What are your views on Multiculturalism in Ireland? - Threadbanned User List in OP

Immigrants would get the status and the admiration they deserve if they were highly trained and essential - for real.

The truth is many are taxi drivers, car washers, fuel station attendants or other low-skilled labour and when Joe Soap sees them he cannot help but thinking that those positions could be filled by low-skilled local Irish instead.

Australia have a system in place to make sure immigrants are highly skilled and thus fill an important role.

Wibbs wrote: »

Now there are all sorts of reasons for this, and yes racism plays into it, but nobody else has been able to make much of a difference in changing things. I'll bet the farm nobody will.

Therefore and again where is the logic in importing an underclass to our existing one and one that seems intractable and comes with another set of variables on top? How are we going to be any different? Wishful thinking? Magic?

And again where are the benefits? Exoticism and charity and cheap labour are bloody weak examples, but these are about the only ones trotted out by those in favour of multiculturalism. The negatives are a lot easier to list and easier to back up with real world examples too.

While I agree that racism is part of it, we should be considering the manner of that racism manifests, and how to combat it. The focus in the west is to tackle the behavior of racism, rather than combat the forces that push that racism to manifest.

If we're bringing in low-skilled/low-educated migrants who cannot be gainfully employed, except by taking the lowest wages/salaries, it's going to encourage people to see those migrants as being "less". The focus on providing government supports and welfare compounds that belief, encouraging people to see migrants as being lazy, uninterested in working, etc (irrespective of whether they are actually interested in working), and increases bitterness within the taxpaying community for the perception that they're being required to provide for these migrants. That bitterness will likely result in degrees of racism, and discrimination as people feel hard done by the government in taking these people in, and providing for them. In addition, the protests/activism that constantly complains and seeks better conditions for migrants is going to increase the publicity, and the perception of these migrants as being, not only, a drain on resources, but also an ungrateful drain.

In my own hometown, the various migrant groups were initially welcomed, and helped to "find their feet". A decade later, most of those migrants are still working in low-end jobs, still on welfare, and/or many (nope, not the majority) are supplementing the income with crime, or begging in the streets. The attitude in my hometown has shifted considerably, with a lot of people no longer being interested in helping new arrivals, and openly complaining that there seems to be an endless number of them. Some migrant families have done well, have integrated, their kids doing well in school, but the general perception is that these aren't the norm. The majority are taking the space that the Travellers used to hold in our community... better set up than the Travellers were, but heading fast towards embracing the same behavior (rough areas, drugs, etc). The area around the DP center has become a no-go zone for most of those who used to walk around the area.. it's just not nice/safe there anymore.

This is why we need to be doing more than declaring a "war on racism", because it doesn't do anything to deal with what's causing that racism to develop.. Sure, there will be some racism that is entirely based on hatred, superiority, etc, but in Ireland, where we have little of that background historically/culturally, we should be looking at the whole problem with a more realistic/pragmatic pov.

bubblypop wrote: »

When exactly are you talking about?
Obviously there is a wide difference in types of crimes and anyone can commit crime.
I was speaking in general. Also, I'm not suggesting that people commit crime because they are poor, there are very few people that need to rob food for their table or starve, for example.
It's more about how people in poverty live, the communities they live in, what is and isn't acceptable in those communities.

It's not about being poor as such.

Can you provide example or sources for your claims? It's a lot of guesswork right now.

You claim
"Without doubt socioeconomic factors and lack of education have the biggest effect on crime."
and then follow up with "I'm not suggesting that people commit crime because they are poor"
So you think crime and poverty have no link but "socioeconomic factors have the biggest effect on crime"
What is socioeconomic factors to you?

Are you suggesting immigrants commit crime because they live in immigrant areas?

bubblypop wrote: »

When exactly are you talking about?
Obviously there is a wide difference in types of crimes and anyone can commit crime.
I was speaking in general. Also, I'm not suggesting that people commit crime because they are poor, there are very few people that need to rob food for their table or starve, for example.
It's more about how people in poverty live, the communities they live in, what is and isn't acceptable in those communities.

It's not about being poor as such.

