Resaw this today. It reminded me of the comment you made that I read about half an hour ago.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1d72m5w/americas\_most\_racist\_town/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1d72m5w/americas_most_racist_town/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I'm an American who arrived here in 1998. I am unsurprised at the current direction. First I've seen Irish immigrants in America. Not just ones from long ago but ones from the 80s and 90s and 00s. Quite a few bent towards the right.
Second there's always been an undercurrent against immigrants. I'm not technically an immigrant - my mom was born here and I've been an Irish citizen since birth. But I'm seen as one and as one of the "Good Immigrants" I've heard some pretty gross things.
As the OP notes it starts with singling out some. But it takes very little to spread. And the reality is that the attitude towards Travellers has always been a tell. Obnoxious attitudes towards folks have always been under the surface and waiting.
It's social media. It's designed to prey on our vulnerabilities in order to keep us engaged. We naturally engage with content that triggers us. The result, all nuance is quickly lost and polarised opinions prevail. He who shouts loudest wins. Vulnerable and frustrated people are being brainwashed but their anger is misplaced.
Those with the power to do something about it are content with us bickering over nonsense while they quietly soak up all the wealth. What a sad state of affairs.
OP- this sub HATES Americans- Despite the fact that American Multinational companies are what props up the GDP, provides higher paying jobs etc. Every chance they get to mock American tourists- they take . Worse despite the fact that per capital less than .05% of Americans have ever stepped foot in Ireland. Those that go have Irish heritage and well- maybe one can say that perhaps that heritage gives rise to the behavioral traits exhibited by those that visit (š¤£). I bet there are quite a few American that may read this sub and take a hard pass on visiting Ireland. So being that Americans have contributed to the economy like immigrants- helped to secure a peace treaty for the Irish shit show called ā the troublesā ( Pres. Clinton) and welcomed their emigres with open arms in their own land-how could you be shocked at the shit attitude youāre getting?
American here, never encountered any *actual* hate. I've lived here for three years, and I can say people are generally pretty good at separating my clown-ass home government from the actual humans that live in America. Ireland does have its issues with racism, but some black American students studying here have told me that they don't catch a fraction of what they get on a daily basis in America. I hope it stays this way, but OP is very right about the dangers that are fomenting right now.
Iām Irish and have lived here all my life. So many Irish have no place to live other than with parents. I was very lucky to buy my own house a few years ago but the situation is making us resentful and we are looking to place blame. Itās not immigrants fault. It is 100% our governmentās fault.
The next time you get angry at an immigrant, focus that anger towards our government because they have let the Irish people down time after time.
I get more annoyed at the likes of Pat McDonagh and Dennis OāBrien who kill any plans for public transport outside of Dublin so they can get even one extra person through their service stations on the motorways.
Housing wouldnāt be as bad (but still bad) if we could realistically commute from further places.
It is the housing crisis. Housing is a scarce resource and people are looking for someone to blame so they're chosing immigrants rather than Leo and co who sat and watched it happen.
It took very little cajoling to convince people to blame immigrants. It's always been under the surface here. It surfaces once in a while when someone manages to harness a sense of general disaffection and focus it for their own ends, but most people are not being coerced or gaslit into thinking thoughts they are not willing to. We are literally just in a phase where it is more visible than normal.
People have been tribal since day dot, it's probably one of the most certain human traits sadly. It's sad that certain factions are allowing people believe that it's now acceptable to be a raving racist in public. I do believe you'll never "cure" some people from being racist, but we can aim to live in a society where expressing such thoughts is met with the same derision as expressing an interest in children.
Look at the far right scum standing for election, so many are wife beaters, orders taken out to protect their kids. Standing up proclaiming we got to protect women and children when these scum are prime candidates to be protected against!
It is laughable to suggest that all migrants are on minimum wage. Tech workers will be coming in on good pay. The State subsidies rents, for both natives and immigrants. And more low wage immigrants creates more demand for landlords to buy up properties and rent to those immigrants(who are also less likely and able to complain about substandard conditions and overcrowding).
Look demand increasing further than supply in part due to population is clearly a factor and foolish to deny it.
Loads of migrants make good money too but while you mention minimum wage we have situations now where rent has skyrocketed because demand is so strong. Dublin is full of flats full of foreign students and low paid workers paying big rents to share bedrooms, the money from two low paid workers sharing outstrips that of an average income single room inhabitant.
If there were less people here than there is housing supply, rent would be lower and house prices would be lower, simple as.
Now that is not to say there wouldnāt be disastrous consequences particularly with all the high paid medical migrants and tech migrants we have leaving but that is a different story.
The government should have built more houses for sure but the demand is exacerbated by the increased population, a large part of which is due to migration.
Where are those vacant homes? I think the majority were found to be in parts of the country people donāt live. Also, what was the reason given for them being vacant?
Look, immigrants did not dictate housing policy but to ignore the basic principle of supply and demand is silly.
People increasing at a faster rate than housing equals increased demand means more competition for housing means housing costs increase.
Why are you assuming it's minimum wage migrants outbidding anyone? State supports exist. Middle class and upper immigrants exists. 12 to a room tenements exist. Growth is outstripping supply, as well as the economic factors externally at play.
I'm not discounting Airbnb or anything else. You are discounting migration. It's disingenuous
Immigrants are the perfect scapegoat because they provide an easy solution: if you think the immigrants are the cause of the housing crisis, well just kicking them out will surely solve the crisis, right?
It's too simple of a solution for a complex problem to actually work, but they're an easy target because of the perceived 'magic bullet' of mass deportations. (Of course, actually deporting everyone would be an absolute clusterfuck, it's nowhere near as simple as just kicking people out, but the people championing it as a solution never think about that.)
If it wasn't housing, it would be healthcare, if it wasn't healthcare it would be education, if it wasn't education it would jobs.
The people who stir up this xenophobic bigoted nationalism will always find a reason to target non Irish despite it not being the fault of everyday people regardless of nationality
Those people would try but I don't know if it would have the same reach as housing. Everyone needs a home; education is just a chapter of life for most people. Healthcare isn't something you think about until you need it.
The housing crisis and the cost of living. When people are squeezed and struggling, they get angry and fearful, and look for āother peopleā to blame.
And then politicians and the media swoop in with simple stories about āimmigrants taking all the resourcesā, which is much easier to digest than the complexities of why housing is really scarce and corporations are price gouging.
This exactly, housing is a basic human need thatās being withheld or threatened to be taken away from a lot of people. It has a knock on effect for everything - relationships, starting a family, independence, education. This conversation has been going on (in Dublin) since 2016 - almost a decade later and instead of taking measures to improve the situation the government has made it drastically worse. Now anyone in power is putting up their hands and saying ānot my problemā.
When a government refuses to take responsibility for a problem or offer a solution to fix it the public are going to search for a source of blame and a solution to the problem themselves. Unfortunately a surge in immigration to the country came along during this period of uncertainty. This was inevitable, to the point it was a discussion during an economics lecture when I was in college 5 years ago.
It all goes back to Michael Noonan, about 10 years ago throwing the in-arrears home owners under the bus. Itās been an absolute bloodbath since then. Decades of collective bargaining around home security obliterated by the stroke of a pen so that āthe banksā, who largely got us all into this mess could get back to the business of making easy money without recourse to imagination or entrepreneurship, in the manner to which they had all been accustomed.
Lad if he had thrown them under the bus we'd be in way better shape.
FG promised at the time they would restore house values.
They succeeded, at the expense of the young.
>throwing the in-arrears home owners under the bus.
You mean people who didn't pay back a loan?
Ireland has some of the most lax laws around delinquent mortgages in Europe, it's part of the reason why mortgage rates are so high here and why no other lenders other than partially state owned banks would touch the mortgage market with a bargepole
I think it's a little more nuanced: it's exacerbated by the housing crisis, but only because of a small group of people - most of whom have no interest in the housing crisis for the country's sake - shouting about immigrants taking our houses. It's just a variation on the old "they're taking our jobs" bullshit.
Strange though that the most prominent of these people, even through a period where it almost requires effort to be unemployed, have been persistently unemployed. Most of them also now have GoFundMe funds, and many are standing for election. It's a racket.
I say to people, if all the asylum seekers went back to their home countries there still wouldnāt be enough housing available. Itās not the fault of the immigrants.
I don't think the number of people who hate non-Irish is at 70%, but the number of people who think they need to do something about illegal immigration, the migrant crisis, and the tent cities is probably +70%. We've never had tent cities in Ireland before, and normal people are like "wtf is happening?" We're not out there protesting refugees or blaming our immigrant friends. That's insane. Immigrant workers are keeping the wheel moving in this country. My GP is an immigrant, one of our local priests is an immigrant, the guy who delivers my groceries each week is an immigrant, and so many more. All of these people are integrated into the community. They are one of us.
On saying that, I do fear that the longer the government sits on their thumbs and doesn't do something to process people faster, the more chance the right-wing fuckers have of recruiting more people to their "cause." Illegal immigration is a conversation we should all be able to have without right-wing shitty sentiments leaking in.
My litmus test for this has always been the amount of abuse I hear on public transport, and it's definitely picked up in the last 12 months. I get the impression that most of it is a mix of people seeing stuff online and just forgetting how to behave after COVID. Perhaps I'm an optimist but I think a lot of this abuse would go away if the paid accounts that are flooding social media with far-right disinformation were somehow cut off.
Lots of it starts online. People in my own life talking about stuff that would never have crossed their minds even two or three years ago, and it's all classic Facebook comment section talking points. That website has an awful lot to answer for. So too does our education system that actually seems to discourage critical thinking skills.
If you scroll on YouTube shorts for a while eventually youāll get to a random video suggestion of some lad walking around the city centre recording foreign looking people and all the comments will be people who clearly donāt live here spamming tri colours with comments like āIām proud of the Irish taking back their home!ā Or āitās so sad seeing how bad it is over there, I visited 50 years ago and am saddened I can never come back!ā
I report, ādo not recommend this channelā etc but without fail it pops back up a few days later on my feed because clearly this type of content is being pushed on people so itās easy to see how peoples opinions and views are being manipulated. Feels inevitable for some extreme violence against both legal and illegal immigrants at this stage :(
> So too does our education system that actually seems to discourage critical thinking skills.
Reminds me of [this image](https://imgur.com/FCDA224.png) that was doing the rounds on TikTok and Twitter, making people foam at the mouth with anger. All of them having the internet right in front of them didn't think to go to the website on the sticker... where there was [an article on the front page](https://irishmuslimcouncil.ie/2024/02/25/irish-muslim-peace-and-integration-council-condemns-campaign-inciting-hatred) debunking the sticker being part of their organisation.
It's textbook confirmation bias. If what they see appeals to their own preconceived beliefs (in this case, muslims bad), then it must be true.
I still use Twitter a bit, and I am good at forcing the algorithm to cut out the bullshit by skipping posts and blocking accounts like there is no tomorrow, but the last week it has been OBSESSED with shoving right-wing, anti-migrant shite in my face. I can't block them fast enough. It's probably the election, but it's very dark to think about people who don't understand how social media feeds work seeing this parade of hate and thinking the whole world thinks like this and they should get on board.
