Ireland has to recognise that immigration is eventually going to clash with a slowing economy.
The population figures released this week reveal what many of us have known for some time – immigration is driving practically everything in our society.
This poses a serious challenge for us, which demands that we leave the relatively safe ground of economics and delve into the thorny, contentious but critical issue of culture. The question is what type of Ireland are we creating? Have we put much thought into it? And, if not, why not?
Our population has been rising now for some time. It has been apparent for at least five years to anyone who chose to open their eyes that the Pope’s children – those adults born in the 1970s population boom in Ireland – were settling down. They were filling up Ireland’s baby belt – mainly the counties around Dublin.
In the past two censuses, Kildare and Meath have been the fastest growing counties in the country. The new commuter estates – the ones now in negative equity – have become a nightly cacophony of wailing babies, ticking monitors and snarling, knackered parents.
But these places – like all suburbs – will become in time, the creative hub of a New Ireland, so they are well worth watching. This is the generation that is pitched into a new generation game with the new wild card in the Irish pack: immigrants.
The opening salvoes of this struggle are only now being heard but, if the economy keeps faltering, we could be entering a whole new era, as Irish workers and foreigners compete for fewer jobs. In fact, if economic history is anything to go by, this struggle is almost guaranteed.
If the new suburbs around Naas, Navan and Ballincollig give us a glimpse of the face of the new generation of indigenous Irish, the place to see the immigrants is Dublin Airport. This is their first port of call and, if you want to see the people behind the demographic figures, drive up theM1, grab a coffee at Starbucks in the terminal and open your eyes.
Around sunset is the best time. The airport changes from Irish to foreign and this side of modern Ireland reveals itself. In the arrivals hall, they are beginning to congregate. It looks like a scene from Gorky Park. Slavs of all sorts assemble to meet friends, and then disappear to the remotest parts of the country in a Vilnius registered Audi Quattro – the favoured car of Lithuanians. It was declared extinct here in 1996, only to reappear last year.
Some time in the evening, the arrivals section turns into a holding pen for east Europeans. You notice the crew cuts and fake Ducati biker jackets in various garish shades of orange and yellow, with misspelled motor oil ads emblazoned across the back.
They look like bouncers, big bullet heads on them, broad shoulders and Soviet special forces handshakes. Revealing that our culture is rubbing off on someone, they’ve a disturbing fondness for sovereign rings and Champion Sports.
The girls are mostly Slavic-pretty, long-limbed with high cheekbones, sallow skin and green eyes. They are the closest thing to supermodels that Mulhuddart has ever seen. Behold the nextTV3 weathergirl.
It’s amazing how the lads all look so downbeat and the girls could have stepped out of the pages of Italian Vogue. There is a disturbing amount of stonewashed denim and a few trademark Slovakian mullet and moustache combinations. Meet our future.
More phenomenal is the number of immigrants coming through the place. In 2005,143,000 Poles passed through here. Last year, that figure jumped to 580,000.
Passengers from the Baltics increased from 147,000 to 340,000 in 2006. Just consider the following statistic: in 2003, there were no direct air links between Poland and Ireland. Since then, just over one million passengers have travelled on one or more of the ten destinations served now between Dublin and various parts of Poland.
To get a handle on this, I camped out in the airport a few months ago and witnessed the following scene. The stewardess announces the incoming Brussels flight. The passengers queue up with the confidence of western Europeans which, counter-intuitively, means looking at your shoes, slightly guiltily.
One young woman is different. She constantly changes queues at the faintest sign of a hold-up. She is well dressed. Her papers are in order. Something is not quite right. Her palms are sweating. She looks like the Frenchwoman in the photo: everything matches.
The officer checks again. She’s wearing a long dress. He asks her to inch closer. ‘‘Please turn around, miss.’’ He asks her to stand against the life-size ruler. She’s the right height, but quite tall for a west African at five foot eight.
She looks around nervously and tries to regain her composure by flicking her hair and examining her impressively varnished nails. She plays with her earrings. She’s trying to flirt without making eye-contact.