Indeed, but as I said earlier:

Wibbs wrote: »

Where is the logic in importing an underclass to our existing one and one that seems intractable and comes with another set of variables on top? How are we going to be any different? Wishful thinking? Magic?

biko wrote: »

This is rolled out sometimes, without accompanying science, but is a flawed theory.
It doesn't isolate crime variants nor does it address that many regions of Europe were very poor up to recently but did not have the same crime levels as we do now.
It just "sounds right" to some people.

We in Ireland today have less poverty and more education. Do we have more crime, or less?
What types of crimes do we have now, and what types did we have then? Are those types increasing or decreasing?

When exactly are you talking about?
Obviously there is a wide difference in types of crimes and anyone can commit crime.
I was speaking in general. Also, I'm not suggesting that people commit crime because they are poor, there are very few people that need to rob food for their table or starve, for example.
It's more about how people in poverty live, the communities they live in, what is and isn't acceptable in those communities.

It's not about being poor as such.

bubblypop wrote: »

Without doubt socioeconomic factors and lack of education have the biggest effect on crime.

This is rolled out sometimes, without accompanying science, but is a flawed theory.
It doesn't isolate crime variants nor does it address that many regions of Europe were very poor up to recently but did not have the same crime levels as we do now.
It just "sounds right" to some people.

We in Ireland today have less poverty and more education. Do we have more crime, or less?
What types of crimes do we have now, and what types did we have then? Are those types increasing or decreasing?

Eric Cartman

Wibbs wrote: »

Subculture more so I'd say. EG African immigrants to the US do far better on average than African Americans. Kenyans do better than Nigerians. In south Asians, Indians do better than Pakistanis, Sikhs do notably better than Muslims and Hindus from the same neck of the woods. Same "race".

Thats probably the best way to put it. Sikhs have an odd balance, tend to like conspicuous consumption (similar to arabs) but family and education are key. Shame plays a large part in it, a sikh lad who’s an architect in a mercedes would be the proudest moment to his dad , but if he got it by putting in 70 hours a week in 2 shelf stacking jobs it wouldnt, and thered be no excuse to be a drug dealer etc.. no matter how well he did.

Kenyans place a big emphasis on family and despise nigerians for how the world sees africa. Ive heard a kenyan compare nigerians to our own travelling ‘community’ before, obviously its not all of them as some nigerians have done very well, but nigeria is the no.1 origin for african migrants to Ireland and the UK so its the most visible.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

The third biggest factor is culture.

Subculture more so I'd say. EG African immigrants to the US do far better on average than African Americans. Kenyans do better than Nigerians. In south Asians, Indians do better than Pakistanis, Sikhs do notably better than Muslims and Hindus from the same neck of the woods. Same "race".

Eric Cartman

Wibbs wrote: »

Yes, I think we can agree on that.

Now please point me to any multicultural nation in the West where those of African origins don't tend to cluster at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale(and other scales like education and crime), where those of East Asian origins don't tend to cluster at the top, with White Europeans spread across the scale(as one would expect for a majority). *Spoiler Alert* There isn't one. Now there are all sorts of reasons for this, and yes racism plays into it, but nobody else has been able to make much of a difference in changing things. I'll bet the farm nobody will.

Therefore and again where is the logic in importing an underclass to our existing one and one that seems intractable and comes with another set of variables on top? How are we going to be any different? Wishful thinking? Magic?

And again where are the benefits? Exoticism and charity and cheap labour are bloody weak examples, but these are about the only ones trotted out by those in favour of multiculturalism. The negatives are a lot easier to list and easier to back up with real world examples too.

The third biggest factor is culture.

East asian countries place a lot of emphasis on education and looking after family. Fathers and mothers will struggle in a kitchen to support their kids through medical and law school etc.. at the end of it they are repaid with a comfortable retirement and their well educated, middle class kids put their kids through the same , progressing up the economic ladder with each generation.

African cultures place a lot of emphasis on quick rewards, short term gain and achieving things through chance. Many would put twice as much effort in to getting a social house as they would educating themselves to get a career to afford a house. It also is why many end up in the drug trade, its quick money but with no progress or escape route. If theres a loophole, scam etc to earn a quick quid , its done. Many are hard working in terms of hours put in, having 2-3 jobs is common for a lot of african americans , but theres no self investment, progress or emphasis on providing for the next generation.

