Blue Chippers from the Emerald Isle

The book explores Irish male and female soccer players’ experiences of US soccer scholarships in the twentieth century. It assesses how valuable these scholarships were in terms of playing, education and post-university careers. This study therefore focuses on how these players were recruited, their playing and educational experiences of the soccer scholarships, and the extent to which their scholarships facilitated their employment in professional football and in work related to their degrees after leaving university. Using oral testimony as well as archival evidence, the book adds new perspectives on the history of sports migration, to studies of the Irish diaspora, to research on the history of education and to women’s history. It also contributes to the fields of sports history, migration and education. In doing so, it examines an aspect of the history of Irish-American relations which has not previously been assessed.