Borders and employment : opportunities and barriers

This paper considers the impact of borders on employment opportunities or barriers on the island of Ireland. In that context, it is about several senses of “border”: the creation of two borders on the independence of Ireland, east-west and north-south; disputed understandings of nationality; Commonwealth membership as the source of this dispute, yet also enabling east-west freedom of movement; conversely, the regulation of movement into the north; the complicated impact of common membership of the EU; and inward migration to the two countries, bringing new “borders of the mind”. The paper begins with the nationality and citizenship considerations lying behind the “bridging” of the two new political borders brought about by Ireland’s independence. It outlines the experience of workers freely crossing the east-west border and the regulation of movement into the north. It then turns to the perverse impact of the EU. After that, it deals with new patterns of crossing borders—the growth of migration into both north and south of a new range of peoples and the manifestation of new “borders of the mind”. In conclusion, it outlines new efforts to cross the border through cooperation to combat employment and other forms of
discrimination against the new migrants.