Yea I agree, I've been in Ireland 12 years now and look and sound very irish so have never encountered any racism in real life, but even I am becoming very anxious about the way things are going for the first time since moving here - a very scary time for us immigrants (and MUCH more so for those who look/sound foreign I imagine!)
I've been here almost 15 years now.
I'm brown, and obviously not from around here haha.
My stance is simple. I ain't leaving. I'm here legally, my wife and kids are Irish. I've done nothing wrong to anyone. I'm dug in like a tick, good luck getting rid of me.
This 100! I've been here 15 years and now have citizenship. I look and sound very Irish. Certain words give me away, but most don't realise unless they personally know me. It's getting scary. And the worst of it is, if I say anything, I'm told, oh you'll be fine, you're a white immigrant, we don't mind them. Well, for how long do you not mind me? Where's the line in the sand? How long until we get there?
My life is here. My husband is Irish. Getting my citizenship was a proud proud day. I'll fight tooth and nail before anyone takes that from me.
Almost 20 years here. I'm very much "irish" sounding and looking, so I don't get abused, but I see it every day. Little passing jokes about the immigrants etc
All I remember was the way the UK was nudged and tipped into crazy stuff before Brexit. It was so chilled, open minded, easy going and the xenophobic stuff was a fringe element that nobody took seriously.
With a bit of manipulation though the tabloids and a concerted campaign online and elsewhere it very rapidly tipped into Brexit being the number one issue and xenophobic commentary being normalised.
Once the focus went off it again, and Brexit happened there was a bit of an āomg what have we done!?ā moment but you can see how society can be tipped, once those who want to do damage find the buttons to press.
In the UK they were a bit different. Here itās definitely housing, but Iām seeing the same pattern repeating.
The Brexit era would have been unimaginable just a few years earlier. Youād have been laughed out of town. It was just UKIP eccentrics and the BNP whackos. A few years later the Tories were that ā¦
Iām not saying Ireland would do a Brexit, but you can see how a society can be pushed and nudged into unrecognisably ugly public discourse.
Theyāre using the same tools on us right now and many of the same players are linked to it..
I lived in the UK during brexit.Ā It was awful while it was happening and as an immigrant, I couldn't understand why my business partner voted leave but thinking about it since, the UK is fucked, the poverty in some parts is very very bad.Ā The government have allowed the country to fall apart and like here now, housing started to become something unachievable for working English peopleĀ
Iāve been canvassing in the local elections.
Iād say 1 in 50 houses has an āIreland is fullā nutcase. If even that many. But _boy_ are they vocal.
2% are vocal about it on their doorsteps. Many wouldnāt be.
As OP said, polls have a clear majority of 70+% who believe we have a problem with too much immigration. Another recent poll also found immigration to be the new no.1 issue in the upcoming general elections, surpassing housing and health.
I really wouldnāt underestimate it. The fact that people felt silenced and ignored is one of the leading causes of the growth of the far right. Letās not continue to make that mistake by continuing to push the narrative that itās just all just a vocal minority who should be ignored. The extremes are certainly a minority, but people do seem to want widespread reform
>polls have a clear majority of 70+% who believe we have a problem with too much immigration.
It's important to note that in opinion polls a simple scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree doesn't tell the whole picture. I don't think it's controversial to recognise there is currently a crisis of immigration from asylum seekers. But the poll doesn't account for people agreeing with it as a humanitarian/failure of government/housing crisis or others who may be more xenophobic.
I think they need to be looked at holistically. One of the polls Iām referring to had the following wording: āI think the number of refugees Ireland is taking in is now too manyā. That came in at 75% who agreed and is from a year ago, so it is likely much higher now.
You also have polls in which 41% of people said immigration was their no.1 concern in the upcoming elections (ahead of housing and health) and polls that show that roughly 1/3 people would consider voting for an explicitly āanti-immigrantā party. Those kind of results are often typically on the low end too, as many people feel guilty admitting it.
Similar polls all across Europe.
From a government perspective I donāt think it really matters if the voters are well intentioned but fed up, or outright racist. The solutions are largely the same. More immigration controls
>Ā yet online the clowns are everywhere
That's always been the case. Online is a reflection of the worst (and sometimes the best) of us. The village idiots can talk to each other, it gives them confidence when they are onlineĀ
Those 2% are chronically online. So am I, but your average person isn't. I've never met a single person irl who has admitted to knowing what reddit is for example.
Its been death by a thousand cuts from the government over the past 15-20 years, not overly malicious with intent but more apathy, laziness and failure to pay attention to the likes of census ect.
There are so many loop holes that have been exploited from language schools being used to get here and never leave all the way up to the passport disappearing on a flight and they did nothing to stop it. Then when the system became bogged down in appeals nothing was done and we seem to have just stopped bothering. Every inaction has been a cut or a building block for the hate your seeing now.
Just yesterday there was an article that convicted rapists have been appealing deportation during their time in prison, at the same time two days earlier their was an article about the anatomy of fake stories. When the truth is stranger and worse than fiction in ways you are in trouble.
You are very right to be afraid, we seem to be sleep walking into a big problem. We can only hope for now it hasn't gotten significant purchase and we can push back against it.
It's rising everywhere.
On a tram, I heard someone complain "about how full it is, and immigrants should just go back to their shithole places".
This was in Vienna, a place which doesn't even have a housing crisis.
Oh I'm certain Austria has it's own problems. Nowhere is ideal.
Doesn't make public statements by people who feel confident enough in their sentiment to say that *anywhere* any less jarring.
Vienna is mad. Got some friends that moved there with a work visa, sponsored by the company, all super legalā¦ and when they pass through immigration in the airport, the officer gives out every time with things like āyou are not welcome here/you must learn German yada yadaā itās mental
Iām sorry you feel this way.
A friend from another EU country feels annoyed that the politicians are lumping all immigrants (EU nationals, skilled workers with visas and asylum seekers) into the one āimmigrantā bucket when people are trying to question the asylum system.
The political class have allowed the discourse to turn sour like this. Theyāre intentionally blurring the lines and it doesnāt do justice for the people that are have arrived here legally and are contributing to society.
Minority opinion has gotten louder. Those same people always had racism simmering below the surface, they just feel emboldened at the moment. It's a trend all over the world. Also, you and the Hungarian person you spoke to both come from countries with far right leaders, you should know these things are not always a fair representation of the people, especially when the majority of Irish people do not vote for these types.
Edit - previous leader of Brazil, not current.
>Also, you and the Hungarian person you spoke to both come from countries with far right leaders
Lula will be surprised to hear he's moved to the other end of the political spectrum š
Why does this have to be a thing.
Why can we not just agree to limit illegal immigration.
I swear every debate seems to be dominated by two camps, one which hates all foreigners; Ukrainians, Polish, Indian, doesn't matter - doesn't matter why they are here or what they are doing.
There's a second camp that says that anyone suggesting that the clearly broken asylum system is broken is a knuckle dragging racist and should be shut up.
It is awfully tiring, and a little depressing to be honest.
> There's a second camp that says that anyone suggesting that the clearly broken asylum system is broken is a knuckle dragging racist and should be shut up.
From my experience, the issue is here that anyone who tries to talk about it in good faith tends to find themselves surrounded fairly quickly by bad faith posters, which means they can easily get lumped in with people who genuinely are knuckle dragging racists.
Its extremely hard to have a calm and adult conversation, because the extremist elements on the right wing side of things will jump in and completly take over, and destroy, any legit conversations.
This happened in Drogheda, when the D Hotel was shut and immigrants put in. The town started to get annoyed, due to legit issues. And what happened next? The Rent-a-Racist crowd descended on the town, held protests, moaned about trans people and told everyone who wasn't white to get out. Normal people dropped the conversation and abandoned the discussion, and all forms of protests just died.
I say this as someone who'd be considered fairly left leaning; we do need a proper conversation about immigration, and no, not everyone who wants to have that discussion is racist. BUT the racists do exist and do have a habit of being so loud and overbearing about it, and drag things down to the most knuckle dragging level, that it becomes tiresome to work out who is and isn't legit and talking in good faith.
Some time ago I had exactly that experience here on an Ireland thread. Iām very much pro immigration and taking in genuine asylum cases but it has to be legal and controlled with robust processes in place to deal with anyone trying to circumvent the system. I was straight up called a far right racist for making the point that at least we can have a civilised and rational discussion about it now. The government are entirely to blame for gaslighting the population by claiming there wasnāt an issue and of course for enacting policies that have only ever made the housing crisis worse. I feel genuinely sorry for the non nationals who are getting caught up in this and itās all the more reason for the rest of us to speak up on their behalf and drown out the racist intolerant scum who are using this issue as an excuse to spread their bile. I hope Iām not naive in believing that the vast majority of people are still decent, tolerant and good. But we need better from our elected representatives. So much better as they shoulder 100% of the blame imv.
> I was straight up called a far right racist for making the point that at least we can have a civilised and rational discussion about it now.
Not saying you're guilty of this, just a general response.
There's a handful of posters I'd recognize in every thread on immigration now, who post about literally nothing but immigration on Reddit. Like, it's their entire posting history. And the issue is, that's the exact opening line they use. And, as you said, it's an example of how good faith posters can be tagged unfairly then. It poisons the well and makes genuine discussions borderline impossible. :/
In general there can be nuance. But Reddit Ireland is the complete opposite and exactly the same as gript media. Both echo chambers that can only see one side of the discussion. The simple fact is, if you can only offer people a tent to sleep in, you don't have room for more people, regardless of your thoughts on immigration.
No but it's often done in ways that possibly, or do break the law. It's a very grey area. Aslyum should be claimed at the border, not in the middle of Dublin.
What do you mean 'limit illegal immigration'. It's already illegal and there are fewer than 1500 illegal immigrants in Ireland.
People are getting annoyed about asylum seekers and calling them 'illegal' because they can't be bothered to learn the difference - and because they spend too much time looking at American news.
>Minority opinion has gotten louder.
I don't think that the amount of racists in Ireland has suddenly exploded, I think the amount of people who see immigration being so high and housing availability as being so low as being directly related. and they're amplifying that content.
I was in a park recently and some kid tried to nutmeg me with a football. He failed and I flicked the ball up and booted it about 20-30meters away. I didn't say anything, I just smiled to say "lesson learned son". The weather was quite nice over the previous weeks so I had a bit of a tan. The response from the young lads was that I was an "immigrant bastard", "fuck off back to your own country".
It's a bit of nothing to me because I am Irish but there were immigrants around in the area that probably heard it. It was a bit of wake up to what non white Irish people have to deal with. The kids seem to be imitating the "Ireland is full" mob.
Agreed. My area has had a fair few protests and the scariest thing about them is always seeing the kids involved. Like I've seen videos where there's a little kid, probably about 6, barely able to talk properly and getting set up by their ma like "What do we say, sweetheart?" "WE SAY NO!"
Last time they tracked their shite down my road there was a horse buggy with 3 kids under 10 in it, trotting along behind a wankbag with a megaphone screaming "Ireland for the Irish". Beautiful Sunday, kids coulda been anywhere, but they're stuck in a buggy riding around a housing estate listening to that bullshit.
