Emigration has been at the heart of Irish life for centuries, not least in the post-war years. Even if many men and women chose not to leave Ireland, nobody was entirely immune to the effects of migration. Most people knew at least one person, whether it was a relative or an acquaintance, who had decided to ‘take the boat’. Conversation and, to some degree, preoccupations and way of life in Ireland during the post-war years were deeply underscored by emigration. Even if its economic and social ravages were sometimes consigned to the periphery of public debate by politicians and the media, the subject remained a persistent one in the private domain. This discourse of emigration in everyday life during the post-war period is captured masterfully in the novels of John McGahern.

McGahern is generally seen as one of the last in a long line of twentieth-century Irish naturalist writers, and one who captures the moment of transition in Ireland from a largely rural and traditional society to a predominantly urban and modern one. Migration, which played a vital role in this process, is a recurring feature of McGahern's fiction. However, it has been largely neglected by critics of his work. In this chapter I respond to this omission by looking at how the topic is treated in three of his novels: The Barracks (1963), Amongst Women (1990) and That They Face the Rising Sun (2002).