You don’t get to be anti-immigrant and Irish
I’m ashamed to be Irish.
Five words I never thought I could say echoed in my head as I watched Dublin burn last night, the streets of our great city desecrated by a mob screaming how ‘Ireland should be for the Irish’ as they looted Irish-owned businesses.
Where I’m from, these are scenes we’re used to seeing on the news. Images from far-flung places, not home. What has become of our beautiful little country?
An afternoon that began with a horrific attack on three children and a woman was almost instantly co-opted by a group of angry people, driven by a far-right ideology that I’ve watched take root in Ireland after years of government failings on housing, healthcare and the economy.
Successive Irish governments have pursued policies that push public services into private interests for profit.
The unforgivable scenes we saw in Dublin last night were a culmination of more than a decade of systemic failures to provide adequate housing, mental health resources or any investment into making the inner city a safer place for everyone to live. Inequality has been allowed to run rife.
This racist, conspiratorial movement is small and usually splintered, but with grim inevitability, it has grown.
Dublin, the capital, where poverty and disenfranchisement is considered most acute, has seen the most insidious spread of this rhetoric. It has no place in Irish society, but we need real leadership to stamp it out.
Our police commissioner was quick to say that nobody could have anticipated yesterday’s events, but prominent voices online disagree, saying it was all too clear within minutes of the attack that there would be violence on our streets.
It doesn’t matter if there were 10 or 10,000 people rioting. Any number of Irish people railing against those who have made their home in this country must be forced into a reality check. And a history lesson.
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‘Ireland is full’. ‘Close Ireland’s borders’. ‘Ireland is being destroyed by immigrants’.
The murky cesspit that is X, formerly Twitter, is awash with these slogans, which conveniently ignore the vibrant Irish communities in Sydney, New York, London and more.
As many have observed on social media in the past 24 hours, there is a profound irony in the world’s preeminent emigrant nation spewing anti-immigrant bile.
Ireland is a nation of emigrants. Emigration is in our DNA.
Since the black days of the Great Famine when one million starved to death, the Irish have worked and lived in practically every country.
There are roughly 1.47 million Irish citizens now resident outside the Republic, with a further 70 million tracing their ancestry back to it.
Our stories and our culture are woven into the fabric of the international community. It’s why the Chicago River is dyed green on St Patrick’s Day.
It’s why Halloween – a 2,000-year-old Irish pagan festival – is now celebrated in dozens of countries. It’s why wherever you go, from Bhutan to Jerusalem, you will find at least one Irish pub – guaranteed.
My generation is scattered across the continents, long chapters of our lives spent in cities across Australia, the US and the UK where we have flourished and found opportunities after escaping the same social and economic stagnation that manifested in such an ugly manner last night.
We are proud to be welcomed around the world, just as we are proud to be known for extending the same welcome to anyone who comes to our island. We are the land of céad míle fáilte – one hundred thousand welcomes.
Welcomes like the one given to the Brazilian Deliveroo driver who bravely intervened during yesterday’s attack.
Caio Benicio came to Ireland for work after his restaurant burned down in Brazil. He delivers food to provide for his two children, who he hopes will be able to follow him to Ireland one day. Today Caio is a hero.
When the rumblings of fascistic movement first reared its head on Irish social media, a stunning poem by Irish singer Imelda May captured the country’s imagination with its simple title: ‘You don’t get to be racist and Irish.’
To be Irish and racist, to be Irish and anti-immigrant, is to hate yourself. It is a troubling, fundamentally contradictory expression of self-loathing that has been encouraged in deeply troubled people by radical fringe groups.
The far-right is gaining ground, not just in Ireland. We see it with the election of Argentina’s new president, a chainsaw-wielding tantric sex coach that has capitalised on his Trumpian antics to win power. We see it in the Netherlands, where right-wing Geert Wilders successfully campaigned on anti-immigration policies.
These events are seemingly reactions to the cost-of-living crisis and successive government failures, as desperate people lose faith in moderate forms of leadership. But what we saw in Dublin last night is never the answer.
Today I am thinking of the kids and their carer, senselessly injured by the hand of their attacker. I am thinking of Caio Benicio and his family, who must be bursting with pride. I am thinking of the paramedics, nurses and doctors who treated the wounded, many of whom are, in more grim irony, not from Ireland themselves.
It’s not true that Ireland is full, but our country is filled with kind, decent people from every background and every corner of the Earth. We are richer from diversity. We are stronger from our céad míle fáilte.
Our leaders must find a way to protect this tradition, the cornerstone of our nation, at all costs.
Ireland is for everyone and it always will be.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.
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