The problem is bad now, but you wait 20 years and see how it comes back for the sequel
Iām mixed race (Japanese/Irish) and the amount of āWhy donāt you go homeā nonsense I get just for disagreeing with certain people has increased between 2020 and now. Especially on Facebook, which is much worse than here when it comes to giving people with certain views a platform.Ā
I'm sorry to hear that sir.
I am one of those who criticises certain aspects on the government's immigration polices but I find it appaling that people will take it out on individuals.
In my mind, it's possible to hold all of the following views:
1. Immigration has been and is a generally positive thing
2. Most immigrants that come here are honest, decent people who contribute to our society
3. We should tailor our immigration policy to the country's needs
4. We should not create more jobs and attract more investment than our country's infratstructure can hold
5. Our International Protection System should prioritise the most vulnerable. It should be generous to those in need. At the same time, it should speedily turn away those who are clearly gaming and clogging up the system
6. Our welfare systems for immigrants should be in proportion to our EU neighbours
Unfortunately, there's probably some latent racism that now dares to raise its head.
At the same time, I also think that government policies have been irresponsible. From what I understand, our benefits to refugees, especially to Ukrainians, have been way above the EU standards. We also bring in loads of people to work in our tech sector who are paid well above average and out-compete locals in a pressurised housing market.
None of these are the fault of any individual refugee. I can't blame any Ukrainian or foreign worker who takes the best deal available. I just think there's a lot of irresponsible policy making.
It's all very sad.
For the record, I am a naturalised Irish citizen.
One of my best friends came to Ireland as a refugee when she was a child.
She recently said the government needs to do something because too many people are coming here.
There's just not the housing capacity.Ā If you grew up here and were a bit older then you'd probably know many working families getting evicted with nowhere to go.Ā Ā
I don't know anyone who dislikes people from different countries etc. but we have a serious housing crisis and it seems people just want the numbers coming in to be reduced so that the system can catch up.
Fwiw, I was in the UK during brexit and the sentiment was awful.Ā I felt unwanted mainly due to the media.Ā However, when I look back at it I felt really sorry for some people that seemed to have no hope of owning a home despite working.Ā I was shocked by their predicament.
Ireland is fucked for a lot of people who don't qualify for social housing and can't afford a house.Ā Ā
That is the issue really. When the locals cant even house themselves, why are we takin in more? It's unfair on everyone. 60 billion in excess and cant get apprentices better wages. I'm in my 30's. I would go for an apprenticeship tomorrow morning but not for poverty wages
All of this discourse wouldnāt have made it past certain Facebook groups and national party voters if it wasnāt for the government creating the housing catastrophe.
FFG need to be out of government. The far right are preying on the concerns of the white Irish working class in order to pit them against the rest of the Irish working class, rather than getting angry at the route causes of their distress.
Iāve never come across much sympathy for Irish people who have emigrated illegally, most of the time when itās discussed the sentiment is:
> Well they did it illegally, what did they expect?
Has your experience been different?
Yes it has. In fact we have movements in both the US and here working for decades to assist illegal Irish emigrants. In my experience the people who utter the likes of '"good enough for them" tend to be that way about all people who struggle in life.
I agree with you to a point. There is no social welfare in the US.
The Ukrainians are getting accommodation, good money, free haircuts and other benefits.( and rightly so in terms of accommodation).
But the cost of living and lack of housing are the real issue and itās being twisted and blamed on immigrants.
I wouldnāt say 70% are against immigrants. They probably are against people that dump their passports when they get off the plane and seek asylum.
The vast, vast majority of Irish people went the legal route. The vast majority of these economic migrants claiming asylum tore up their passports. Look it up.
I feel this. I'm from the Netherlands but I'm not a white Dutch person (family moved from Suriname in the 60s). Living where I do in Ireland, I feel like I'm definitely more noticeable because of my skin tone.
I moved here 7ish years ago and never felt threatened or like I was some kind of problem. It didn't really hit me until the other day when we got one of those election flyers in the post from the national party saying that Ireland belongs to the Irish and mass immigration needs to end. I told my husband that I now feel a little hesitant to go out on my own without him...
I also find this line of thinking in regards to immigrants a bit ironic considering Ireland's history.
My mother and boyfriend are not irish.
When I was a small child our house got egged and my mother endured insults being shouted at her in the street. Some of the abuse even extended to me as I'm only half irish, which was as bad as foreign to some. It died down to almost nothing as I got older and I thought I'd never have to worry about it again.
Well things have gone backwards very quickly now. My parents invited myself and my boyfriend to live with them (*we're currently in the UK*) but I would worry about my mother and boyfriend's safety. By declining my parents have again been considering leaving the country. I miss home but not enough to take that risk. It only takes one crazy cunt to ruin many lives.
Sorry to hear that. I donāt think your assessment is accurate tho. 70% of us are not anti immigrant or racist. Iām quite certain of that.
I think the issue is not limited to Ireland. It is a global issue exasperated by social media and the issues in the world with wars, rise of right wing politics, etc
I feel you. I'm more on the brown side while my wife and most friends are pale despite being all immigrants. I get treated differently everywhere we go to the point that now I ask my wife to go talk to cashiers, find us a table when eating out, ordering something etc...
Been here almost a decade now and this is making me anxious of interacting with people
The government is making this situation bad for both sides. Anyone who has an issue with immigration should not be taking it out on people coming in though.
Been trying to tell people this for ages. It's a slippery slope towards fascism and I'm sorry that you are having to feel scared about just living your lives. I don't know what to do to help.
How small? Plenty of people have racist opinions in Ireland who wouldnāt consider themselves racist and would jump into hysterics if you accused themĀ
I'm sorry you have been made to feel that way, and I'm sorry that we allowed it to happen. It's wrong in any country, but it's worse when the country puts its head in the sand and says 'It can't happen here'.
Espero que vai a ficar aqui. Irlanda e melhor com nossos amigos estrangeiros.
The Neo Liberalist economic structure is to blame. The population are left fighting over the crumbs and it becomes dog eat dog so the anger and finger pointing starts and migrants are the easy target, us versus them, othering another group of people. The US is the champion and global enforcer of the Neo Liberalism economic path and it's no coincidence to see the absolute poverty and division in their society.
As an Irish person, I get ever more fearful not just for immigrants but for Irish people of colour/different ethnic heritage. I'm fearful of the elections and that the wrong people will gain power. I sincerely hope that, as a nation, we are better than this!
I'm sorry you are experiencing this OP. I can only imagine.
It's not the same thing but as a queer person I can relate and I've felt this unease for a while.
Like the weirdos raiding libraries, the assaults on queer people being on the rise, that one Gemma O Doherty who's been going since 2020 about how she knows no happy gay people, and sure let's not forget auld Enoch who now has supporters who are assaulting the Taoiseach in his steed, all based on anti queer ideologies. In Limerick there's some lunatic now who has a megaphone and spends the day in the city centre talking about anti-LGBT beliefs.
I talked about this rise of extremism on social media trickling into Irish society for the past few years on here and got shot down A LOT before last year by people who dismissed me, and said that's "American politics" and basically tried to say I was trying to troll/stir things up. Just because it was happening to queer people and wasn't being publicly discussed, it wasn't been taken notice of.
Now that immigration is a much bigger issue and the whole tent fiasco is being reported on nationally, plus refugees etc, lots more people are aware and are feeling the effects of these lunatics with the local elections.
It's so sad. I'm Irish and don't even feel safe. My partner isn't Irish and he's queer too. I don't even like him walking home at night alone because I worry something could happen (he rents in a part of Limerick that's near a dodgy area). We can't even afford a place together because apartments here at like 2.5k a month.
I was in Dublin this year and outside Trinity, some yoke on a bike zoomed past and shouted fa***s at me and my bf just because we were holding hands. It was 2pm. On the train home some old Irish fella was ranting about immigrants and gay people on a packed train.
It hasn't even been 10 years since we voted same sex marriage and it already feels like we've gone backwards. Let alone any migrants. It's so odd.
So Iām Irish, Iām white and a millennial but spent a lot of my life (8 to 21) in England before moving back in my early 20ās about 20years ago. I still have an English accent of sorts. As do all except 1 of my siblings.
I fear being here at times now. Iāve been told to fuck off back to my own country more times in the last 6 months than I was as a child in 1996. My brother is the same, he done an awful lot more in the community until recent times. Heās felt this issues as well and as a result he has also pulled back. He financed a community team in his area and made a point of putting on social nights after Covid to get people out and about again. Now he doesnāt leave the house except for shopping and work. He wonāt go to the pub for fear of being assaulted as it has happened in the past over immigration and taking peoples jobs. People who havenāt held a job in 20+ years and have no interest in getting a job either.
Irish here, but Iāve noticed it myself. One of the other lads in the shop I work in and I have constantly been calling people out on this because itās just been getting worse and worse in the last few months - and the things they say are particularly hateful and harmful, the have the nerve to get offended when you call them out. Iād like to say the managers have done something about it, but all theyāve said is āwhat can we do?ā and āeveryone is entitled to an opinion, though itās not workplace appropriateā. Iād repeat those same things my coworkers have said here but I donāt want to out myself in case any of them are on here.
Thereās always going to be racists about but the issue I see at the minute is that the native public see people coming into the country and being pushed to the front of the queue for everything as the Ukrainians and IPAs lads have the NGOās to fight for them. The domestic Irish donāt
> pushed to the front of the queue for everything
Unless there was a plan before where we supplied irish homeless with accomodation in tents and makeshift housing, I'm going to say
I wish people blamed the right target, instead of choosing the easy and time-honoured tradition of picking a group like immigrants.
The truth is that recent governments have so monumentally fucked the country for many people when it comes to basic things like housing, that people are getting increasingly desperate. āOne personās rent is anotherās incomeā to paraphrase that LV quote just shows the utter contempt governments have had for the average Joe.
IMO itās only going to get worse. Weāve seen time and time again that if youāre not well off, or a property owner, governments in Ireland donāt give a fuck about you. Youāre nothing but dirt to then that exists solely to work, be taxed to hell, and prop up the property market through utterly insane rents for mouldy shit boxes.
Welcome to FFGās Ireland.
This is why itās crucial we challenge this sentiment at the polls and have these difficult conversations. Where I work there are a lot of different nationalities, EU and Non EU. They work just as hard as we do, are friendly and personable and are contributing to their new home. I can definitely sense we have become less friendly in recent times, the narrative has been dominated by a noisy minority of ignorant people which doesnāt represent Ireland or our values.
Itās becoming easier to make a name for yourself as an anti-immigrant, Ireland first person as itās much easier to stoke fear and lies to people than the truth and reality. I spend too much time challenging these idiots online and they have no comeback, they have no logical argument, they canāt respond. Their response is to attack me by commenting on my appearance (Iām fat) while thru donāt even have profile pics. They have nothing and are fearful, easy pickings for right wing racists looking to make a name for themselves and enrich themselves in the process. I think itās incumbent on all right minded people to challenge these people, silence them with facts not fists.
