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

Each of those influxes - Viking, Norman, Anglo - is associated with massive social turmoil. The fact that we eventually absorbed them successfully and benefited in certain ways is not a good argument for doing it again! If Ireland continues on its current path towards multiculturalism, I have no doubt that there will come a time when my descendants have come to terms with the demographic change and value it highly. But I don’t want to have to endure it for some future benefit.

Proponents of immigration love to generalise the debate - it muddies the water and trivialises people’s concerns today. ‘Sure aren’t we all immigrants given our ancient ancestors came from Africa? And sure weren’t we all once fish? And, anyway, aren’t we all just bundles of atoms spinning in a void?’ Leave that stuff for philosophy class - it has no bearing on the here-and-now question of how best to structure society for the benefit of Irish people. 

I’m delighted for you that you feel no alienation, but I and increasingly many others do. And we share that with people across Europe. You who do not experience this alienation will likely reach for racism as the only explanation conceivable to you. But that only reveals the limitations of your perspective. In my own case, I have a fascination for other cultures - I just don’t necessarily want to live in them. 

I am not advocating a racially pure monoculture (and, in fact, I am stridently anti-nationalist). Immigration has been economically and culturally enriching to Ireland. But you can have too much of a good thing. According to Eurostat, 23% of our population is foreign born. That is the highest Europe after Luxembourg and Cyprus. We have had net immigration of over half-a-million since the pandemic. That is population increase at an almost unprecedented rate, seven times higher than the EU average.

If the cultural enrichment were confined to art and food and whatever other safe examples people use, I would have little objection. The problem is that it will also take the form of grievance politics. We have seen two Islamist stabbings of men in uniform in recent years. Two gay men were murdered and mutilated for similar reasons. Ebun Joseph, the director of the Institute of Anti-Racism and Black Studies, has attempted to have statues removed and she continues to advocate for ‘decolonising the curriculum’. Emma Dabiri has written a book called Don’t Touch My Hair. Ireland’s greatest philosopher has had his name removed from a library, based on an investigation that used three non-Irish ‘people of colour’ as researchers. And a CSPE book famously portrayed an indigenous family as backwards compared with a cosmopolitan, racially diverse one. All of this is only the start.

You will eventually relent. I lived in Germany and witnessed unimpeachable progressives gradually admit that immigration was creating significant problems. We’re witnessing that too in Britain where a Muslim Labour minister has said immigration is ‘tearing Britain apart’. The question is just how much damage people like you will have done before you finally see the error of your ways. 

On your point regarding two Islamist stabbings (I believe their both ongoing criminal cases, one in the Republic and one in Northern Ireland) but lets assume they are genuine Islamist attacks, is one Islamic attack in the jurisdiction of Ireland grounds for restricting immigration or asylum seekers? Is this a bigger issue than say domestic violence, gangland crime, or murders and sexual abuses carried out by indigenous Irish people?

I think your logic needs to be questioned here. Just because one issue might be bigger than another does not mean we don't deal with the smaller issue.

On your point about this attack possibly being just an isolated incident, would you be in favour of the authorities here publishing crime figures by nationality as well as category, like I believe is done in Denmark?

I appreciate your measured reply. And in other contexts, based on my anti-nationalism, I would commend your well-made point about Ireland being a mix of cultures. But I think that that’s only helpful looking backwards to dissolve age-old divisions, not projecting forwards to justify importing new ones.

You ask me in what way I find myself alienated. Quite simply, I have the instinctive expectation that my country looks and sounds like it does for most of my life, and so do most humans. That does not mean everyone should be native Irish, but it means a large majority. And when, as happens regularly, I get on a bus and more than half the passengers are visibly foreign, I feel alienated. Maybe you feel more secure in yourself, or whatever else might explain the absence of it in you, but that doesn’t lessen my right to advocate for policies that avoid causing that feeling in me. 

There’s also the fact that immigrants bring with them certain behaviours that naturally clash with their new country’s. We ourselves are guilty of this when we go abroad: Irish misbehaviour has rubbed up locals in Australia the wrong way, and I witnessed similar in Germany, where Irish people bridle at the rules-based culture. One behaviour in particular that causes me great annoyance in Ireland is the tendency of foreign people to take loudspeaker calls in public. It is the height of incivility to me. Yes, some Irish people do it too, but it’s a minority, and usually confined to young people and disreputables. But you see foreign people of all stripes doing it, and they respond with amazement whenever I have asked therm to turn off the sound; it is radically unfamiliar to them that anyone could have a problem with it. The longer it goes on, the more Irish people will emulate it, and a new norm will be established. 

The requested data:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=EU_population_diversity_by_citizenship_and_country_of_birth

You say, ‘the anti immigration side is also in denial that racism isn't playing a significant role in the discourse around immigration’. But, 1) what discourse? It’s been suppressed until recent months, and 2) I don’t think reasonable critics are in denial about that for one moment. We know perfectly well that the rioters and the arsonists are racist. But why keep focusing on them when there is a much larger cohort arguing for the same thing? My initial comment criticised deflectionary tactics; you are using the behaviour of a minority to avoid having to engage with the reasonable majority. The Sunday Business Post poll last week showed 72% of people want reduced immigration (versus 17% against). Are they all racist? Are you really going to continue shutting down the debate because a minority of them are?

I was referring to the stabbing of the army chaplain, which has been through the courts and found to be extremist, and the stabbing of the policeman in Capel Street in which the perpetrator shouted ‘Allah akbar’, the trial for which is ongoing. I forgot to mention the adult asylum seeker who killed the Ukrainian boy, stabbing him over a hundred times, including in the face.

Terrorism is like child abuse: it is viscerally abhorrent. And what’s more, it feels like - it is - an attack on the social fabric. The native crime you mention is also abhorrent (and unlike progressives, I would support policies to tackle it, like extra police and more prisons). But it is crime that we are stuck with. The perpetrators have a constitutional right to be here. That is not so for foreign criminals. That is crime that would not have happened if our politicians hadn’t imported it to this country. How do you avoid importing it? You restrict immigration to cultures with proven records of non-violent integration.

Your final line conveys to me how far apart we are. You said, ‘I'm not on the side advocating for divisive policies that seek to turn communities against one another.’ But you are. Ireland was ticking along nicely and then a policy of radically increasing immigration was perused. The reaction is not the cause of the division; it is the immigration policy that you continue to defend that caused that.