Underneath her long skirt is a pair of customised nine-inch heels. The poor girl is practically crippled. She bursts into tears. She is Congolese,14 years old, in a strange country. She is a fraction of the size of the person she is supposed to be. She’s about five foot and she stands there sobbing, frightened and alone.
The woman, who, three minutes ago, was checking her nail varnish, is now a distraught child. The middle-aged gardai see their own daughters in front of them. Someone in the queue is drafted in to translate.
The airport is our Ellis Island. These people are our huddled masses. This is what the new world order means, and Ireland is on the front line.
Have we considered any of this? Have we even entertained that the mass movement of people is here to stay and Ireland is an attractive place to live? What does this economic force mean for our culture? This question is being asked in every country in Europe – constantly.
Denmark, for so long a country associated with tolerance and liberalism, has enacted some of the most restrictive immigration legislation in Europe, because the Danes have decided that their culture is not strong enough to withstand mass immigration – and they think their culture matters.
The Netherlands, for centuries the country that offered sanctuary for dissenters and outcasts from Spain’s Sephardic Jews to Protestant sects of every kind in the 17th and 18th century, has now also said ‘‘enough’’.
In 2002, Pim Fortuyn tapped into the popular mood when he claimed that Holland was full and that further immigration threatened the very tolerant society that welcomed immigrants in the first place. He was assassinated.
France has always insisted on allegiance to France over multiculturalism. In recent months, this has been challenged, and Nicolas Sarkozy has subsequently made it clear that he will not tolerate ‘‘further dilution’’ of French values.
Yet here, in the country that is receiving the highest net immigration of any country in Europe, the culture debate has not even started. Indeed, soft pieties, rather than hard politics, are dictating the agenda.
However, in 2008, as the housing market continues to tank, the hot debate will not be about economics – because it is clear which way that is going – but culture.
Culture matters, and this will become more evident as the irresistible force of immigration crashes against the immovable object of an inert economy. Something will have to give.
Dey Turk errr jerrrbs! Ultimately it’s not about culture at all! It’s about resource access. Where people of different cultures compete for the same resources there is always the possibility of violence. There was high levels of unemployment in Ireland in the past. However there were no race riots then because there was no discernible other to blame or attack. Still I remember when I came to Dublin from the country in 1990 I was jokingly accused of “coming here and taking our jobs and our Women” by a Dub. The opening of European borders is, in the first case,… Read more »
Culture, in Ireland, which culture are you on about. The nearest thing to describe culture in this place is the white USA. The moves on Tara using the principle that we have more than enough of that archaeological stuff explains much. But now in the US the ‘indian’ tradition is recognised. While the economic situation and the guests/slaves/serfs is hardly a new situation. The only difference is in the who. In the past, when we had high growth and high incomes and high employment -prior to WW1 and during- the speculation/mortgage on that income destroyed the place for decades. Destroyed… Read more »
Most of the immigrants are from Eastern Europe and they will eventually go home. Some Polish have told me that prices are rising back home and in a few years it wont be worth their while coming here. Poland has far greater potential in the future than Ireland, and it’s us that should be looking to Poland for future trade. The way we treat them while they’re here will determine our relationship with the Polish people when they return home. At present we have a very good relationship and I sell into Poland against aggressive American competition, which has a… Read more »
Culture is important but religions try to dominate every aspect of the lives of their followers. Today, Islam is the worst offender (although Catholicism here 50 years ago tried its best). A debate on culture without addressing religion is pointless. Our democracy guarantees our citizens freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion. It’s taken thousands of years of history to get to this highpoint of civilization in terms of individual rights. These are our core values in the EU and are too important to be diluted in the name of accommodating different religions. Its racist to discriminate on the basis… Read more »
Garry, it’s not racist to descriminate against one’s religion – It’s Just sectarian The Eatern Europeans share our faith which hasn’t added too much of an issue – Yet, but our cultural differences will become more apparent. I don’t think they will adapt to our culture either as they like ourselves are very firm in their beliefs and traditions, they do have more personal liberty rights in their own homeland (come on now – the USSR & Iron Curtain collapsed nearly 20 years ago!). They are of course have remained truer to the faith in the last 15 years than… Read more »