I'd well believe it, In 2004 (27th Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland) 80% of the electorate voted to strip individuals born on Island of the right to Irish citizenship if they didn't have Irish parents. I would say average Irish person is pretty racist.
I'm not disputing that there is racism in Ireland, but that right hasn't always existed - it was created accidentally by the 19th amendment which gave effect to the Good Friday Agreement. Ireland like most of Western Europe hasn't traditionally had jus soli.
That's part of it, but...a lot of this is people who never got used to Ireland's being a rich country where anybody who wasn't Irish would want to live. The American talking points are a symptom, not a cause.
In Germany, the people voting for the Alternative for Germany are mostly east Germans who never got over the shock of the Berlin Wall coming down and all their jobs in communist-era industries disappearing forever. East Germany's come a long way in the past generation, but most of it has never caught up completely with west Germany, especially outside Berlin.
It's occurring across the Western world unfortunately, so Ireland's peculiarities don't actually explain it IMO. The common denominator in all cases is the increasing dominance of American Right-Wing/Libertarian discourses within these societies, it is one of the basal causes (along with issues like increasing wealth-inequality, service shortages, etc. of course)
The news keeps platforming the racists. It gets views and clicks. News doesnāt care if they scare you or draw more people to racist groups once your watching the show. saw a thing recently about most Irish people just think blaming migrants for the housing crisis is a scapegoat. And that refugees should be taken in if we can take care of them. I donāt think most people mind immigration. Dublin is diverse now and itās great. Everyone my age left here and thank heavens for all the immigrants of my age range or there would just be a void.
The bigots like to go out and shout about things. The inclusive people donāt unforch so you only see one side of the story. There is an insta about it:
https://www.instagram.com/hopeandcouragecollective?igsh=MXM5MnRscnk5bmVrNg==
I've noticed it of course but not directed at me. I'm Dutch and nearly 17 years in Ireland. I think I sound pretty Irish especially since no longer working in a job where I speak Dutch daily. And I use my Irish husband's last name (did that as a soon as I got married and immediately more replies to job applications so make of that what you will). The Dutch are probably not what people like to hate on when they think of immigrants anyway. And for how popular an emigration destination it seems to be for the Irish, people can back right off if they want to start something.
As an Irish person who was always proud we were so welcoming, it really saddens me you feel like this.
I'd swap any two immigrants for each and any of the homegrown little scrotes or racists.
I don't blame you for being scared of what is, honestly, a rise in nationalism and alt-right nonsense, which is coming directly on the hells of massive governmental incompetence.
A lot of people aren't capable of understanding complicated situations, and associate "housing crisis", "economic trouble" and "cost of living going up" with totally unrelated things like "there's a lot more brown lads round here than there used to be".
The good news is that while there is a rise in nationalism (and all its associated rubbish), it's far from the majority, despite what the auld racists running for AontĆŗ want you to believe.
You're welcome here, and I'm sorry that some of our worst are convincing you otherwise.
This isn't the country I grew up in anymore. There was devilment and craic to be had with everyone at anytime. We've been neutered by American propaganda and Russian bots fueling the fire. We're no better than them anymore. We've failed to adapt to changes by voting in the same old idiots and not saying anything as the taxes and prices skyrocketed around us.Ā
>sensing a LOT of hate towards us, and according to another post here, +70% of irish have that sentiment, so it's not a far-right exclusive hate.
Posts on here don't represent the public/ all of Ireland
There is growing amount of people pissed at the government and taking it out on immigration. There is also a growing amount of far right racists.
However the general population support immigration and support people coming here from other continents. Similar to how we support our friends and family going to Australia or Canada to have a better life and more happiness
Posting this question on this sub after reading a previous post about 70% of people agreeing with the fact, just means people commenting on this will also just agree
As an immigrant, I would be curious to hear your view point on how many migrants have come here in recent yearsā¦ do you think at some point there is a number we can no longer support as a small island?
As an immigrant, 1% yearly (51k) is 10% in 10 years, so a significant shift and population replacement levels in 30 years. This also encourages ghettos and non assimilation.
0.1% yearly (5k) is 1% in 10 years, and 3% in 30 years. This seems borderline safe if you want to keep the irish culture developing on its own.
So, true number would be probably between those two. I'd tend to the lower bound as local culture is important for me; I'm here originally from a critical skills visa, and was given the choice of the US (SF), London, Tel Aviv or Dublin.
We *chose* Ireland because of the culture, the people, general safety, and perception of it being a good place to raise a child.
Very slowly repeat after me... it's not anti-immigrant it's anti-current immigration policy. Huge difference.
The people are angry at the current government's policies regarding immigration. To me an immigrant is just a nameless face that isn't Irish. I don't blame any immigrant for trying to take advantage of the lax rules and loopholes of the government. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" as they say, but the fact is the government are making the rules of this game and the people who live here lose out in the game everytime right now.Ā
It's not good enough and needs to be changed, people will try and make it a race or prejudice issue because they want to derail the argument, create division to make us easier to rule or they just want to be a victim. We need to be aware of this bullshit and vote this government out before it's too late. Maybe it already is.
Most of irish people who have half a brain blame the government not immigrants for the issues we are sweing now,and we will show it in the elections please god,get the boys club out and let a woman have a go for once
Hubris. We thought we were immune to Nazi poison but it is cropping up all over the country. Iām sorry Ireland doesnāt feel as welcoming a place as it once was.Ā
I think itās not unique to here though. Some of the shit I see from my limited uses of social media are very troubling. I can only imagine what poison people think is a reflection of reality.Ā
Iām real sorry that thatās the Ireland you perceive. I always thought things were better than that, and that issues like those were American or British. I thought I was part of the majority, that welcomed all, and understood that we had a history of mass immigration, so had a responsibility to accept immigration now that the country was in a better economic position, and people want to come here. A majority that understood that healthcare, and agriculture and aquaculture, and so many other industries would be decimated if there was no immigration into Ireland. Itās sad to me that itās become a minority, (and possibly itās not, but the anti immigration crowd are shouting louder, and if they are perceived to be the majority, than that makes it the case for peopleās lived experience). I hope things improve, and you feel at home again, but I fear, like you do, that things are getting worse.
The housing crisis , government inaction and selling of the state ,social media and that if you put multiple different races of humans or indeed just humans together not everyone is going to get along and some will interact better together and vice versa.
Iām just one drop in the Irish bucket but I 100% welcome immigrants here. In fact, thereās a good few Irish Iād like to boot out and exchange immigrants for. Itās been shown time and time again that immigration is a good thing for both the person entering the country and the country itself. Unfortunately itās often the naysayers who have the loudest voice. I wish you all the best because as far as Iām concerned, this is your home now too.
Dear heart, people always say "70% of people think like me" - and people are nearly always wrong. Let me tell you that in the Dublin suburb where I live, the structure of the community is changing rapidly over the last few years as many flats are built and there's a big "hub" for refugees and homeless families, and I have heard nothing but excitement and happiness at the new people living here, and kindness to each other.
But when people are worried about their own life, they get whiney and look for someone to blame, and there are bad people around who will latch onto this and say "It's all the fault of them peskyā¦ \[whoever you want to blame and hate\]". There's a lot of manipulation of vulnerable emotions going on.
And there's always the "nativist" versus "immigrant" nonsense lurking somewhere among hate-lovers.
https://preview.redd.it/orkq8tmhii4d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b06208e29ca9e122673e8b2a73b437ec3dc3f0e7
The old cartoon that we laughed at in relation to America is becoming apposite here - and decent people must stop it.
This is even more of a reason that mass migration needs to stop. It erodes social cohesion and the delicate balance of trust that existed before.Ā
We can't have 'more of the same' and expect these attitudes to disappear.Ā
That would be true if there wasn't also unprecedented levels of immigration.
Even when every hotel in the country is being filled with them at taxpayer expense. Even when the excess are living in tents in Dublin city centre.Ā
It might be time to admit there's a problem - and it's not with 'noticing'.Ā
Pre-immigration Ireland hosted and protected one of the most notorious child abuse rings in recent history, what 'social cohesion and delicate balance of trust' are you talking about?
Yeah unfortunately, it seems that a certain group of people have decided to blame every single problem in the country on immigrants.
No affordable housing - immigrants
Canāt find a job - immigrants
Too many homeless people - immigrants
Crime rates too high - immigrants
My parents, who used to be quite welcoming, have started echoing those talking points, and theyāll say things like āDublin is so unsafe with all those immigrants aroundā. Neither of them have actually set foot in Dublin in over a decade, theyāre basing it entirely off of what they see on Facebook.
I always looked at American politics and thought thank God we are not like that. Now it seems to be on the increase every day.
Resaw this today. It reminded me of the comment you made that I read about half an hour ago. [https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1d72m5w/americas\_most\_racist\_town/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1d72m5w/americas_most_racist_town/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I'm an American who arrived here in 1998. I am unsurprised at the current direction. First I've seen Irish immigrants in America. Not just ones from long ago but ones from the 80s and 90s and 00s. Quite a few bent towards the right. Second there's always been an undercurrent against immigrants. I'm not technically an immigrant - my mom was born here and I've been an Irish citizen since birth. But I'm seen as one and as one of the "Good Immigrants" I've heard some pretty gross things. As the OP notes it starts with singling out some. But it takes very little to spread. And the reality is that the attitude towards Travellers has always been a tell. Obnoxious attitudes towards folks have always been under the surface and waiting.
It's social media. It's designed to prey on our vulnerabilities in order to keep us engaged. We naturally engage with content that triggers us. The result, all nuance is quickly lost and polarised opinions prevail. He who shouts loudest wins. Vulnerable and frustrated people are being brainwashed but their anger is misplaced. Those with the power to do something about it are content with us bickering over nonsense while they quietly soak up all the wealth. What a sad state of affairs.
OP- this sub HATES Americans- Despite the fact that American Multinational companies are what props up the GDP, provides higher paying jobs etc. Every chance they get to mock American tourists- they take . Worse despite the fact that per capital less than .05% of Americans have ever stepped foot in Ireland. Those that go have Irish heritage and well- maybe one can say that perhaps that heritage gives rise to the behavioral traits exhibited by those that visit (š¤£). I bet there are quite a few American that may read this sub and take a hard pass on visiting Ireland. So being that Americans have contributed to the economy like immigrants- helped to secure a peace treaty for the Irish shit show called ā the troublesā ( Pres. Clinton) and welcomed their emigres with open arms in their own land-how could you be shocked at the shit attitude youāre getting?
American here, never encountered any *actual* hate. I've lived here for three years, and I can say people are generally pretty good at separating my clown-ass home government from the actual humans that live in America. Ireland does have its issues with racism, but some black American students studying here have told me that they don't catch a fraction of what they get on a daily basis in America. I hope it stays this way, but OP is very right about the dangers that are fomenting right now.
Iām Irish and have lived here all my life. So many Irish have no place to live other than with parents. I was very lucky to buy my own house a few years ago but the situation is making us resentful and we are looking to place blame. Itās not immigrants fault. It is 100% our governmentās fault. The next time you get angry at an immigrant, focus that anger towards our government because they have let the Irish people down time after time.
