Ireland is changing

Ireland, it used to be said, was not only a Catholic country, but a nation whose people were overwhelmingly of ancient Celtic stock. There were the horse-Protestants, of course, making up the Ascendancy-class, but these were never more than five-to-seven percent of the population and most of them left after independence. And then, of course, there were the Ulster Protestants, descended for the most part from seventeenth-century Scottish and English settlers. But the less said about them, the better.

What mattered was the idea of the country as ethnically, culturally and religiously homogenous – an exaggeration of the truth made easier to accept by the fact of partition.

But that was then. According to newly-published figures from the Central Statistics Office in Dublin, the population of the Republic is soaring, with most of the increase directly attributable to immigration. In the twelve months to April of this year, the total number of inhabitants of the 26 counties rose to a record 4.92 million, of whom 623,000 – 13 per cent – were born abroad.

Given that more Irish nationals emigrated than returned home in the period under review (29,000 against 26,900), the main factor by far in explaining the growth in population is the arrival of overseas migrants, 20,000 from the UK, 24,000 from the rest of the EU, 15,000 from the U.S, Canada and Australia and 31,000, including Muslims, from the developing world.

If the trend continues – and there is no reason to think it won’t – not only will the population of the Republic hit something like 5.2 million by 2025, but around one million of the total will have been foreign-born. If the 900,000 or so Ulster Protestants are added to the mix, along with a similar number of Northern Catholics, the result will be a country that can no longer be defined as “Irish” in the traditional sense, but rather as a mongrel state whose people, increasingly come from all over.

Northern Ireland is itself witnessing a steady rise in population, to the advantage, in political terms, of those favouring Irish unity. But the proportion of foreign-born residents is currently somewhat less, made up, at a rough estimate, of 40,000 from the EU, 70,000 from mainland Britain and some 50,000 from the rest of the world.

What is remarkable is that such a profound demographic shift should have occurred in such a short time. In the 1960s, when the population of the Republic was just 2.8 million, with a further 1.5 million in the North, very few non-natives lived in either jurisdiction. In Dublin, being Indian or Chinese meant that you ran a restaurant. Americans – “Yanks” – were mostly of Irish ancestry, either exploring their heritage or living in retirement. In Belfast, there were maybe 50 Africans studying at Queen’s University and a dozen or so Nigerian or Ghanaian doctors working in the city’s hospitals. Italians ran ice-cream parlours; German and French citizens were seen as exotic, while Europeans from the east of the Continent were virtually unknown.

Today, Dublin, with a population close to 1.2 million, is very much a cosmopolitan city. But it is far from alone in welcoming foreigners. Around 18 per cent of the population of Galway is non-Irish by birth, while in Gort, further south, more than a third of the inhabitants are of Brazlian origin, including champion hurler Leonardo Gomes. One revealing fact: Nearly 100 years on from the foundation of the Free State, there are more Polish speakers in Ireland than Gaeilgeoirí – native speakers of the Irish language.

Predictably, there is a greater measure of ethnic tension north of the border, where suspicion of “the other” is generally inculcated from birth. That said, communities of Poles and Lithuanians in particular have emerged in almost every corner of the Province, along with smaller numbers of Asians and Africans. Romanians had a harder time at first – frequently stigmatised as “gypsies” – but have latterly begun to put down roots. It is even possible to see small groups of black men striding confidently through staunchly “loyalist” parts of Belfast, calling to mind that two of the most ruthless UDA leaders during the later phase of the Troubles were known as “the Egyptians”.

Nothing more obviously underscores the social and ethnic change that has overcome Ireland in recent years than the fact the the Taoiseach, or prime minister, of the Republic is Leo Varadkar, a 39-year-old gay man whose father is Indian. Varadkar leads his country at a particularly awkward moment. But though not everyone applauds his strongly pro-EU approach to Brexit, there is virtually no sense that any criticism levelled against him is rooted in his origins or sexuality.

Oddly, with so many foreigners pouring into Ireland, attracted by its rampant prosperity, there is no sign as yet of an end to the Irish themselves moving out and moving on. Thousands of young Irish men and women continue to board the emigrant boats each year, headed chiefly to England, but also to Europe, the U.S, Canada and Australia. Irish bars across the world now occupy the same economic space as Chinese and Indian restaurants did in Britain in the 1960s. Irish graduates are in high demand overseas, while those with lesser qualifications seem to have no difficulity finding work in New York, Boston and San Francisco. Among the young there is still a restlessness linked to the fact that Ireland is a small island off a larger island off the western edge of Europe.

What seems certain is that the Ireland of the middle of this century will be profoundly different from that of all preceding centuries. Not only (recurring crises aside) will it be prosperous and liberal, it will also be ethnically diverse and increasingly secular. As for Northern Ireland, anything is possible. But if Ulster Protestants, as a people, do eventually join their fellow Irish south of the border, they may be pleasantly surprised to find themselves to be no more than one minority among many.