South american cultures often use crime as a route out of poverty, we see it with many brazillians selling drugs or earning from setting up illegally overcrowded squats here, they’ll do whatever it takes to pay to learn the language and get a degree while sending money home to family. But they just hope the present doesnt catch up with them before the future happens and often after a few years have turned their back on crime when the career takes off.

Many from eastern europe have a very hard work ethic, wont resort to criminality in general but will work multiple jobs, side hussles etc.. and try progress up the corporate ladder , however often the money is spent on short term gain / conspicuous consumption (flashy cars , designer goods etc..) its a love affair with western wealth and a middle finger to the communist past. However luckily the educational baseline they came from often enables them to enter the world at work to a level where criminality is often deterred.

Eric Cartman

bubblypop wrote: »

Without doubt socioeconomic factors and lack of education have the biggest effect on crime.

Absolutely and immigrants usually hit those nails square on the head, its most of the reason theyre escaping their own countries, be it legally like the brazillians with the student visas or illegally like most african migrants. Unfortunately as the dice roll of their situations go, it seldomly improves and they end up over representing in crime figures.

bubblypop wrote: »

Without doubt socioeconomic factors and lack of education have the biggest effect on crime.

Yes, I think we can agree on that.

Now please point me to any multicultural nation in the West where those of African origins don't tend to cluster at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale(and other scales like education and crime), where those of East Asian origins don't tend to cluster at the top, with White Europeans spread across the scale(as one would expect for a majority). *Spoiler Alert* There isn't one. Now there are all sorts of reasons for this, and yes racism plays into it, but nobody else has been able to make much of a difference in changing things. I'll bet the farm nobody will.

Therefore and again where is the logic in importing an underclass to our existing one and one that seems intractable and comes with another set of variables on top? How are we going to be any different? Wishful thinking? Magic?

And again where are the benefits? Exoticism and charity and cheap labour are bloody weak examples, but these are about the only ones trotted out by those in favour of multiculturalism. The negatives are a lot easier to list and easier to back up with real world examples too.

Yellow_Fern

I had a look at: Hallsten, M., Szulkin, R., & Sarnecki, J. (2013). Crime as a Price of Inequality? This is the one that claimed factors beyond place of birth are at play, such as education level and poverty.

This is a study with a much cleaner and more useful dataset, however, it only looks at people who migrated to Sweden before 1990, I think mostly Iraqis, Iranians and Chileans. I have no doubt growing up in Sweden in the 1980s was very different than today and I suspect integration was far easier due to far fewer migrants being in Sweden, much more expensive travel and lesser ability to stay in touch with your home country through poorer telecommunications. So are these results generalizable to the present day? The authors stress it is not culture, it is family resources and neighbourhood segregation that cause crime, but it seems time and time again that countries with lax immigration policies develop immigrant populations end up with low family resources and neighbourhood segregation, even in the most progressive and equal countries on Earth. So in a sense what does it matter if it is not the culture to blame if we face the same result?

McHardcore wrote: »

A big issue with current research investigating immigration and crime is that they struggle to show causality, or dont show it at all.

Actually, a bigger problem is that the majority of organisations who dedicate themselves to making reports are directly involved in immigration, or activism, and have an inherent bias in what they report, and how they present it.

State reporting, typically, is more reliable, however, due to the focus on promoting immigration over the last two decades (as part of State/EU policy), they've allowed other organisations to take over the primary active role in doing so. Why? Because there was a direct bias to present immigration as being a net benefit, to justify the agendas at play.

With activist, or organisations who were founded on the backs of immigration, they have a bias to present immigration as being a positive to benefit themselves.

To give an example, immigrants are often placed into deprived areas as its cheaper both in cost and political capital to do so. Also, immigrants move there themselves as they cannot afford to stay in more well off areas.