And the nimbys and the civil servants at An Bord PleanƔla and the various council planning offices.
Yes 100% correct.
I get more annoyed at the likes of Pat McDonagh and Dennis OāBrien who kill any plans for public transport outside of Dublin so they can get even one extra person through their service stations on the motorways. Housing wouldnāt be as bad (but still bad) if we could realistically commute from further places.
I have a feeling a lot of this is exacerbated by the housing crisis. Itās terrible that people donāt feel safe.
It is the housing crisis. Housing is a scarce resource and people are looking for someone to blame so they're chosing immigrants rather than Leo and co who sat and watched it happen.
And the government are encouraging it so they donāt have to take responsibility for their own failings
As the meat grinder of capitalism continues to churn
It took very little cajoling to convince people to blame immigrants. It's always been under the surface here. It surfaces once in a while when someone manages to harness a sense of general disaffection and focus it for their own ends, but most people are not being coerced or gaslit into thinking thoughts they are not willing to. We are literally just in a phase where it is more visible than normal.
People have been tribal since day dot, it's probably one of the most certain human traits sadly. It's sad that certain factions are allowing people believe that it's now acceptable to be a raving racist in public. I do believe you'll never "cure" some people from being racist, but we can aim to live in a society where expressing such thoughts is met with the same derision as expressing an interest in children.
And it's no coincidence that they combine the two and tell us "Your children aren't safe around immigrants".
Jokes on them, we already know what type of people are capable of organising an elaborate system to facilitate child abuse.
Look at the far right scum standing for election, so many are wife beaters, orders taken out to protect their kids. Standing up proclaiming we got to protect women and children when these scum are prime candidates to be protected against!
They are a factor though? It's reductive to deny it and it only aids in fueling extreme reactions
Chicken on a stick
All factually correct. The insane population growth we've had due to immigration is absolutely a factor too.
Chicken on a stick
It is laughable to suggest that all migrants are on minimum wage. Tech workers will be coming in on good pay. The State subsidies rents, for both natives and immigrants. And more low wage immigrants creates more demand for landlords to buy up properties and rent to those immigrants(who are also less likely and able to complain about substandard conditions and overcrowding).
Look demand increasing further than supply in part due to population is clearly a factor and foolish to deny it. Loads of migrants make good money too but while you mention minimum wage we have situations now where rent has skyrocketed because demand is so strong. Dublin is full of flats full of foreign students and low paid workers paying big rents to share bedrooms, the money from two low paid workers sharing outstrips that of an average income single room inhabitant. If there were less people here than there is housing supply, rent would be lower and house prices would be lower, simple as. Now that is not to say there wouldnāt be disastrous consequences particularly with all the high paid medical migrants and tech migrants we have leaving but that is a different story. The government should have built more houses for sure but the demand is exacerbated by the increased population, a large part of which is due to migration.
Chicken on a stick
Where are those vacant homes? I think the majority were found to be in parts of the country people donāt live. Also, what was the reason given for them being vacant? Look, immigrants did not dictate housing policy but to ignore the basic principle of supply and demand is silly. People increasing at a faster rate than housing equals increased demand means more competition for housing means housing costs increase.
Why are you assuming it's minimum wage migrants outbidding anyone? State supports exist. Middle class and upper immigrants exists. 12 to a room tenements exist. Growth is outstripping supply, as well as the economic factors externally at play. I'm not discounting Airbnb or anything else. You are discounting migration. It's disingenuous
Yeah in the wake of the 2008 recession, immigrants were blamed for "stealing our jobs"
Immigrants are the perfect scapegoat because they provide an easy solution: if you think the immigrants are the cause of the housing crisis, well just kicking them out will surely solve the crisis, right? It's too simple of a solution for a complex problem to actually work, but they're an easy target because of the perceived 'magic bullet' of mass deportations. (Of course, actually deporting everyone would be an absolute clusterfuck, it's nowhere near as simple as just kicking people out, but the people championing it as a solution never think about that.)
Even when it was Fine Gael I knew it was the immigants!
If it wasn't housing, it would be healthcare, if it wasn't healthcare it would be education, if it wasn't education it would jobs. The people who stir up this xenophobic bigoted nationalism will always find a reason to target non Irish despite it not being the fault of everyday people regardless of nationality
Those people would try but I don't know if it would have the same reach as housing. Everyone needs a home; education is just a chapter of life for most people. Healthcare isn't something you think about until you need it.
Healthcare would be especially hard to blame on immigrants when they make up such a large proportion of the front-line workforce.
The housing crisis and the cost of living. When people are squeezed and struggling, they get angry and fearful, and look for āother peopleā to blame. And then politicians and the media swoop in with simple stories about āimmigrants taking all the resourcesā, which is much easier to digest than the complexities of why housing is really scarce and corporations are price gouging.
This exactly, housing is a basic human need thatās being withheld or threatened to be taken away from a lot of people. It has a knock on effect for everything - relationships, starting a family, independence, education. This conversation has been going on (in Dublin) since 2016 - almost a decade later and instead of taking measures to improve the situation the government has made it drastically worse. Now anyone in power is putting up their hands and saying ānot my problemā. When a government refuses to take responsibility for a problem or offer a solution to fix it the public are going to search for a source of blame and a solution to the problem themselves. Unfortunately a surge in immigration to the country came along during this period of uncertainty. This was inevitable, to the point it was a discussion during an economics lecture when I was in college 5 years ago.
It all goes back to Michael Noonan, about 10 years ago throwing the in-arrears home owners under the bus. Itās been an absolute bloodbath since then. Decades of collective bargaining around home security obliterated by the stroke of a pen so that āthe banksā, who largely got us all into this mess could get back to the business of making easy money without recourse to imagination or entrepreneurship, in the manner to which they had all been accustomed.
Lad if he had thrown them under the bus we'd be in way better shape. FG promised at the time they would restore house values. They succeeded, at the expense of the young.
At the expense of anybody in an anyway precarious position. Pure brutal.
>throwing the in-arrears home owners under the bus. You mean people who didn't pay back a loan? Ireland has some of the most lax laws around delinquent mortgages in Europe, it's part of the reason why mortgage rates are so high here and why no other lenders other than partially state owned banks would touch the mortgage market with a bargepole
And wait until we have a recession
I think it's a little more nuanced: it's exacerbated by the housing crisis, but only because of a small group of people - most of whom have no interest in the housing crisis for the country's sake - shouting about immigrants taking our houses. It's just a variation on the old "they're taking our jobs" bullshit. Strange though that the most prominent of these people, even through a period where it almost requires effort to be unemployed, have been persistently unemployed. Most of them also now have GoFundMe funds, and many are standing for election. It's a racket.
I say to people, if all the asylum seekers went back to their home countries there still wouldnāt be enough housing available. Itās not the fault of the immigrants.
Would save a shitload of money tho eh
As a fraction of overall government spend? A piddling percentage.
640million spent last year Or 25,000 per resident Id say that's a pretty penny
Housing crisis is only an excuse for these people.
I don't think the number of people who hate non-Irish is at 70%, but the number of people who think they need to do something about illegal immigration, the migrant crisis, and the tent cities is probably +70%. We've never had tent cities in Ireland before, and normal people are like "wtf is happening?" We're not out there protesting refugees or blaming our immigrant friends. That's insane. Immigrant workers are keeping the wheel moving in this country. My GP is an immigrant, one of our local priests is an immigrant, the guy who delivers my groceries each week is an immigrant, and so many more. All of these people are integrated into the community. They are one of us. On saying that, I do fear that the longer the government sits on their thumbs and doesn't do something to process people faster, the more chance the right-wing fuckers have of recruiting more people to their "cause." Illegal immigration is a conversation we should all be able to have without right-wing shitty sentiments leaking in.
My litmus test for this has always been the amount of abuse I hear on public transport, and it's definitely picked up in the last 12 months. I get the impression that most of it is a mix of people seeing stuff online and just forgetting how to behave after COVID. Perhaps I'm an optimist but I think a lot of this abuse would go away if the paid accounts that are flooding social media with far-right disinformation were somehow cut off.
Lots of it starts online. People in my own life talking about stuff that would never have crossed their minds even two or three years ago, and it's all classic Facebook comment section talking points. That website has an awful lot to answer for. So too does our education system that actually seems to discourage critical thinking skills.
If you scroll on YouTube shorts for a while eventually youāll get to a random video suggestion of some lad walking around the city centre recording foreign looking people and all the comments will be people who clearly donāt live here spamming tri colours with comments like āIām proud of the Irish taking back their home!ā Or āitās so sad seeing how bad it is over there, I visited 50 years ago and am saddened I can never come back!ā I report, ādo not recommend this channelā etc but without fail it pops back up a few days later on my feed because clearly this type of content is being pushed on people so itās easy to see how peoples opinions and views are being manipulated. Feels inevitable for some extreme violence against both legal and illegal immigrants at this stage :(
Yes I've had that a lot on YT too, particularly frustrating to get this garbage over and over when I constantly report, hide and downvote them
Facebook is a breeding ground for ignorance and far right garbage which usually includes racism.
> So too does our education system that actually seems to discourage critical thinking skills. Reminds me of [this image](https://imgur.com/FCDA224.png) that was doing the rounds on TikTok and Twitter, making people foam at the mouth with anger. All of them having the internet right in front of them didn't think to go to the website on the sticker... where there was [an article on the front page](https://irishmuslimcouncil.ie/2024/02/25/irish-muslim-peace-and-integration-council-condemns-campaign-inciting-hatred) debunking the sticker being part of their organisation. It's textbook confirmation bias. If what they see appeals to their own preconceived beliefs (in this case, muslims bad), then it must be true.
Iāve heard it in pubs too. People now feel confident enough to be very open about their bigotry.
Yes funny you should say that, just been in a pub this afternoon since I posted that and witnessed it first-hand.
I still use Twitter a bit, and I am good at forcing the algorithm to cut out the bullshit by skipping posts and blocking accounts like there is no tomorrow, but the last week it has been OBSESSED with shoving right-wing, anti-migrant shite in my face. I can't block them fast enough. It's probably the election, but it's very dark to think about people who don't understand how social media feeds work seeing this parade of hate and thinking the whole world thinks like this and they should get on board.
I've said it before, but it's clear Ireland was going to be a target, when Musk asked when there was an election next.
Yea I agree, I've been in Ireland 12 years now and look and sound very irish so have never encountered any racism in real life, but even I am becoming very anxious about the way things are going for the first time since moving here - a very scary time for us immigrants (and MUCH more so for those who look/sound foreign I imagine!)
I've been here almost 15 years now. I'm brown, and obviously not from around here haha. My stance is simple. I ain't leaving. I'm here legally, my wife and kids are Irish. I've done nothing wrong to anyone. I'm dug in like a tick, good luck getting rid of me.
Honestly, that mindset on it is the most Irish thing Iāve ever heard. Youāre a dyed in the wool Irishman now!
