ABSTRACT
Ireland and Galicia-the latter, a semi-autonomous community in the north-west of Spain-have in common their Atlantic situation, apart from other historical, social, and cultural bonds (Palacios and Lojo 13-30). The Atlantic Ocean, which more often than not has been a link rather than a forbidding barrier, has functioned as their gate to America and, while the Irish have predominantly chosen the United States as their destination overseas, Galician emigrants have settled down in a number of Latin American countries-in particular, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, and Uruguay. In fact, Ireland and Galicia have shared a long and dramatic history of emigration due, in the past, to profound crises in the agrarian basis of their economy (MacLaughlin 5-35; Rodríguez Galdo 65-97). Massive emigration throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave way to immigration and the return of emigrants in the 1990s (Fanning 16-35; Rodríguez et al. 43-60). Economic a uence during the turn of the century also allowed Irish and Galician people to travel, while some have voluntarily chosen to live and work abroad in order to broaden their experience.
