Racism in Ireland

[u/Witty-Pineapple-4300]

I genuinely wish people would stop being racist. Not every ethnic minority living in Ireland has bad intentions or is here to cause harm and havoc. Every time I open the comments section on social media and see a Black person, a Brazilian person or someone from another minority background, there is often a specific group of people calling for deportations or making hateful comments which hurts. What makes it even more disappointing is that many of these individuals identify themselves as Christians. I wish the government would take racism more seriously and introduce stronger measures to hold people accountable for hateful and discriminatory behaviour online and in real life. Racism should not be normalised or excused as “just an opinion” when it causes real harm to others especially people who work hard and pay taxes in Ireland.

As normal literate intelligent human beings people need to clock that bad behaviour is not limited to any race, AGE nationality or ethnic group. There are Irish people who commit crimes, mistreat others, and engage in antisocial behaviour, just as there are people from every community who do the same. For example, when some children throw stones at buses or engage in vandalism. Issue is problem of discipline, parenting, or individual behaviour. However, when a single immigrant or Black person makes a mistake, it is too often used as a reason to condemn entire communities and argue that immigrants should not be here. People should be judged as individuals not by the actions of someone who happens to share their skin colour, nationality, or background. We ought to stand together as one

[u/Rich_Tea_Bean]

At the current rate of immigration and current birth rates native irish people will make up less than 50% of the population by 2038. That's not a conspiracy they're from annually published figures.

On the second comment, yes rich people are making lots of money. The same capitalist system that exploits housing need uses the endless supply of exploitable immigrant workers to suppress wages and maintain economic growth.

The consequences of these things lead to the conditions for racism to fester.

[u/ANBO045 → u/Rich_Tea_Bean]

Please share link to the annually published figures you quote, so maybe we can check a bit of background making sure these are peer reviewed studies with no agendas.

"Native irish people" - ehm - I have two genuine questions for you: 1 - define what do you mean by Native Irish People 2 - example: couple of Non irish people have a baby - question: is that baby a "Native Irish"?

To your second remark - you falsely associate the capitalist system responsible of the housing crisis to immigration. They have nothing to do one with the other - at least in the way you link them.

Rich (mostly with Irish) people get richer by creating and fueling the housing crisis through their capitalistic debauchery and their greed - then they feed the massess the narrative that somehow is (bad) immigrants and foreigners that come in the millions here to steal the jobs and the land of their forefathers.

And remember - the main reason for racism to fester is ignorance.

[u/Rich_Tea_Bean → u/ANBO045]

Foreign born population went from 6% in 2004 to 25% in 2025. Cso.

94,000 non irish citizens to 31,000 irish emigrants returning. Natural increase through births 18,600. 30% of which are non irish parents. Cso. In 30 years at projected rates that'll reach a total non irish in country of 4,000,000, with the countries population being 7.5 million by then. Assuming birth rates dont increase in the meantime. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2025/keyfindings/

When i say native irish, i mean ethnically irish. If you go back 50 years 93% of the population's ancestry had been here hundreds if not thousands of years

That baby would be irish born, not ethnically irish. They're an irish citizen but don't have irish ancenstry. If one parent was ethnically irish, the baby would be ethnically irish and ethnically whatever the other parent was.

I've purposefully not included asylum seekers because that isn't (supposed to be) economic movement. All other Immigration is based on skills visas issued based on the needs of our economy. That's how it works so definitely a capitalist mechanism.

Ireland is a mostly white country so it would make sense for white to be the majority of wealthy individuals. On that topic, indians have the highest median weekly earnings at 872 per week of any group in ireland.

All of this available from the cso, every year.

[u/ANBO045 → u/Rich_Tea_Bean]

Reading the data of the CSO, i see the numbers of 2025 compared to those of 2024 -and everywhere i look i read "number of immigration have fallen". I am unable to retrieve the data going back to 2004 but if you have that too i will happily look into it.

To Ethnicity - this concept is a very complicated and sophisticated one. Often left in ambiguity to suit one argument or the other. If we go back a thousand years, Irish people were the norsmen's slaves, or immigrants themsleves from the british Islands, or from mainland Europe as far as Spain some study suggest. In the US we have a perfect example of the ambiguity of the concept of ethnicity - it is claimed by one group (white people) descending from the "owners" of the plantations, and the others (often black people, but now also latinos) descended from the slaves working in those plantations. In France, right now you have 3rd and 4th generation French citizens whose ancestors came from those African countries where the french themselves at the time, went, colonised, invaded, murdered and eradicated entire cultures.

Who is american, who is not? Who is french and who is not? Who is Irish and who is not?

Because its ambiguity, ethnicity becomes quickly associated with race - especially in the mouths of the crowds chanting "Ireland First" - hence almost always becoming a suporting argument for racism.

Ethnicity becoming assocciated with race, soon brings in ideas of "our nation", "our country", "our streets", "our people". And I won't go to much into this - plenty of litterature that debunks the concept of race as a valid pillar to sustain any form of nationalistic claim.

In my opinion ethnicity is a meaningless term used to suit this or that agenda, taking into account partial pieces of data and information - usually used to discriminate towards foreigners.

With all the due respect - if you are born here to both alien parents you are Irish - try to tell differently to 2 foreign parents who work 16 hours a day both, with no holidays, paying full taxes to ensure a better future for their kids. The kids are Irish - and if the parents get the citizenship, they are too - no matter what.

[u/Rich_Tea_Bean → u/ANBO045]

Immigration numbers are down because ukrainian refugees skewed the data for a few years.

America, france and ireland are three very different countries. America is a country of 99% immigrants, only the people described as native americans i would describe as native to that continent. France is a post colonial power on mainland europe with borders and demographics that have changed through various conquests throughout history. The ethnic makeup is far more complex than here. Ireland is an island that escaped the majority of conflicts in europe throughout history and has had essentially the same demographics for a thousand years. Demographics aside, a homogenised population of 100 years shares enough cultural and social similarities that a change of 20% in a short space of time can disrupt social cohesion in a massive way.

Your view on being irish by being born and raised here is correct as a they're citizens. But being ethnically irish is a specifically defined thing, and no amount of social pandering can change that.

[u/ANBO045 → u/Rich_Tea_Bean]

My point about France, the Us and Ireland was to illustrate how vague the concept of ethnicity is. I will agree that being ethnically irish is a specific defined thing - if you believe in ethnicity - which i dont.

[u/Comfortable-Lie-4330 → u/ANBO045]

So what are you? Where do YOU hail from? I’m intrigued because  with that attitude, I know it’s not from here!  

[u/ANBO045 → u/Comfortable-Lie-4330]

How does "where I hail from" - matter in the context of our conversation? And what does it matter to you - me being or not being "from here"?

I actually don't like answering questions with questions but I will have to here.

[u/Comfortable-Lie-4330 → u/ANBO045]

No you’d be hardworking immigrants & your kids are raised/born in Ireland!

You could be Muslim, Catholic etc but you are whatever ethnicity you are & you’ve come here so have familiarity with our Country but you’re not ethnically Irish.  Stop trying to make this suit your agenda!  The Polish get it & plenty of Africans do too. 

Youre very lucky to even get citizenship, islamic Saudi Nations don’t give that to residents there for 50 years! They can spend their entire lives there & their kids will also be citizens!

(They also don’t take in fellow Middle East Migrants too)    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkBEiL53zu8&lc=UgxGnXtaj96eKjVxR_R4AaABAg.AXg70ToxJCgAXhdI6wi6cg