How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past? * History tells us that displacement and migration are part of the human experience. Ireland bears witness to this through the mass emigration of hundreds of thousands of its people in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. And across mainland Europe the devastating effects of two prolonged periods of war in the twentieth century resulted in enormous numbers of people being displaced by May 1945 – the eminent British historian Eric Hobsbawm (1995) quotes one estimate which put the figure at a staggering 40.5million (p. 51). Undoubtedly then, we know that displacement and migration are historical facts, part of the collective experience of being human. But while we know about these experiences, a legitimate question to ask is the degree to which we understand them. We know that displaced individuals, as with people everywhere, get on with the business of their daily lives as best they can, seeking opportunities to develop and improve their situation. But what is happening internally? Just what is it like to be uprooted as a result of war, persecution and/or fear? And what happens to the inner self when a person physically exits their known life, leaving behind their history, family relationships, friendships, connections, simple pleasures, the known self. In such circumstances, what happens to an individual’s sense of who they are, their place in the world, their identity? These are the questions which this research seeks to address. It does so by gathering together four individuals who have been displaced to Ireland, and asking them to share and collectively reflect on their stories of changing identity. The rationale for a group approach is to provide a dialogical space for learning in which the individuals can explore and reconsider their own experiences in light of the experiences and thoughts of others. In this way, the study adopts adult education practices in an attempt to provide an opportunity for real, meaningful learning for everyone involved.