íde B. O'Carroll, 1958-

íde B. O'Carroll was born in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland, and taught in Cork for a number of years before moving to Boston, Mass., in 1986. A founder of the Irish Women in Boston group, she also set up a media collective, Trasna na dTonnta/Across the Waves, and has been a consultant for film, television, and radio documentaries on Ireland. With an M.A. in history from Northeastern University (1989), she was a doctoral student at Harvard Graduate School of Education when she donated this collection. Her master's thesis consisted of a history of Irish women immigrants and relied heavily on a number of oral histories, most conducted in the Boston area. This work was revised and published as Models for Movers: Irish Women's Emigration to America (Dublin: Attic Press, 1990).

Models for Movers focused on three waves of emigration from Ireland in the twentieth century: 1920s, 1950s, and 1980s. The study concerned the question of choice: why some Irish women chose to emigrate to the U.S.A. rather than remain in Ireland, or move to Britain. The thesis of the study is that Irish women, half consciously, half unconsciously, rejected an Irish society that was oppressive to women and chose to move to the U.S.A., where they would have greater independence and control over their lives. Many of the interviews therefore contain information on life in Ireland as well as in the U.S.A.

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