Garry, it’s not racist to descriminate against one’s religion – It’s Just sectarian The Eatern Europeans share our faith which hasn’t added too much of an issue – Yet, but our cultural differences will become more apparent. I don’t think they will adapt to our culture either as they like ourselves are very firm in their beliefs and traditions, they do have more personal liberty rights in their own homeland (come on now – the USSR & Iron Curtain collapsed nearly 20 years ago!). They of course have remained truer to the faith in the last 15 years than us,… Read more »
Oh boy, so David to initiate a debate you start of with a crass exercise in stereotyping… you got away with it in your last two books, mainly by using creative descriptions of economic segmentations related to current sociographic and population trends in Ireland. It therefore could be excused as pop economics. Not sure it works this time. A few years ago I read a book about the history of the Irish in Boston titled “The Boston Irish” by Thomas O’Connor. Your fear mongering resonates with the concerns of the locals about the boat loads of Irish arriving with their… Read more »
Hi David, thanks for your great books. Do you know if there are plans to repeat “The Generation Game” on TV? I missed the last episode. Thanks again, Michael Feighery
http://www.irishelection.com/10/e13-trillion-reasons-why-ireland-has-an-overdraft-for-an-economy/#more-2486
This is worrying!
David when will we be able to buy the espisodes of your recent series?
This is how we are being seen around the world and how we have to take action now: these facts cannot be ignored and the “live and let live approach” has failed.
There are other links to these videos – but be warned they are offensive and out of respect to others I have shoen the links below that are moderate and non-offensive to non-nationals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OCVG32sKmU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jxKUyzinno&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSsKj2xwx_U
This is how we are being seen around the world and how we have to take action now: these facts cannot be ignored and the “live and let live approach” has failed.
There are other links to these videos – but be warned they are offensive and out of respect to others I have chosen the links below that are moderate and non-offensive to non-nationals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OCVG32sKmU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jxKUyzinno&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSsKj2xwx_U
Where exactly have we ever had a live and let live attitude? the government made a haimes of it. They have never once proved they were up to the job in the first place. With the amount of resources their :”answers” are short sighted, piecemeal and inadequate. They couldn’t run a bath. The doomsayers here say throw the blacks out in so many words. All that this immigration is showing is that we have an old fashioned inadequate government still fighting an idealogical battle with mythical past enemies and have policies based on fantasy and whimsy. What do we expect… Read more »
Aparte from a drink culture. The GAA. The catholic church and our common hatred for travellers. Can somebody explain what do you mean by Irish Culture…Are you reffering to the writing of the many drunken Irish writers and poets. If you want to experience Old Irish Culture…go to any small village on the west coast of Ireland. They still put on lots of ash on their forheads. They go to mass enevry sunday and the parish Preist still controls the schools and all local committees. A lot still speak Irish. They hate outsiders with a vengance and they are all… Read more »
The acid test for Ireland will be when we see real competition for the closed shop occupations. I look forward to price competition from non-Irish solicitors, doctors, achitects, dentists, chemists , journalists etc etc who will (hopefully) break the stranglehold of our own so-called professionals. Up to now the competition is between poor Irish and poor immigrant with a lot of RTE tut tutting about how awfully racist the poor Irish are. For real racism to show itself will need the injection of foreign professionals to compete with our lazy well helled chancers. Notable also that social commentators in this… Read more »
Barry, these are racist comments. They are not politically correct at all. You never see a priest these days. Though I must admit that the GAA always did give the creeps. Of course alcohol abuse is not a problem in Eastern Europe. They are all teetotaller’s like us. Even though the immigrants are here to be exploited in shops, building sites, mushroom factories etc, they are aware of this themselves. They of course can and do engage in forms resistance. As do all low paid and exploited workers. They are not going to work themselves to death for Mr. Gombeen.… Read more »
Barry touched a few raw nerves there – when you think about, it he’s got some valid points and in particular, those relating to infrastructure in the west of Ireland. We have similar standards and aspirations to those of Britain, but without the real means of supporting them. This problem goes right across society from workers looking for unrealistic job security to management, managing by crisis and the professions behaving as though they were back in the days of the Empire. This is the ideal environment in which political cronyism can flourish – the security it can bring to the… Read more »
Every single non Irish/English person that I ever dealt with in this country has a medical card. I work in the health service and all the non Irish/English have medical cards. Not all the Irish have such a thing. Even working foreigners have them. It must cost the tax payer a fortune. I have lived abroad and have had to pay for healthcare. I have seen people from Poland, Nigeria, India all get with medical cards even if they were working or not working. I see this in work all day and have to charge the Irish. Does the government… Read more »
