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EMU Ireland and American Immigration (Outgoing Program) Print  Share
  • Locations: Cork, Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; Galway, Ireland
  • Program Terms: Spring Break
  • Budget Sheets: Spring Break
Dates / Deadlines:
Dates / Deadlines:
Term Year App Deadline Decision Date Start Date End Date
Spring Break 2026 11/24/2025 11/24/2025 02/27/2026 03/07/2026
Fact Sheet:
Fact Sheet:
Language of Instruction: English Click here for a definition of this term Program Type: Faculty-Led Abroad
Field of Study: All majors are welcome, History
Program Description:

Ireland and American Immigration

Dublin_StudyAbroad

Courses: HIST 479A, 479B or 592
Credits: 3
Eligibility: Open to all EMU students in good academic standing and guest students. Must be at least 18 years old at time of travel.
Budget: Click here for budget details.

Program Overview
Tens of thousands of Irish immigrants came to the United States between the 1850s and the turn of the twentieth century and today, nearly 10% of all Americans claim Irish heritage. This class takes students to Ireland to explore the origins, causes, and impact of Irish emigration to America. Over spring break, students will journey to Dublin, Cork, and Galway, Ireland where they will investigate the causes of the Great Hunger, or potato famine that drove millions of Irish from their homes. Students will tour Dublin’s immigration museum, board a “coffin ship,” and tour the Spike’s Island Prison, an island compound where convicts were held during the worst year of the Great Famine. To explore twentieth-century migration, students will visit Cobh, a key site for ocean liners bound for North America and the last stop of the Titanic before it set out across the Atlantic. By the end of the week, students will understand the diverse reasons Irish emigrants chose to set out across the Atlantic and how their emigration impacted the history of modern Europe in the twentieth century. Students can focus their final paper on American history or Irish history to qualify to either Area A or Area B course credit.

Course Objectives
  • Students will learn the reasons Irish emigrants left Ireland and what they experienced when they migrated across the Atlantic.
  • Students will interrogate how mass emigration impacted the cities of Dublin, Cork, and Galway differently, leading to cultural and economic losses within each community.
  • Students will interpret primary sources in the United States Archives of Galway University to understand the close relationship many Irish emigrants maintained with relatives at home and the impact this had on Irish institutions.
  • Students will relate emigration patterns of the 19th and 20th century to those developing across Europe and the United States today.
Instructor Information
Ashley Johnson Bavery., Ph.D., (abavery@emich.edu) is a historian of United States immigration, race, and foreign policy. Her book, Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border (Penn 2020) won the First Book Award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society for its examination of unauthorized immigration in Detroit before World War II. Her current book project explores early Muslim immigration to the American Midwest and draws on local archives, mosque records, and oral histories to understand how Syrians, Palestinians, Bosnians, and Albanians negotiated urban life and forged interethnic and interracial relationships in Chicago and Gary, Indiana. At EMU, she teaches courses on U.S. immigration, urban America, and the U.S. in the world. She also teaches history methods courses and the senior seminar, which she runs in partnership with the EMU Archives. Dr. Bavery has traveled extensively in Ireland and has experience leading travel courses. She successfully planned and led two travel courses to Puerto Rico in 2024 and 2025 and will apply the same attention to detail and responsibility to a class in Ireland.

Financial Aid and Scholarships
Financial aid and many EMU scholarships can be applied to the tuition and fees for this program. Visit the Office of Financial Aid for more information. Click here for more information regarding study abroad scholarships.