As has been noted many time throughout this thread, low skilled/educated migrants often end up at the bottom of the socio-economic pile. Europe has, for the last three decades, been moving away from industries which employ low-skilled labor, with a greater emphasis on highly skilled/educated work-forces. The expectation that welfare or government supplements should make up the difference is naive at best, and destructive at worst.

Which is why there is such a emphasis on this thread, to either bring in skilled migrants, those with the resources to provide for themselves, or to have an effective system in place to upskill migrants to a level where they can compete with the native population... although there should also be jobs available for this population group.. which is doubtful in many countries. (Consider the unemployment rates across the EU)

However, we are told that immigration of the 'needy' is paramount, and there is very little focus on actually equipping migrants to be competitive in a first world nation.

It is not accurate to compare the crime levels of a population in deprived areas compared to more well-off areas. This socioeconomic factor and others need to be taken into account.

Honestly, I don't see that happening because it would require hard questions (and answers) being done dealing with culture, gender, etc with the aim of understanding the factors involved. When it comes to migrants, or more importantly, any minority cultural group, many questions just aren't done.

Let me give you an example. I wanted to find out the education level of migrants entering Ireland over the last two decades. I looked online. Nothing. I emailed and phoned the CSO, nothing. I checked the EU commission database, nothing. I've found heaps of articles on the subject, but again, no concrete data, almost as if nobody was asking migrants what their educational backgrounds were, on entry into Europe. I've spoken to a few officials who claim the questions have been asked, but the reports done on the topic, don't provide any specific details..

McHardcore

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

There is a bit of deception going on here. Arguing that country of origin isnt a big factor is or that being immigrant isnt a big factor is strawmaning critics, or at least strawmaning the mainstream critics.

We are arguing that large scale immigration can have complex undesirable effects, for example, they can reduce social cohesion and lead to undesirable problems whose manifestations will be as varied as the populations involved.

That is not what was being argued. Have a read of the post that I was responding to.
Secondly, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You gave none.

Yellow_Fern

I had a look at the research design of Boateng et al. 2020 cited above as proof that mass immigration has no impact on crime. This study looks at the link in 21 European country can modelling: Percent immigrants, Percent noncitizen Percent refugees on a few demographic parameters on murders, rapes and sexual assaults. I can't stress how simplistic this is. This model is too simplistic to be worthwhile performing. Europe is a diverse place and there are plenty of homegrown crime problems. This is not accounted for. Nor is the make of up of the mirgant populations. In one European country (Faroes), the number one migrant are SE Asian women who come to marry lonley local farmers. In Ireland, it is Polish. In Portugal it is Brazlian. In Sweden it is Syria and Iraq. It is not reasonable to expect Iraqs to behave in the same way as Brazilians, or southest Asian brides.

Yellow_Fern

McHardcore wrote: »

A big issue with current research investigating immigration and crime is that they struggle to show causality, or dont show it at all. To give an example, immigrants are often placed into deprived areas as its cheaper both in cost and political capital to do so. Also, immigrants move there themselves as they cannot afford to stay in more well off areas. It is not accurate to compare the crime levels of a population in deprived areas compared to more well-off areas. This socioeconomic factor and others need to be taken into account. You need to compare like with like, in this example, native members of the population and immigrants living in the same areas.

With these additional factors in mind, FactCheck.Org noted that "experts said there is no evidence of a major crime wave." in Sweden. According to official statistics, the reported crime rate in Sweden has risen since 2005 whereas annual government surveys show that the number of Swedes experiencing crime remain steady since 2005, even as Sweden has taken in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees over the same period.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-sweden-idUSKBN15Y0QH
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-sweden-twitter-235196
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/24/no-sweden-isnt-hiding-an-immigrant-crime-problem-this-is-the-real-story/
https://www.smh.com.au/world/the-swedish-migrant-crime-story-that-donald-trump-didnt-tell-20170225-gul5s6.html

Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminologist professor at the University of Stockholm, said foreign-born residents are twice as likely to be registered for a crime as native Swedes but that other factors beyond place of birth are at play, such as education level and poverty, and that similar trends occur in European countries that have not taken in a lot of immigrants in recent years.