Barry’s hate filled comments explain a lot about why we have mass migration in this country. By and large the country is now run by a professional non-elected political and journalistic/ academic class which is controlled by Dublin 4. Dublin 4 is one the last remaining bastions of real racism in the European project, and its Nazi like hatreds are directed to the Irish people, particularly those West of the Shannon. Dublin 4 itself basically consists of the descendants of the original colonial classes in Ireland – the Catholic Old English – who have a lock on the professional classes.(… Read more »
If anybody has any doubt about Barrys post-colonial attitudes, note how he thinks that the West Of Ireland “backward” because it dares speak a language other than English – which happens to be the language of their ancestors. The idea that speaking Irish is “backward” is sympthomatic of the post-colonial attitude.
I posted earlier on about the professionals etc. But dom above is barking (mad) up the wrong tree in his rant about D4. I have lived there for 16 years. What I have found is that the worst type of D4 post colonials orginate in rural Ireland then settle in D4, lose the bog accent and assume the phoney English accent. So if dom is right about hatred of the West , its a form of self hatred that he has identified. Natives of D4 are ordinary , open and decent people.Its the D4 wannabes (i.e. country people) who are… Read more »
While I’m at it the last time I heard this type of outpouring was when Aer Lingus switched the routes from Shannon. Dermot Mannion is not from Dublin and he took the decision(not some jackeen!). This was portrayed as another plot by Dublin to put down the Weshht where only “real” Irish people live. My arse.
Barry, I am from a small village in the west of Ireland and I think that your stereotypes are from 20 years ago. The west of Ireland has changed immeasurably and, if anything, is now become just as anglicized as Dublin which would probably please you from what you wrote. One major change was that the west stopped being two channel land about fifteen years ago and now English television dominates, English newspapers are in the shops and English soccer teams are even more popular than in my youth. With the loss of the Irish language the GAA is about… Read more »
Dom, even though what Barry has said is out of line. The English are still very “racist” towards Ireland: the only news they mention on the BBC is when a bomb, riot or act of violence has occured over here and broadcast it to the UK public. They don’t even acknowledge in their own history books about atrocities they committed against their colonial servants – The Irish Famine (What was that, it never happened), The 1919 Massacre in India (Can’t remember the location but they don’t recognise it), The Black & Tans raping and pillaging across Ireland in the 1920’s… Read more »
Conor Lenihan shouldn’t let non-nationals claim citizenship at all, when 2008 arrives most of those arrivals will probably pack up and leave because of the “Credit Crunch”. The jobs are going to dry up and most of their positions will be let go, because if it is the other way round of dumping Irish Workers. A revolution or something just short of one will happen and resentment will go completely through the roof. In times of Trouble, you know whom your friends are and you look after your own….. that is going to happen in the next 6 months. What… Read more »
Donal wants to take us back to the bad old days of isolation where people had to emigrate unless they were supporters of a certain political party. I don’t remember Britain ever putting up barriers to the Irish going there – the friendly USA, yes, but not Britain. At this stage in our development, blaming the British is no longer an excuse for our own inadequacies – we now must face up to reality and tackle the extremes in our culture like the obvious one in the link below:
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1011618.shtml
I’m not altogether sure why I’m answering Donal on this, perhaps I’m just a bit bored this week, but accusing the English of racism on these points rather misses the point. You’ve got to remember than anyone studying the history of the British Empire is faced with the history of over 100 countries. There were countless massacres, mutinies, rebellions, and so on. My only recollection of Indian history during Empire times, were the 2 Indian Mutinies. These were big affairs. The massacre at Amtritsar was poultry in comparison. It might sound callous, it probably is callous, but there is just… Read more »
Ed, not everything about the old days was bad. People were more happier back then because they didn’t have as much to worry about, we are in a bank overdraft of an economy so I think you could easily pack up and leave when the going gets tough – It will happen if you looked at some of the links above. Britain still sees Ireland as a colony, that’s why they haven’t put up barriers but they sure don’t provide any representation for the Irish Community in the UK. That’s a definate comment from someone who grew up there and… Read more »
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2007/07/29/time-has-come-to-face-up-to-the-immigration-dilemma
I see we need to all demand the debate – Realistically how can we provide for the world and its mother with our infrastructure that is limited, mounting debt that will cripple us, ghettos that have already started to emerge and our own culture that needs to be preserved.
