Next to the Great Famine, the story of Irish emigration must be one of the best documented in our history.
But what about those who were left behind? Has anyone told their story? Just as it was often a forlorn and lonely experience for those who left, so it was equally dismal for the ones who did not go.
Researchers at UCC are investigating this subject, and are seeking people to tell their stories.
The research is being carried out by the college's Irish Centre for Migration Studies under Dr Breda Gray.
It is concentrating on the impact of emigration in the 1940s and 1950s.
These days Australia is only 24 hours away. Back then it was different: people waked their loved ones on the quaysides as they prepared to board ship for a life elsewhere.
The project will record Irish women's and men's memories of the 1940s and 1950s. Researchers will talk to 200 people in Ireland, North and South, who remember the experience of staying in Ireland while many of their contemporaries were leaving.
The 1940s are remembered more for the second World War - the "Emergency" - than for emigration. Yet between 1940 and 1951, nearly 363,000 people received new travel permits, identity cards or passports to leave Ireland.
During the war men outnumbered women emigrants, but after the war there were more women than men. Often very young women left to become domestic servants, nurses or factory workers in Britain.
Irish emigration reached its peak in the 1950s, when well over 400,000 left, mostly for Britain.
Many of those who stayed in this decade did so in silence, as they watched family members and friends leave. Much research has been done on the circumstances that provoked so many Irish to emigrate and the successes, disappointments, bewilderment and discrimination experienced on arrival in Britain, the US, Australia and elsewhere.
But what effect did the large numbers emigrating have on those who stayed in Ireland and on wider Irish society in the 1940s and 1950s? The Irish Centre for Migration Studies hopes to answer these questions, Dr Gray said.
She went on to say that although emigration as a social issue was sometimes seen as bad for Irish society, many emigrants saw it as an opportunity. But did the family and friends who waved them off think about going, too? And when they did not, what influenced the decision to stay?
That is one of the questions which the centre seeks to answer. Dr Gray added: "The Commission on Emigration and other Population Problems which reported in the mid1950s suggested that emigration had become part of the established custom of Irish people in certain areas, a generally accepted pattern of life."
Yet there is no doubt that nonetheless emigration disrupted family and national life at the time. This research project is interested in hearing how women and men who stayed experienced the loss of friends and family, the rituals of departure, their own staying behind, the return visits home or, in some cases, not seeing relatives or friends again.
Did the fact that most emigration in those decades was to Britain mean that family ties suffered less than in the past?
She mentioned suggestions that emigration might have enabled those who stayed in Ireland to maintain a reasonable standard of living, but that many of those who stayed on might not have perceived their situation in this light. "It has also been argued that emigration weakened national pride and confidence, which in turn prevented development and confidence in Ireland," she said.
This project is interested in the views on such issues of those who remained. Also, the idea that emigration deprived the country of its "best people" is often put forward. What are the implications of such a view for those who stayed?
If, as the Commission on Emigration suggested, social amenities were an important factor in high levels of emigration from rural areas, then were these factors not also significant for those who stayed?
Did the publicity given to the successes of emigrants cause dissatisfaction with the conditions at home, as some have suggested? Or was it more the case, as some argue, that emigrants were looked down on, with emigration being seen as their own fault?
If you wish to find out more about the project or to become involved, contact Dr Gray at the Irish Centre for Migration Studies, UCC, Cork (021) 903656 or e-mail her at b.gray@ucc.ie