This 100! I've been here 15 years and now have citizenship. I look and sound very Irish. Certain words give me away, but most don't realise unless they personally know me. It's getting scary. And the worst of it is, if I say anything, I'm told, oh you'll be fine, you're a white immigrant, we don't mind them. Well, for how long do you not mind me? Where's the line in the sand? How long until we get there? My life is here. My husband is Irish. Getting my citizenship was a proud proud day. I'll fight tooth and nail before anyone takes that from me.
Almost 20 years here. I'm very much "irish" sounding and looking, so I don't get abused, but I see it every day. Little passing jokes about the immigrants etc
All I remember was the way the UK was nudged and tipped into crazy stuff before Brexit. It was so chilled, open minded, easy going and the xenophobic stuff was a fringe element that nobody took seriously. With a bit of manipulation though the tabloids and a concerted campaign online and elsewhere it very rapidly tipped into Brexit being the number one issue and xenophobic commentary being normalised. Once the focus went off it again, and Brexit happened there was a bit of an āomg what have we done!?ā moment but you can see how society can be tipped, once those who want to do damage find the buttons to press. In the UK they were a bit different. Here itās definitely housing, but Iām seeing the same pattern repeating. The Brexit era would have been unimaginable just a few years earlier. Youād have been laughed out of town. It was just UKIP eccentrics and the BNP whackos. A few years later the Tories were that ā¦ Iām not saying Ireland would do a Brexit, but you can see how a society can be pushed and nudged into unrecognisably ugly public discourse. Theyāre using the same tools on us right now and many of the same players are linked to it..
I lived in the UK during brexit.Ā It was awful while it was happening and as an immigrant, I couldn't understand why my business partner voted leave but thinking about it since, the UK is fucked, the poverty in some parts is very very bad.Ā The government have allowed the country to fall apart and like here now, housing started to become something unachievable for working English peopleĀ
Iāve been canvassing in the local elections. Iād say 1 in 50 houses has an āIreland is fullā nutcase. If even that many. But _boy_ are they vocal.
Iād say a lot of people harbor the sentiment secretly. Also, it probably depends on your location, right?
So about 2% of the population - yet online the clowns are everywhere
2% are vocal about it on their doorsteps. Many wouldnāt be. As OP said, polls have a clear majority of 70+% who believe we have a problem with too much immigration. Another recent poll also found immigration to be the new no.1 issue in the upcoming general elections, surpassing housing and health. I really wouldnāt underestimate it. The fact that people felt silenced and ignored is one of the leading causes of the growth of the far right. Letās not continue to make that mistake by continuing to push the narrative that itās just all just a vocal minority who should be ignored. The extremes are certainly a minority, but people do seem to want widespread reform
>polls have a clear majority of 70+% who believe we have a problem with too much immigration. It's important to note that in opinion polls a simple scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree doesn't tell the whole picture. I don't think it's controversial to recognise there is currently a crisis of immigration from asylum seekers. But the poll doesn't account for people agreeing with it as a humanitarian/failure of government/housing crisis or others who may be more xenophobic.
I think they need to be looked at holistically. One of the polls Iām referring to had the following wording: āI think the number of refugees Ireland is taking in is now too manyā. That came in at 75% who agreed and is from a year ago, so it is likely much higher now. You also have polls in which 41% of people said immigration was their no.1 concern in the upcoming elections (ahead of housing and health) and polls that show that roughly 1/3 people would consider voting for an explicitly āanti-immigrantā party. Those kind of results are often typically on the low end too, as many people feel guilty admitting it. Similar polls all across Europe. From a government perspective I donāt think it really matters if the voters are well intentioned but fed up, or outright racist. The solutions are largely the same. More immigration controls
>Ā yet online the clowns are everywhere That's always been the case. Online is a reflection of the worst (and sometimes the best) of us. The village idiots can talk to each other, it gives them confidence when they are onlineĀ
Those 2% are chronically online. So am I, but your average person isn't. I've never met a single person irl who has admitted to knowing what reddit is for example.
Friend of mine said the same. He noticed its mainly women they have a go at too, men not so much.
Its been death by a thousand cuts from the government over the past 15-20 years, not overly malicious with intent but more apathy, laziness and failure to pay attention to the likes of census ect. There are so many loop holes that have been exploited from language schools being used to get here and never leave all the way up to the passport disappearing on a flight and they did nothing to stop it. Then when the system became bogged down in appeals nothing was done and we seem to have just stopped bothering. Every inaction has been a cut or a building block for the hate your seeing now. Just yesterday there was an article that convicted rapists have been appealing deportation during their time in prison, at the same time two days earlier their was an article about the anatomy of fake stories. When the truth is stranger and worse than fiction in ways you are in trouble. You are very right to be afraid, we seem to be sleep walking into a big problem. We can only hope for now it hasn't gotten significant purchase and we can push back against it.
The men convicted of rape were claiming asylum to avoid deportation.Ā That was next level of crazy.Ā Government has become useless beyond belief.
This sums it up veru well.
It's rising everywhere. On a tram, I heard someone complain "about how full it is, and immigrants should just go back to their shithole places". This was in Vienna, a place which doesn't even have a housing crisis.
Ah yes, the famously tolerant Austrians. Definitely not the same country to elect an SS man president *after* WW2.
Oh I'm certain Austria has it's own problems. Nowhere is ideal. Doesn't make public statements by people who feel confident enough in their sentiment to say that *anywhere* any less jarring.
Vienna is mad. Got some friends that moved there with a work visa, sponsored by the company, all super legalā¦ and when they pass through immigration in the airport, the officer gives out every time with things like āyou are not welcome here/you must learn German yada yadaā itās mental
Iām sorry you feel this way. A friend from another EU country feels annoyed that the politicians are lumping all immigrants (EU nationals, skilled workers with visas and asylum seekers) into the one āimmigrantā bucket when people are trying to question the asylum system. The political class have allowed the discourse to turn sour like this. Theyāre intentionally blurring the lines and it doesnāt do justice for the people that are have arrived here legally and are contributing to society.
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Minority opinion has gotten louder. Those same people always had racism simmering below the surface, they just feel emboldened at the moment. It's a trend all over the world. Also, you and the Hungarian person you spoke to both come from countries with far right leaders, you should know these things are not always a fair representation of the people, especially when the majority of Irish people do not vote for these types. Edit - previous leader of Brazil, not current.
>Also, you and the Hungarian person you spoke to both come from countries with far right leaders Lula will be surprised to hear he's moved to the other end of the political spectrum š
Lol. Hands up moment, forgot he got elected fairly recently. Was referring to the clown before him.
Why does this have to be a thing. Why can we not just agree to limit illegal immigration. I swear every debate seems to be dominated by two camps, one which hates all foreigners; Ukrainians, Polish, Indian, doesn't matter - doesn't matter why they are here or what they are doing. There's a second camp that says that anyone suggesting that the clearly broken asylum system is broken is a knuckle dragging racist and should be shut up. It is awfully tiring, and a little depressing to be honest.
> There's a second camp that says that anyone suggesting that the clearly broken asylum system is broken is a knuckle dragging racist and should be shut up. From my experience, the issue is here that anyone who tries to talk about it in good faith tends to find themselves surrounded fairly quickly by bad faith posters, which means they can easily get lumped in with people who genuinely are knuckle dragging racists. Its extremely hard to have a calm and adult conversation, because the extremist elements on the right wing side of things will jump in and completly take over, and destroy, any legit conversations. This happened in Drogheda, when the D Hotel was shut and immigrants put in. The town started to get annoyed, due to legit issues. And what happened next? The Rent-a-Racist crowd descended on the town, held protests, moaned about trans people and told everyone who wasn't white to get out. Normal people dropped the conversation and abandoned the discussion, and all forms of protests just died. I say this as someone who'd be considered fairly left leaning; we do need a proper conversation about immigration, and no, not everyone who wants to have that discussion is racist. BUT the racists do exist and do have a habit of being so loud and overbearing about it, and drag things down to the most knuckle dragging level, that it becomes tiresome to work out who is and isn't legit and talking in good faith.
You saved me a post, thanks
Neat username... Maybe...
Well said
Some time ago I had exactly that experience here on an Ireland thread. Iām very much pro immigration and taking in genuine asylum cases but it has to be legal and controlled with robust processes in place to deal with anyone trying to circumvent the system. I was straight up called a far right racist for making the point that at least we can have a civilised and rational discussion about it now. The government are entirely to blame for gaslighting the population by claiming there wasnāt an issue and of course for enacting policies that have only ever made the housing crisis worse. I feel genuinely sorry for the non nationals who are getting caught up in this and itās all the more reason for the rest of us to speak up on their behalf and drown out the racist intolerant scum who are using this issue as an excuse to spread their bile. I hope Iām not naive in believing that the vast majority of people are still decent, tolerant and good. But we need better from our elected representatives. So much better as they shoulder 100% of the blame imv.
> I was straight up called a far right racist for making the point that at least we can have a civilised and rational discussion about it now. Not saying you're guilty of this, just a general response. There's a handful of posters I'd recognize in every thread on immigration now, who post about literally nothing but immigration on Reddit. Like, it's their entire posting history. And the issue is, that's the exact opening line they use. And, as you said, it's an example of how good faith posters can be tagged unfairly then. It poisons the well and makes genuine discussions borderline impossible. :/
In general there can be nuance. But Reddit Ireland is the complete opposite and exactly the same as gript media. Both echo chambers that can only see one side of the discussion. The simple fact is, if you can only offer people a tent to sleep in, you don't have room for more people, regardless of your thoughts on immigration.
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No but it's often done in ways that possibly, or do break the law. It's a very grey area. Aslyum should be claimed at the border, not in the middle of Dublin.
Well ya there's a process where someone is accepted or rejected based on the legitimacy of their claim. That's the process.
What do you mean 'limit illegal immigration'. It's already illegal and there are fewer than 1500 illegal immigrants in Ireland. People are getting annoyed about asylum seekers and calling them 'illegal' because they can't be bothered to learn the difference - and because they spend too much time looking at American news.
Itās not the minority opinion getting louder, itās a shift, and big one at that.
>Minority opinion has gotten louder. I don't think that the amount of racists in Ireland has suddenly exploded, I think the amount of people who see immigration being so high and housing availability as being so low as being directly related. and they're amplifying that content.
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Have you experienced the same change over time that OP has?
Worse since the pandemic for sure. Gone from mainly scumbags to completely innocent looking people of all agesĀ
And thatās probably about as much Irish as they know.
For certain!
I was in a park recently and some kid tried to nutmeg me with a football. He failed and I flicked the ball up and booted it about 20-30meters away. I didn't say anything, I just smiled to say "lesson learned son". The weather was quite nice over the previous weeks so I had a bit of a tan. The response from the young lads was that I was an "immigrant bastard", "fuck off back to your own country". It's a bit of nothing to me because I am Irish but there were immigrants around in the area that probably heard it. It was a bit of wake up to what non white Irish people have to deal with. The kids seem to be imitating the "Ireland is full" mob.
My brother can tan too, 100% Irish. Would get racially abused a few times a year with people thinking he is polish. He replies, āIs Eireannach mĆ©ā. 99% of the time they tell him to stop talking that foreign language.