A trust fund for the Irish Diaspora should be established – It can be used to build up this country again and reload our own declining identity.
No concessions for changing ourselves and no to conforming to others-
I think the EU deserves the boot
I don’t like what I’m reading in the past posts. I think Ireland should be more open to other cultures especially Islam. As an Irish Muslim (I converted to Islam), I feel out numbered by the Christian fates and I am engaged at present in talking to ministers to make Ireland take in more Muslims as that is what Ireland needs at present. I also deem the Angulus on RTE as very offensive to my religion and I would like this stopped. I would also like Irish schools to stop teaching Irish and to teach Arabic instead as more people… Read more »
Hard to know which is worse. Mohammed’s muslim taliban or dom’s “west of the shannon anybody who doesnt speak irish is an infidel” taliban.
Then again maybe they are one and the same person?
Sadly there are many foreign nationals who secretly support this idea, whilst living in this country. That is why Multi-Culturalism would never work especially in Ireland, you’d always have someone in either community who want to dominate or let themselves be taken advantage of without putting up a fight because they are too afraid. Middle ground doesn’t exist – Every inch is for the taking and I want it all, I don’t care if its someone elses property – I came, I saw, I conquered. This appears to be the mindset of a staggering number of Muslim, Hindu (They often… Read more »
Crioster, the old days weren’t good by any standard, there was abject poverty everywhere. I went to school in the fifties and some of my classmates couldn’t afford shoes – life may have been simpler, but still, there’s no dignity in abject poverty. Some eventually succeeded against all the odds, but had to emigrate to realise their potential. Do you seriously want to return to this ? I emigrated to England in the mid sixties with an education of sorts and experienced all the usual affronts that Irish and other nationalities were subjected to. Terry Wogan came over to… Read more »
Hands up here who is not taking the piss … (no hands go up) .. thats what I though. A lot of it was funny though in a The Phoenix sort of way David, you are an original voice and I try to read everything you publish, but when you go interdisciplinary you wander way out of your depth. Think Neil Francis on Questions and Answers or Fintan O´Toole interviewing Mark Lawrenson on Today FM. Very, very good in their own areas but when you start to think you have something authoritative to say on everything then Facilis Descensus Averno… Read more »
Ed I have to agree about 2nd generation immigrants, they are the most vociferous, and frankly tiresome. I guess it;’s simply that the first generation move to get a better life, and they get a better life, so are pretty happy with things (irrespective of how thei life seems to the ethnics). The second generation have no knowledge of the old country, except the ‘Emerald Isle’ sort of fantasy stuff, so view the conparatively low standards that their parents were content with as sign of oppression. You end up with translators in all the hospitals, state forms in a myriad… Read more »
poor Dvid Mc W. when he comments he st get annoyed when we start commenting on each others comments and not on your feature in the SBP on Culture. Can you or anybody define Irish culture… all our so called Irish culture that Iam aware of us has been imported and added to over the years if not hundred of years. Our so called Irish dancing and music came from North africa. One small comment on Dvid Mc ‘s features is that he is young and only with age do you attain some level of wisdom. The fears and issues… Read more »
I’m vaguely surprised by Joe H’s appeal to leave these questions to the experts (putting aside his thinly veiled insults for a moment), since that’s been the case for the past 50 years. It’s a pity really, as these really aren’t social questions so much as political questions. It’s just unfortunate that we’ve had politicians who were too scared to get involved, or who believed the sort of vaguely Marxist dialectic that excludes the idea of cultural variation being much more than funny hats and strange foods, so therefore view such questions as a sign of ignorance, stupidity, and right… Read more »
Ireland is not an attractive place to live, and the immigrant will all pack up and leave along with the goldilocks economy that brought them there.
