Immigration and Ireland - MEGATHREAD *Mod Note Added 02/09/25*

when the state stated using

government have contempt for the Irish taxpayer. IPAS applicants are further up the rankings than we are. The social contract is with who presents themselves as IPAS.

It's a simple question that proves your point perfectly, hence why you will only get deflection in response.

I think you are incredibly naive to discount the role that evangelical Christian faith plays in US politics and foreign policy (including the fact that you seem to think that George Bush was just, I don't know, having a bit of craic when he said God gave him a mission to invade Iraq). You seem to believe that the political / strategic aims of that invasion entirely discount any notion that Bush also had a Christian motivation to his actions. No, it must be one or the other for you - it cannot be both in tandem apparently. I also note that you have still decided to simply ignore the contemporary example of how Christian beliefs in the US affect its policy towards Israel and its tolerance (and enablement) of Israel's slaughtering, subjugation and starvation of Palestinian Muslims. But I'm guessing you take the view that it's exclusively the American strategic interest, right?

And even if we did entirely discount religious motivation - why does it even particularly matter? If the motivation of Islamic terrorists, who have been responsible for a miniscule number of deaths in the Western world versus the death and destruction the Western world has inflicted on Muslim countries, is religious and the Western motivation for its own provision of death and destruction is some other philosophy (be it strategic or economic or political), it's still a philosophy nonetheless which is used to justify death and destruction.

And to go back to the point again, if a Muslim were to make all Westerners responsible for this (the same way, I dunno, US administrations seem to happily conflate or allow the conflation of innocent Palestinians with Islamic terror for example), you would rush to say the entire Western world cannot be accountable. Yet Muslim immigrants must always be collectively responsible for the entire Muslim world.

Quick Muriel, call the girls for morning tea, the Irish Times is informing us on a new way to think.

The Merriman, the very place I mentioned in this thread a couple of times. That village is destroyed because of that decision. I haven't been there since the hotel was closed. It's so wrong.

Yea us Cork lads have renewed dislike of those foreign Tipp lads from across the county bounds

Ireland has had a massive transformation in the last 50 years with a shift away from religion. This is a very positive move given the troubles we had be it the magdeline laundries, the abuses and overall shame we carried.

Are you having a laugh or what?

In Census 2022, over 3.5 million people living in the State reported that their religion was Roman Catholic, accounting for 69% of the population.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpp5/censusofpopulation2022profile5-diversitymigrationethnicityirishtravellersreligion/religion/

Now we have a growing conservative religion into the country. A religion that considers our media, the food / drink that we consume and the clothes that we wear to be unclean or against gods will. This promotes divisiveness and creates a more insular community. This causes issues with integration and there is a proven track record of this across Europe. Let’s face it, you don’t hear about the ongoing struggles of the Chinese or Indian communities in the UK or France or wherever.

I’m not sure what religion you’re referring to as that description covers quite a few, but what promotes divisiveness is ignorant stereotypes about other people or groups of people. Let’s face it you don’t hear about the ongoing struggles of the Chinese or Indian communities in the UK or France because given they are a minority in countries like Ireland, the UK or France, their struggles don’t get much coverage in the media. That’s changing though as a result of greater integration in society -

https://www.bbc.com/creativediversity/nuance-in-bame/chinese

https://www.bbc.com/creativediversity/nuance-in-bame/indian

BBC didn’t get the memo -

https://equalities.blog.gov.uk/2022/04/07/why-we-no-longer-use-the-term-bame-in-government/

(issued under a Conservative Government)

If we had a growing influx of evangelical Americans from the Deep South who were against homosexuality and favoured more traditional roles for women, people in the press etc would be up in arms.

Is that a criticism of our media? Surely not 🤔

Besides, who needs American Evangelicals when there are a family of Evangelicals who are constantly courting media attention for their attitudes and behaviour, they don’t integrate into Irish society at all, and when they do gain employment, they appear to be keen to play the victim who are being persecuted because of their religious beliefs. Religious beliefs aren’t necessary to favour the more traditional role of women, it’s enshrined in our Constitution, and when there was a referendum to change that recently, the Irish electorate voted against it. That can’t be laid at the foot of a minority religion in Ireland, and the media weren’t up in arms about it either, quite the opposite in fact when they learned of CEDAW recommending that the Irish Government not give up on the idea. They also made a whole boatload of other recommendations to address inequalities in Irish society which affect women and girls in what still remains a largely Conservative society -

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2025/07/07/ireland-should-hold-another-referendum-on-women-in-the-home-un-committee-says/

The Conservative religious element which you refer to, manage to integrate well into Irish society as it is, with divisiveness being artificially manufactured by an even smaller minority who would wish to promote ignorant stereotypes about other people who don’t share their views. That’s par for the course though in any society, including any country across Europe, where Ireland doesn’t have their history of Colonisation of other territories which they claimed for their own Empires. Ireland took a different approach and sent out Missionaries instead of conquering armies, which is why immigrants coming here find it far easier to integrate given how much they have in common with Irish people, as opposed to the way they have historically been treated by the Governments of other countries in Europe.