Additional research from Stockholm University found that there was "only a small correlation in the crime of individuals who share the same origin, indicating that culture is unlikely to be a strong cause of crime among immigrants."

D. Boateng et al looked at the relationship between crime and immigration in a number of European countries, including Sweden and Ireland and found that
"the results indicated a null relationship between immigration and crime, suggesting that immigration is unrelated to all the three types of crimes assessed. Based on these results, it is recommended that immigration-related policies will be based on fact and evidence, and not on sentiments and perceptions."

Some other sources that show that there is no link between immigration and crime in Sweden, or that the link is mixed at best:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/feb/20/what-statistics-say-about-immigration-and-sweden/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258182579_Are_Children_of_Immigrants_Born_in_Sweden_More_Law-Abiding_Than_Immigrants_A_Reconsideration
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/swedish-immigration-is-not-out-of-control-it-s-actually-getting-more-restrictive-a7605071.html

There is a bit of deception going on here. Arguing that country of origin isnt a big factor is or that being immigrant isnt a big factor is strawmaning critics, or at least strawmaning the mainstream critics.

The dominant critics of immigration policy are not saying that being an immigrant is a good predictor of being a criminal. Immigrant status can mean anything from Brazilian meat factor workers to homeless old English winos to migrant Russian billionaires. Likewise country of origin is a weak category, a migrant from Iraq might be a highly skilled atheist physicist or a secondary school dropout who dabbled in Al Qaida groups inbetween during long periods of unemployment. We are arguing that large scale immigration can have complex undesirable effects, for example, they can reduce social cohesion and lead to undesirable problems whose manifestations will be as varied as the populations involved. In Ireland, we have a very wealthy and very low crime society so there is a tendency that immigrants are from cultures with more crime and have less education. This increases inequality here and increases the collective exposure to crime and reduces the the collective exposure to civic society.

The teenagers who are part of a knife crime problem in London are not immigrants and their parents were often born in the UK too but none the less it is a problem created by lax immigration policy. The bottom line is there is a lot of complex variables that have to be considered and every country is different. In the Swedish example, we are talking about large numbers of young male first-gen migrants from one of the poorest most violent places on the planet (Somalia). The only way that there is no relationship to crime would be if age, education, sex, poverty, childhood exposure to violence had NO impact on the propensity to participate in crime and that is not plausible. Irish migrants in 19th cen US had far higher crimes rates than locals so I wouldnt imagine Somalis are any better. As I said before, aside from geniune refugees, we should not allow anyone in who does not have good prospects to have a career that can suport a family and buy a house.

Without doubt socioeconomic factors and lack of education have the biggest effect on crime.

McHardcore

Deleted User wrote: »

Regarding Sweden.

"The investigation (from 2002 to 2017) covers seven distinct categories of crime, and distinguishes between seven regions of origin. Based on 33 per cent of the population (2017), 58 per cent of those suspect for total crime on reasonable grounds are migrants. Regarding murder, manslaughter and attempted murder, the figures are 73 per cent, while the proportion of robbery is 70 per cent. Non-registered migrants are linked to about 13 per cent of total crime. Given the fact that this group is small, crime propensity among non-registered migrants is significant"

" Due to migration, murder rate in Sweden has quadrupled"

And yes, many migrants don't engage in crime, but the fact remains that Sweden, the poster child for rapid change of a mostly homogeneous population, has experienced a huge increase in crime, and one that can be directly connected to it's immigration policies.

The full report is definitely worth a read. After reading it, perhaps ask the question, why would Ireland be different?

A big issue with current research investigating immigration and crime is that they struggle to show causality, or dont show it at all. To give an example, immigrants are often placed into deprived areas as its cheaper both in cost and political capital to do so. Also, immigrants move there themselves as they cannot afford to stay in more well off areas. It is not accurate to compare the crime levels of a population in deprived areas compared to more well-off areas. This socioeconomic factor and others need to be taken into account. You need to compare like with like, in this example, native members of the population and immigrants living in the same areas.

