In her inaugural speech in 1990, the then president Mrs Mary Robinson placed Britain at the centre of the Irish diaspora.
"Beyond our State there is a vast community of Irish emigrants extending not only across our neighbouring island, which has provided a home from home for several Irish generations," she said, "but also throughout the continents of North America, Australia and of course Europe itself."
In her book, Outsiders Inside: whiteness, place and Irish women, a study of Irish women's migration and identities, Dr Bronwen Walter pinpoints Mrs Robinson's speech as the moment when the "double-bind" of the Irish identity in the diaspora - being outsiders inside - began to unravel.
The president had publicly acknowledged that Britain "was a 'home away from home' rather than part of the 'same' home". Instead of referring to Irish migration to Britain in stereotypical, linear terms, she was, argues Dr Walter, saying Irish people could simultaneously belong to 'homes' both inside and outside Britain.
In her small study at Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge, where she is Reader in Cultural and Social Geography, Dr Walter suggests that prior to Mrs Robinson's speech there was a "longstanding denial" in Ireland of those who settled in Britain.
But where did Ireland's "hiding away" of the Irish in Britain, as Dr Walter puts it, and of Irish women in particular, come from? "It was that somehow going to America was seen as upward mobility and success," she says, referring to Irish migration since the 19th century. "People who came to Britain were not likely to do very well for themselves or be very much recognised or do very much for Ireland's image of itself, perhaps the reverse. They weren't expected to become very successful and therefore to give Ireland a good sense of itself."
By recognising "interconnections" between British and Irish identity and experience, Dr Walter argues that migration can be discussed in terms that accept identity constantly changes.
For her study, Dr Walter interviewed 10 women from Ireland and Northern Ireland who settled in Bolton, Lancashire, some of whom felt they were Irish and others who did not. Their experiences reflect the intensity of relationships between Ireland and Britain and how they change over time and between generations.
One example of the "outside inside" model is Margaret, who left Dublin in the 1950s to marry a man from Bolton. She fulfilled a need in Britain for paid domestic service before her marriage, but unlike the women from rural backgrounds whose links to home and family in Ireland were close, Margaret became involved in local Labour politics and took up a post as a magistrate.
She experienced some anti-Irish hostility in the form of "jokes" about planting bombs. But again, unlike the women from rural backgrounds she no longer identified Ireland as "home" even though one of her English-born children had gone to live in Dublin.
One of Dr Walter's more controversial statements in the book is that the Irish in Britain have been "forcibly" included in a white category that fails to recognise differences between white Irish and for example, white Scottish.
The process has "protected" Irish women from some forms of racism that black Caribbean women might experience, but Dr Walter argues that it also means the Irish can be "invisible" to public bodies resulting in poor levels of funding for Irish welfare and social projects. It is a situation that welfare organisations hope will be remedied by the inclusion of Irish as a separate ethnic category in this year's census.
But aren't white Irish people just that - white? Dr Walter suggests that the Irish in Britain have become "white" only relatively recently. "Even coming up to the 1950s and 1960s there were signs of 'No blacks, No Irish, No dogs' so the Irish were certainly being coupled with non-white groups". It is only by recognising the different types of white people within a white category, she says, that will end the denial of difference and different social needs.
Outsiders Inside seeks to "recast" Irish women's identity and challenge stereotypes of whiteness and Dr Walter highlights the need for much more research into the experience of Irish women in Britain. Her book challenges the idea that Irish women and Irish identity can be lumped into the same category.
As she tellingly concludes her study, looking at the British-Irish relationship with fresh eyes "emphasises the possibility of change".
Outsiders Inside - whiteness, place and Irish women by Dr Bronwen Walter, published by Routledge.