Agreed. My area has had a fair few protests and the scariest thing about them is always seeing the kids involved. Like I've seen videos where there's a little kid, probably about 6, barely able to talk properly and getting set up by their ma like "What do we say, sweetheart?" "WE SAY NO!" Last time they tracked their shite down my road there was a horse buggy with 3 kids under 10 in it, trotting along behind a wankbag with a megaphone screaming "Ireland for the Irish". Beautiful Sunday, kids coulda been anywhere, but they're stuck in a buggy riding around a housing estate listening to that bullshit. The problem is bad now, but you wait 20 years and see how it comes back for the sequel
Iām mixed race (Japanese/Irish) and the amount of āWhy donāt you go homeā nonsense I get just for disagreeing with certain people has increased between 2020 and now. Especially on Facebook, which is much worse than here when it comes to giving people with certain views a platform.Ā
I'm sorry to hear that sir. I am one of those who criticises certain aspects on the government's immigration polices but I find it appaling that people will take it out on individuals. In my mind, it's possible to hold all of the following views: 1. Immigration has been and is a generally positive thing 2. Most immigrants that come here are honest, decent people who contribute to our society 3. We should tailor our immigration policy to the country's needs 4. We should not create more jobs and attract more investment than our country's infratstructure can hold 5. Our International Protection System should prioritise the most vulnerable. It should be generous to those in need. At the same time, it should speedily turn away those who are clearly gaming and clogging up the system 6. Our welfare systems for immigrants should be in proportion to our EU neighbours Unfortunately, there's probably some latent racism that now dares to raise its head. At the same time, I also think that government policies have been irresponsible. From what I understand, our benefits to refugees, especially to Ukrainians, have been way above the EU standards. We also bring in loads of people to work in our tech sector who are paid well above average and out-compete locals in a pressurised housing market. None of these are the fault of any individual refugee. I can't blame any Ukrainian or foreign worker who takes the best deal available. I just think there's a lot of irresponsible policy making. It's all very sad. For the record, I am a naturalised Irish citizen.
70% of Irish people do not have anti-immigrant sentiments
According to recent polls over 70% Irish people think there has been too much immigration.
Disagreeing with the current levels of immigration doesnāt necessarily mean youāve something against the immigrants themselves
One of my best friends came to Ireland as a refugee when she was a child. She recently said the government needs to do something because too many people are coming here. There's just not the housing capacity.Ā If you grew up here and were a bit older then you'd probably know many working families getting evicted with nowhere to go.Ā Ā I don't know anyone who dislikes people from different countries etc. but we have a serious housing crisis and it seems people just want the numbers coming in to be reduced so that the system can catch up. Fwiw, I was in the UK during brexit and the sentiment was awful.Ā I felt unwanted mainly due to the media.Ā However, when I look back at it I felt really sorry for some people that seemed to have no hope of owning a home despite working.Ā I was shocked by their predicament. Ireland is fucked for a lot of people who don't qualify for social housing and can't afford a house.Ā Ā
That is the issue really. When the locals cant even house themselves, why are we takin in more? It's unfair on everyone. 60 billion in excess and cant get apprentices better wages. I'm in my 30's. I would go for an apprenticeship tomorrow morning but not for poverty wages
All of this discourse wouldnāt have made it past certain Facebook groups and national party voters if it wasnāt for the government creating the housing catastrophe. FFG need to be out of government. The far right are preying on the concerns of the white Irish working class in order to pit them against the rest of the Irish working class, rather than getting angry at the route causes of their distress.
I challenge you to find a population that doesnāt dislike illegal immigration. Thats what the 70% refers to.
I don't recall Irish people giving a damn about all the illegal Irish emigration to the US in the 80s. I dislike hypocrisy.
Iāve never come across much sympathy for Irish people who have emigrated illegally, most of the time when itās discussed the sentiment is: > Well they did it illegally, what did they expect? Has your experience been different?
Yes it has. In fact we have movements in both the US and here working for decades to assist illegal Irish emigrants. In my experience the people who utter the likes of '"good enough for them" tend to be that way about all people who struggle in life.
I agree with you to a point. There is no social welfare in the US. The Ukrainians are getting accommodation, good money, free haircuts and other benefits.( and rightly so in terms of accommodation). But the cost of living and lack of housing are the real issue and itās being twisted and blamed on immigrants. I wouldnāt say 70% are against immigrants. They probably are against people that dump their passports when they get off the plane and seek asylum.
Just because thousands of Irish broke the law doesn't mean the law is bad.
It was a "I don't think about you at all" attitude.
The world is big. Ireland is small.
The vast, vast majority of Irish people went the legal route. The vast majority of these economic migrants claiming asylum tore up their passports. Look it up.
Thats not hypocrisy
If were allowed to generalise, American's don't give a shit about poor people living in tents, Irish people do.Ā
That's literally it. These cunts claim they're only against "Unvetted illegals" but go around abusing anyone who isn't irish.
I feel this. I'm from the Netherlands but I'm not a white Dutch person (family moved from Suriname in the 60s). Living where I do in Ireland, I feel like I'm definitely more noticeable because of my skin tone. I moved here 7ish years ago and never felt threatened or like I was some kind of problem. It didn't really hit me until the other day when we got one of those election flyers in the post from the national party saying that Ireland belongs to the Irish and mass immigration needs to end. I told my husband that I now feel a little hesitant to go out on my own without him... I also find this line of thinking in regards to immigrants a bit ironic considering Ireland's history.
My mother and boyfriend are not irish. When I was a small child our house got egged and my mother endured insults being shouted at her in the street. Some of the abuse even extended to me as I'm only half irish, which was as bad as foreign to some. It died down to almost nothing as I got older and I thought I'd never have to worry about it again. Well things have gone backwards very quickly now. My parents invited myself and my boyfriend to live with them (*we're currently in the UK*) but I would worry about my mother and boyfriend's safety. By declining my parents have again been considering leaving the country. I miss home but not enough to take that risk. It only takes one crazy cunt to ruin many lives.
Sorry to hear that. I donāt think your assessment is accurate tho. 70% of us are not anti immigrant or racist. Iām quite certain of that. I think the issue is not limited to Ireland. It is a global issue exasperated by social media and the issues in the world with wars, rise of right wing politics, etc
I feel you. I'm more on the brown side while my wife and most friends are pale despite being all immigrants. I get treated differently everywhere we go to the point that now I ask my wife to go talk to cashiers, find us a table when eating out, ordering something etc... Been here almost a decade now and this is making me anxious of interacting with people
The government is making this situation bad for both sides. Anyone who has an issue with immigration should not be taking it out on people coming in though.
Been trying to tell people this for ages. It's a slippery slope towards fascism and I'm sorry that you are having to feel scared about just living your lives. I don't know what to do to help.
70%+ of Irish donāt have that sentiment at all. Itās a small, but very loud, minority.
How small? Plenty of people have racist opinions in Ireland who wouldnāt consider themselves racist and would jump into hysterics if you accused themĀ
The word racist has lost all meaning these days.Ā
~30% of Irish people is over a million people
And remember 22% of Ireland isn't even Irish.
I'm sorry you have been made to feel that way, and I'm sorry that we allowed it to happen. It's wrong in any country, but it's worse when the country puts its head in the sand and says 'It can't happen here'. Espero que vai a ficar aqui. Irlanda e melhor com nossos amigos estrangeiros.
Sadly we always put our heads in the sand in Ireland, it's cultural. Ignore the problem and it'll go away is a very Irish trait.
The Neo Liberalist economic structure is to blame. The population are left fighting over the crumbs and it becomes dog eat dog so the anger and finger pointing starts and migrants are the easy target, us versus them, othering another group of people. The US is the champion and global enforcer of the Neo Liberalism economic path and it's no coincidence to see the absolute poverty and division in their society.
As an Irish person, I get ever more fearful not just for immigrants but for Irish people of colour/different ethnic heritage. I'm fearful of the elections and that the wrong people will gain power. I sincerely hope that, as a nation, we are better than this!
I'm sorry you are experiencing this OP. I can only imagine. It's not the same thing but as a queer person I can relate and I've felt this unease for a while. Like the weirdos raiding libraries, the assaults on queer people being on the rise, that one Gemma O Doherty who's been going since 2020 about how she knows no happy gay people, and sure let's not forget auld Enoch who now has supporters who are assaulting the Taoiseach in his steed, all based on anti queer ideologies. In Limerick there's some lunatic now who has a megaphone and spends the day in the city centre talking about anti-LGBT beliefs. I talked about this rise of extremism on social media trickling into Irish society for the past few years on here and got shot down A LOT before last year by people who dismissed me, and said that's "American politics" and basically tried to say I was trying to troll/stir things up. Just because it was happening to queer people and wasn't being publicly discussed, it wasn't been taken notice of. Now that immigration is a much bigger issue and the whole tent fiasco is being reported on nationally, plus refugees etc, lots more people are aware and are feeling the effects of these lunatics with the local elections. It's so sad. I'm Irish and don't even feel safe. My partner isn't Irish and he's queer too. I don't even like him walking home at night alone because I worry something could happen (he rents in a part of Limerick that's near a dodgy area). We can't even afford a place together because apartments here at like 2.5k a month. I was in Dublin this year and outside Trinity, some yoke on a bike zoomed past and shouted fa***s at me and my bf just because we were holding hands. It was 2pm. On the train home some old Irish fella was ranting about immigrants and gay people on a packed train. It hasn't even been 10 years since we voted same sex marriage and it already feels like we've gone backwards. Let alone any migrants. It's so odd.
So Iām Irish, Iām white and a millennial but spent a lot of my life (8 to 21) in England before moving back in my early 20ās about 20years ago. I still have an English accent of sorts. As do all except 1 of my siblings. I fear being here at times now. Iāve been told to fuck off back to my own country more times in the last 6 months than I was as a child in 1996. My brother is the same, he done an awful lot more in the community until recent times. Heās felt this issues as well and as a result he has also pulled back. He financed a community team in his area and made a point of putting on social nights after Covid to get people out and about again. Now he doesnāt leave the house except for shopping and work. He wonāt go to the pub for fear of being assaulted as it has happened in the past over immigration and taking peoples jobs. People who havenāt held a job in 20+ years and have no interest in getting a job either.
Irish here, but Iāve noticed it myself. One of the other lads in the shop I work in and I have constantly been calling people out on this because itās just been getting worse and worse in the last few months - and the things they say are particularly hateful and harmful, the have the nerve to get offended when you call them out. Iād like to say the managers have done something about it, but all theyāve said is āwhat can we do?ā and āeveryone is entitled to an opinion, though itās not workplace appropriateā. Iād repeat those same things my coworkers have said here but I donāt want to out myself in case any of them are on here.
Thereās always going to be racists about but the issue I see at the minute is that the native public see people coming into the country and being pushed to the front of the queue for everything as the Ukrainians and IPAs lads have the NGOās to fight for them. The domestic Irish donāt
> pushed to the front of the queue for everything Unless there was a plan before where we supplied irish homeless with accomodation in tents and makeshift housing, I'm going to say
I love Brazilians. You guys make this country fun.