As a reply to Stephen Kenny … its more a case that David is a undoubtedly a smart lad but by going for the one liners, he makes what are serious points very easy to dismiss.
Perhaps I was too after the one liner myself in my original comment and the point I wanted to make was lost.
David writing on economics with a bit of culture thrown in is good authoritative stuff. David writing on culture with a bit of economics is throwaway.
I think it’s really good that David McWilliams is pursuing this debate. I like the arrival of people from so many different backgrounds into Ireland and I like the economic energy they bring to the place. But while I am willing to have my culture modified by them I am not keen to see it swamped. Here’s the problem though: what the hell is our culture? Does anybody know? I think the French know what their culture is and that helps them to stand up for it. But what’s our culture? Maybe that’s what the debate needs to address.
Padraig
Ed, thank you for acknowledging that as time goes on that the later generations have no knowledge of their own history or background. That is something that I have been stressing for the las god knows how long. Truth be told is the same for South East Asian youths in the UK, they have no concept of what happened before the Partition in 1947 and afterwards. Indians, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Pakistanis These kids grow up in a culture they don’t really belong into and believe that they are “British” whent they are really only descendants of “Colonial Servants” –… Read more »
Padraig, with respect the French strongly feel that they have lost their culture with all the influx of foreign people in france from elsewhere. They are very much one of the most bitter and resentful people in europe, the fact being that their relationship in society with the migrants in France have declined to an all-time low following the Riots in Oct 2005. The recent trouble again in france over a month ago was only controlled because they had a battallion of Gendarme on standby if all hell broke loose – I think it will again and a Movie called… Read more »
What makes this a culture is what makes us different from others elsewhere, not what seems similar to people here. Which is seem by others not by ourselves. And it the oddest way this will include the newcomers. But the reading of the Irish Times, speaking the Irish or much else will not change the fact that they will have a gra for their historic culture. Will, in the same way that we bedeck little girls, daughters of New York firemen, in the colourful finery of the dance. Where the Irish is in Oz and NZ classrooms ages after any… Read more »
Its a bit early in the day to be at the whiskey. Maybe thats why VincentH is making no sense (or maybe its me and early senility)
Fianna Fail and the ruling elites in this country have privatised the profits from mass immigration and nationalised the costs. Very shortly tens of thouusands of east europeans will be eligible to take out Irish citizenship. They will be able to vote both in their home countries and in Irish elections.They will also have two votes in European elections.This is another unforseen consequence of FF opening up the borders to mass immigration. Poliitical influence gained from naturalisation will lead to changes in our society by the allocation of resources from low wage Irish to the new citizens. This will likely… Read more »
I think people would be furious with that. I hope the crash comes soon enough for “The New Irish” to pack up and leave because the resentment will really surge through the roof, from the rest of the nation who really never wanted these people anyway. Bertie Ahern however is cooked as a goose, the revenue don’t buy his stories of strange finances and another election will be on the horizon I would assume. Kazinski sounds like such an Irish name compared to Callaghan doesn’t it? Let’s call our Diaspora cousins from Elsewhere forget the UK (They are mentally English… Read more »
“The sun on the meadow is summery warm
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me
The branch on the linden is leafy and green
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea (Gold to the sea)
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen
Tomorrow belongs to me
Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me”
Ian,
why are you quoting a Third Reich sonnet from what it appears?
You can be a nationalist without believing in that riducoulous ideology, National Socialists hold true – Sick people they are
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7130698.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/worldtonight/specialreports_ireland.shtml
has anyone looked at these?
I’d certainly take a look at those videos on youtube above in this article aswell if you don’t think their will be a problem in the future.