This volume of essays fills a number of gaps in the existing literature on emigration and provides a wide-ranging treatment of Irish emigration in contemporary Irish society, and the expanding Irish diaspora overseas. By addressing the issues from a world perspective the contributors suggest that emigration is not simply a cultural tradition or behavioural trait of the Irish but a social class and gendered response to structures operating in Irish society and the global economy. The geographical focus ranges across Britain, the United States and Europe asserting that Ireland functions as an important 'emigrant nursery' for the world today, supplying the wider global economy with highly skilled and professional labour, not just with unskilled and casual labour. Several contributions testify to the emergence of an 'emigrant aristocracy' and a 'new wave' in recent Irish emigration. Others, while recognising the significance of these developments, caution against the over-voluntarization and gentrification of the recent exodus. It will appeal to those interested in modern Irish emigration, women's studies, national identity, popular culture, literary criticism, the sociology of contemporary Irish society and those working in the rapidly growing field of diaspora studies.