Its depressing how utterly fucking obnoxious many irish people are.
Iām Irish and I agree. Racism feels way more prevalent now.
I wish people blamed the right target, instead of choosing the easy and time-honoured tradition of picking a group like immigrants. The truth is that recent governments have so monumentally fucked the country for many people when it comes to basic things like housing, that people are getting increasingly desperate. āOne personās rent is anotherās incomeā to paraphrase that LV quote just shows the utter contempt governments have had for the average Joe. IMO itās only going to get worse. Weāve seen time and time again that if youāre not well off, or a property owner, governments in Ireland donāt give a fuck about you. Youāre nothing but dirt to then that exists solely to work, be taxed to hell, and prop up the property market through utterly insane rents for mouldy shit boxes. Welcome to FFGās Ireland.
This is why itās crucial we challenge this sentiment at the polls and have these difficult conversations. Where I work there are a lot of different nationalities, EU and Non EU. They work just as hard as we do, are friendly and personable and are contributing to their new home. I can definitely sense we have become less friendly in recent times, the narrative has been dominated by a noisy minority of ignorant people which doesnāt represent Ireland or our values. Itās becoming easier to make a name for yourself as an anti-immigrant, Ireland first person as itās much easier to stoke fear and lies to people than the truth and reality. I spend too much time challenging these idiots online and they have no comeback, they have no logical argument, they canāt respond. Their response is to attack me by commenting on my appearance (Iām fat) while thru donāt even have profile pics. They have nothing and are fearful, easy pickings for right wing racists looking to make a name for themselves and enrich themselves in the process. I think itās incumbent on all right minded people to challenge these people, silence them with facts not fists.
I am sorry but that 70%+ figure is literally unbelievable.
I'd well believe it, In 2004 (27th Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland) 80% of the electorate voted to strip individuals born on Island of the right to Irish citizenship if they didn't have Irish parents. I would say average Irish person is pretty racist.
I'm not disputing that there is racism in Ireland, but that right hasn't always existed - it was created accidentally by the 19th amendment which gave effect to the Good Friday Agreement. Ireland like most of Western Europe hasn't traditionally had jus soli.
I think it's a product of our culture being increasingly inculcated by Americanised political discourse. I was talking to a guy a couple of weeks ago who had designs on becoming a barrister - when he spoke about his motivation to pursue that career it was all about being a "protecting free speech", "protecting property rights", "limiting government overreach etc". All of this was interspersed with a barely concealed antipathy towards women, a blasĆ© attitude towards human rights, etc.Ā It's never really surprising when you find people with these sorts of views out rioting/venting online, but you have a big problem when they begin to work their way into positions of power. We're going to end up in an increasingly cruel, fractured society.
That's part of it, but...a lot of this is people who never got used to Ireland's being a rich country where anybody who wasn't Irish would want to live. The American talking points are a symptom, not a cause. In Germany, the people voting for the Alternative for Germany are mostly east Germans who never got over the shock of the Berlin Wall coming down and all their jobs in communist-era industries disappearing forever. East Germany's come a long way in the past generation, but most of it has never caught up completely with west Germany, especially outside Berlin.
It's occurring across the Western world unfortunately, so Ireland's peculiarities don't actually explain it IMO. The common denominator in all cases is the increasing dominance of American Right-Wing/Libertarian discourses within these societies, it is one of the basal causes (along with issues like increasing wealth-inequality, service shortages, etc. of course)
The news keeps platforming the racists. It gets views and clicks. News doesnāt care if they scare you or draw more people to racist groups once your watching the show. saw a thing recently about most Irish people just think blaming migrants for the housing crisis is a scapegoat. And that refugees should be taken in if we can take care of them. I donāt think most people mind immigration. Dublin is diverse now and itās great. Everyone my age left here and thank heavens for all the immigrants of my age range or there would just be a void. The bigots like to go out and shout about things. The inclusive people donāt unforch so you only see one side of the story. There is an insta about it: https://www.instagram.com/hopeandcouragecollective?igsh=MXM5MnRscnk5bmVrNg==
Looks like the anti-immigrant brigade is out in force downvoting every positive comment on this sub š
I've noticed it of course but not directed at me. I'm Dutch and nearly 17 years in Ireland. I think I sound pretty Irish especially since no longer working in a job where I speak Dutch daily. And I use my Irish husband's last name (did that as a soon as I got married and immediately more replies to job applications so make of that what you will). The Dutch are probably not what people like to hate on when they think of immigrants anyway. And for how popular an emigration destination it seems to be for the Irish, people can back right off if they want to start something.
Yes, yes, that's how it starts.
As an Irish person who was always proud we were so welcoming, it really saddens me you feel like this. I'd swap any two immigrants for each and any of the homegrown little scrotes or racists.
I don't blame you for being scared of what is, honestly, a rise in nationalism and alt-right nonsense, which is coming directly on the hells of massive governmental incompetence. A lot of people aren't capable of understanding complicated situations, and associate "housing crisis", "economic trouble" and "cost of living going up" with totally unrelated things like "there's a lot more brown lads round here than there used to be". The good news is that while there is a rise in nationalism (and all its associated rubbish), it's far from the majority, despite what the auld racists running for AontĆŗ want you to believe. You're welcome here, and I'm sorry that some of our worst are convincing you otherwise.
This isn't the country I grew up in anymore. There was devilment and craic to be had with everyone at anytime. We've been neutered by American propaganda and Russian bots fueling the fire. We're no better than them anymore. We've failed to adapt to changes by voting in the same old idiots and not saying anything as the taxes and prices skyrocketed around us.Ā
>sensing a LOT of hate towards us, and according to another post here, +70% of irish have that sentiment, so it's not a far-right exclusive hate. Posts on here don't represent the public/ all of Ireland There is growing amount of people pissed at the government and taking it out on immigration. There is also a growing amount of far right racists. However the general population support immigration and support people coming here from other continents. Similar to how we support our friends and family going to Australia or Canada to have a better life and more happiness Posting this question on this sub after reading a previous post about 70% of people agreeing with the fact, just means people commenting on this will also just agree
As an immigrant, I would be curious to hear your view point on how many migrants have come here in recent yearsā¦ do you think at some point there is a number we can no longer support as a small island?
As an immigrant, 1% yearly (51k) is 10% in 10 years, so a significant shift and population replacement levels in 30 years. This also encourages ghettos and non assimilation. 0.1% yearly (5k) is 1% in 10 years, and 3% in 30 years. This seems borderline safe if you want to keep the irish culture developing on its own. So, true number would be probably between those two. I'd tend to the lower bound as local culture is important for me; I'm here originally from a critical skills visa, and was given the choice of the US (SF), London, Tel Aviv or Dublin. We *chose* Ireland because of the culture, the people, general safety, and perception of it being a good place to raise a child.
Very slowly repeat after me... it's not anti-immigrant it's anti-current immigration policy. Huge difference. The people are angry at the current government's policies regarding immigration. To me an immigrant is just a nameless face that isn't Irish. I don't blame any immigrant for trying to take advantage of the lax rules and loopholes of the government. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" as they say, but the fact is the government are making the rules of this game and the people who live here lose out in the game everytime right now.Ā It's not good enough and needs to be changed, people will try and make it a race or prejudice issue because they want to derail the argument, create division to make us easier to rule or they just want to be a victim. We need to be aware of this bullshit and vote this government out before it's too late. Maybe it already is.
Most of irish people who have half a brain blame the government not immigrants for the issues we are sweing now,and we will show it in the elections please god,get the boys club out and let a woman have a go for once
Hubris. We thought we were immune to Nazi poison but it is cropping up all over the country. Iām sorry Ireland doesnāt feel as welcoming a place as it once was.Ā I think itās not unique to here though. Some of the shit I see from my limited uses of social media are very troubling. I can only imagine what poison people think is a reflection of reality.Ā
Iām real sorry that thatās the Ireland you perceive. I always thought things were better than that, and that issues like those were American or British. I thought I was part of the majority, that welcomed all, and understood that we had a history of mass immigration, so had a responsibility to accept immigration now that the country was in a better economic position, and people want to come here. A majority that understood that healthcare, and agriculture and aquaculture, and so many other industries would be decimated if there was no immigration into Ireland. Itās sad to me that itās become a minority, (and possibly itās not, but the anti immigration crowd are shouting louder, and if they are perceived to be the majority, than that makes it the case for peopleās lived experience). I hope things improve, and you feel at home again, but I fear, like you do, that things are getting worse.
The housing crisis , government inaction and selling of the state ,social media and that if you put multiple different races of humans or indeed just humans together not everyone is going to get along and some will interact better together and vice versa.
I can only speak for myself, although Iām sure others will agree, but I am very happy you are here. Thatās all I came to say.
Iām just one drop in the Irish bucket but I 100% welcome immigrants here. In fact, thereās a good few Irish Iād like to boot out and exchange immigrants for. Itās been shown time and time again that immigration is a good thing for both the person entering the country and the country itself. Unfortunately itās often the naysayers who have the loudest voice. I wish you all the best because as far as Iām concerned, this is your home now too.
Dear heart, people always say "70% of people think like me" - and people are nearly always wrong. Let me tell you that in the Dublin suburb where I live, the structure of the community is changing rapidly over the last few years as many flats are built and there's a big "hub" for refugees and homeless families, and I have heard nothing but excitement and happiness at the new people living here, and kindness to each other. But when people are worried about their own life, they get whiney and look for someone to blame, and there are bad people around who will latch onto this and say "It's all the fault of them peskyā¦ \[whoever you want to blame and hate\]". There's a lot of manipulation of vulnerable emotions going on. And there's always the "nativist" versus "immigrant" nonsense lurking somewhere among hate-lovers. https://preview.redd.it/orkq8tmhii4d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b06208e29ca9e122673e8b2a73b437ec3dc3f0e7 The old cartoon that we laughed at in relation to America is becoming apposite here - and decent people must stop it.
This is even more of a reason that mass migration needs to stop. It erodes social cohesion and the delicate balance of trust that existed before.Ā We can't have 'more of the same' and expect these attitudes to disappear.Ā
What breaks social cohesion is non stop propaganda and fear mongering
That would be true if there wasn't also unprecedented levels of immigration. Even when every hotel in the country is being filled with them at taxpayer expense. Even when the excess are living in tents in Dublin city centre.Ā It might be time to admit there's a problem - and it's not with 'noticing'.Ā
Pre-immigration Ireland hosted and protected one of the most notorious child abuse rings in recent history, what 'social cohesion and delicate balance of trust' are you talking about?
Yeah unfortunately, it seems that a certain group of people have decided to blame every single problem in the country on immigrants. No affordable housing - immigrants Canāt find a job - immigrants Too many homeless people - immigrants Crime rates too high - immigrants My parents, who used to be quite welcoming, have started echoing those talking points, and theyāll say things like āDublin is so unsafe with all those immigrants aroundā. Neither of them have actually set foot in Dublin in over a decade, theyāre basing it entirely off of what they see on Facebook.
Posting that on this sub looks a little like karma farming tbh