With these additional factors in mind, FactCheck.Org noted that "experts said there is no evidence of a major crime wave." in Sweden. According to official statistics, the reported crime rate in Sweden has risen since 2005 whereas annual government surveys show that the number of Swedes experiencing crime remain steady since 2005, even as Sweden has taken in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees over the same period.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-sweden-idUSKBN15Y0QH
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-sweden-twitter-235196
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/24/no-sweden-isnt-hiding-an-immigrant-crime-problem-this-is-the-real-story/
https://www.smh.com.au/world/the-swedish-migrant-crime-story-that-donald-trump-didnt-tell-20170225-gul5s6.html

Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminologist professor at the University of Stockholm, said foreign-born residents are twice as likely to be registered for a crime as native Swedes but that other factors beyond place of birth are at play, such as education level and poverty, and that similar trends occur in European countries that have not taken in a lot of immigrants in recent years.

Additional research from Stockholm University found that there was "only a small correlation in the crime of individuals who share the same origin, indicating that culture is unlikely to be a strong cause of crime among immigrants."

D. Boateng et al looked at the relationship between crime and immigration in a number of European countries, including Sweden and Ireland and found that
"the results indicated a null relationship between immigration and crime, suggesting that immigration is unrelated to all the three types of crimes assessed. Based on these results, it is recommended that immigration-related policies will be based on fact and evidence, and not on sentiments and perceptions."

Some other sources that show that there is no link between immigration and crime in Sweden, or that the link is mixed at best:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/feb/20/what-statistics-say-about-immigration-and-sweden/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258182579_Are_Children_of_Immigrants_Born_in_Sweden_More_Law-Abiding_Than_Immigrants_A_Reconsideration
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/swedish-immigration-is-not-out-of-control-it-s-actually-getting-more-restrictive-a7605071.html

I've found Japanese easier to understand and speak than Mandarin Chinese (totally unintelligible).
I took it for a while and was ok, but the written language was too much

My teenage daughter is into Japanese big time (because of girly anime characters etc). She is constantly addressing me in Japanese and trying to teach me it. It’s a PITA sometimes!

There is no frame of reference for me to hang off, so Japanese phrases are difficult to memorise. A different story with her Spanish school work, where I benefit from my French, for example. Asian languages in general are a whole different ballgame, I imagine.

seenitall wrote: »

Understood. It is, IME, a simpler, easier language to learn than some other European ones, then.

Oh. Definitely. I learned Polish and Russian for 6 months each, and <shudders> they're freaking hard. Although, I have to say that Mandarin was the hardest I've had to deal with so far, with Japanese coming fast behind.

Understood. It is, IME, a simpler, easier language to learn than some other European ones, then.

seenitall wrote: »

Ok, as a non-native speaker, I do disagree with that. I come from a Slavic language which is notoriously hard to learn, if you want to talk about difficult grammar structures. Three genders, with seven cases of declension and all different suffixes belonging to them as well. One thing we at least don’t have is articles - which the German language has, for example, for each of the three genders, and then the appropriate declension (4 cases) makes them into different words. I struggled with German on account of that, in the main. It’s a helluva language to learn if you want to speak it properly. French was much easier to learn, grammar-wise (as I suspect all Latin languages to be), although there is the peculiarity with the spoken French language of wordsflowingintoeachother with lots of homophones, so I have found some really careful listening skills with a liberal use of my powers of deduction had to be employed. English was by far the easiest. By far. Only one set of articles, no suffixes in any parts of speech for cases of declension, it’s a huge change in the complexity of the grammar structure. A doddle, tbh. Ok I did start to learn it at a young age and all, but still, I’d be very surprised if you didn’t have any person coming from a foreign language background tell you that the English language was one of the easiest for them to learn.

I know an Irish and an English guy back home, both married to my compatriots, who, after decades of toil and struggle with trying to learn the language, have both thrown in the towel, the last I heard. I know exactly how complex the language is and that’s why it doesn’t surprise me, for people coming from English.

I wasn't seeking to compare English with other languages. Nor talking about it as a competition.

I've taught English to Asian people for many years now, and it's not an easy language for them to acquire. Even after 7 years of formal schooling, before hitting advanced classes, most will struggle. I've seen similar results in Africa, where many will achieve the basics well enough, but struggle with the more advanced usage.

