 financial collapse, with a focus on New York and London. The project has several, interconnected research strands.

One strand considers how those within medical and welfare communities – such as psychiatrists and social workers – responded to alcohol and drug use in Irish populations. Another looks at both state and religious responses to these behaviours. Together they will unravel the relationship between substance use, migration, and the broader ‘drunken Irish’ label. 

The project also examines attitudes towards drug use in Ireland. This strand looks at church, state, medical, and lay responses to drug use at home to contextualise the experiences of the Irish abroad. It therefore seeks to understand potential links between the drunken Irish label and responses to drug use.

DIASPORA also investigates mental health within Irish populations in London and New York. Here, the project asks how migration may have affected the mental health of Irish people. This strand seeks to add context to wider themes around loneliness and isolation.  

Crucially, the DIASPORA project, and research team, has a particular interest in cultural representations of drug and alcohol use which permeates through each of its strands. Questions around the lived experience of Irish alcohol and drug use – both positive and negative – are similarly important.