It's a lot like my own acquisition of Mandarin, which has gone through many rocky periods. Basic fluency was easy enough, but to achieve the cultural fluency for all situations, with more appropriate word choice for the particular situation, has taken far more actual work.. and a lot of frustration.

Which is why I think any migrants to Ireland should have fluent English before arriving, because I know that it take years to acquire any decent level, especially if it's required for working.

biko wrote: »

I've lived temporarily in several countries and always tried to learn a small bit of the language.
When the natives see that I am at least trying they warm to me quicker than if I'd just say "Do you speak English?" immediately.

If I moved long-term anywhere it would be because I loved the place so learning their ways would be easier.

I expect people moving long-term to Ireland to do so because they love it here and want to join the Irish community.
If that isn't the case then I don't see any reason for them to be here.
If they don't try to fit in then they should be someplace where they would like to fit in instead.

Well, love took these guys to live where they do... I guess they can’t help it if the complexity of the language has defeated them in the end. I’m sure they have some so-called passive knowledge of the language by now - the Irish guy runs, (what else

), an Irish pub, so he must have a good bit of connection to his social environment. The other thing is that English is everywhere in Europe now as a second language (or the first foreign language of choice to learn, if you will, and for good reason), so these guys get by very well I think (consequently lessening the urgency of need to learn the local language).

The kids in my country start learning English in school now at 6-7 years of age.

Slavic languages in general seem to be right buggers to learn alright. The Russians and Poles I know say they found English relatively easy to pick up, though all reckoned the exposure to english even at home through media helped there. One Ukrainian I know learned English and French and Spanish and she reckoned Spanish was by a long way the easiest, English was in the middle, but figures if she had to learn Ukrainian/Russian from scratch that would be the hardest, never mind having to deal with a different alphabet. Maybe that's why Slavic language natives tend to do better in picking up English than Latin speakers, at least in my experience. Their native language's complexity means they have more natural "horsepower" in their brain's language centres?

Native Arabic speakers can be similar I've found. But we digress...

seenitall wrote: »

I know an Irish and an English guy back home, both married to my compatriots, who, after decades of toil and struggle with trying to learn the language, have both thrown in the towel, the last I heard. I know exactly how complex the language is and that’s why it doesn’t surprise me, for people coming from English.

I've lived temporarily in several countries and always tried to learn a small bit of the language.
When the natives see that I am at least trying they warm to me quicker than if I'd just say "Do you speak English?" immediately.

If I moved long-term anywhere it would be because I loved the place so learning their ways would be easier.

I expect people moving long-term to Ireland to do so because they love it here and want to join the Irish community.
If that isn't the case then I don't see any reason for them to be here.
If they don't try to fit in then they should be someplace where they would like to fit in instead.

jmreire

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

Not really. From covid shutdowns to draconian anti alcohol, anti drug and anti smoking legislation (cool fact: there is nearly no academic evidence that passive smoking is harmful) Ireland in 2020 isn't very liberal and is a terrible place for free spirits.

First Covid shutdowns:
After the last shutdown and re-opening, the Covid figures have escalated again and very quickly at that. So take your choice, open up the economy, and saturate the hospitals to breaking point with Covid patients. A Nursing friend of mine work's in such a hospital, and aside from Covid, they have 120 Patients they are trying to find beds for at this moment.
Alcohol is still freely available, even if the pubs are presently restricted / shut, due to covid.
I dont know about you, but I'll keep as far away as possible from smokers and smoke related places.And all the more so as an ex smoker. The only thing that should be going into your lungs is fresh air. But again, smoking is not banned. anyone who wants to smoke is free to do so and they are freely available. ( even if they are not actualy free in the sense of cash)
Drugs. Yes drugs are banned. But still freely available, but like the cigarettes all you need is the cash. Around the world, drugs have destroyed many lives including here in Ireland, and are doing it the present day. Walk around Dublin and you will see the effects of drugs and drug wars, Its not a pretty sight.
So yes, its possible to be a free spirit here in Ireland. There are other Countrys where the entire concept of "Free Spirit" cannot be found.