Ireland is not full

I know, controversial topic. But, seriously, Ireland is not full. And not only are we not full, but there is a serious history in this country of emigration being the problem, not immigration.

According to studies referenced at least, if not researched there, in UCC, about ten million people have emigrated from Ireland since 1800. 10 million. It’s no wonder our population is so low, even now.

And, yes, it is traditional to blame the Great Famine, An Gorta Mór, but it’s not just the famine at fault here. We were a colony of England, and later Britain, from the 16th century on. (Well, from the 12th century on if you’re being very accurate) Colonies don’t tend to get a lot of immigration… unless you count the small number of overlords trying to control the population.

Lebor Gabála Érenn

Yup, we’re heading back to our mythology to defend the “Ireland is not full” position.

Our foundation myths are basically about invasions. Now, I cover a lot of this in the course on Brig in LGE. But here’s the thing: In this country we have a history of people invading us. And LGE has an entire list of the invasions – in this instance Wikipedia actually has a decent article on this!

But nowhere in the literature here do the writers suggest that Ireland was too full to accept them. Whether the Tuatha de Danann, Fir Bolg, Milesians… they all came in waves, settled, and were absorbed into the population. Or, conquered the existing population, and there was a blend of customs and happenings.

Now, of course, we don’t know for definite that this is exactly what happened, but it appears to be the way of things from archaeology and mythology.

An Górta Mór

The Famine is a great example of just how many people this land could support. Approx running from 1845 – 1850 ish (Listen to Finn Dwyer’s series on the podcast to see why even the dates are a bit wandery…) But in that series, or in one of his many Famine related epsiodes, he mentioned that ok, the 1841 census called out approx 8.2m people on the island. But because of the census takers being reluctant to investigate fully the more rural or isolated areas of the country, there are some suspicions that the census was actually underestimating population by about a third, meaning the population was closer to 12million.

Seriously, it makes our current population of approx 7million on the island a bit pathetic. Ireland is full? And it not even at the level of the famine? Ireland is not full.

Now, there are those who point out that most of the Irish were living on potatoes at that point, which is fair. But Ireland was also feeding Britain at the time as well. All those ships we hear stories of leaving the island?

Check out this website for more details. I mean, it looks like 822,681 gallons of butter left Ireland for Britain in the first 9 months of 1847. Yes, Black ’47, the worst year of the Famine. So, Ireland, even with the shortage of spuds, could still feed Britain. We’re not short of food for our people, if we manage our land corrently.

Emigration

When I was growing up, I never head the term “immigration” in relation to Ireland. The problem was always “emigration”. Seriously, no one can wander around the west of Ireland in particular and claim “Ireland is full”. That’s just ridiculous. I’ve written a little bit about this before as well.

For years, we have been a very insular society and our major issue was the leaking of bright young people (and some not-so-bright and some not-so-young) from our shores. The de-population of certain areas of the country, in particular Connacht, Munster and other highly rural areas, has been the topic of concern for generations. Now, I can guarantee the accuracy of this report, but I found it extremely interesting reading.

Emigration in Ireland comes in waves, but it’s also pretty much constant. I myself emigrated to England for 11 years, then came home. And that’s one bonus since the 80’s. Before the “Celtic Tiger” years (1995 – 2007 roughly speaking) emigrants left and never returned. But the Celtic Tiger brought some emigrants home.

And even today, with many emigrant leaving on temporary visas (and, if we’re honest, with increased ability to track them in different countries around the world), more emigrants are returning home. It’s brilliant to see.

And, yes, I’m including myself in this.

The problem currently

The problem currently is that Ireland is accepting people from very different ethnicities and cultures and it’s coming as a bit of a shock to certain elements of the population. I will reiterate: Ireland is not full.

But there is a lot of right wing rhetoric coming from the UK and the US about Schrödinger’s immigrant: they’re coming both to eat up all the benefits and take all the jobs. Honestly, amazing people these.

This isn’t the way Ireland usually deals with people coming in. But then, we’re not usually welcoming people who don’t speak English, who have very little obvious cultural commonalities and who appear shocked at the sheer volume of rain we get. There is also the issue that there is significant confusion between immigrants and asylum seekers. I mean, there are significant differences.

My husband is an immigrant. He doesn’t even need a visa, because of the Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland. Equally, since he’s long term sick, he doesn’t pay taxes. But he does benefit from the Drugs Payment Scheme. For some reason though, people don’t appear to have the same issues with him as they do with other immigrants… I wonder why? Ireland definitely isn’t full when it comes to people like him…

Part of it is racism. Part of it is ignorance. Part of it is concern about the way the country is not supporting the people already here. Part of it is fear.

Asylum seekers

To be clear. An asylum seeker is someone who is seeking refugee status. You can’t apply for asylum from abroad. There is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker. If you are seeking asylum in Ireland, you must be physically here to do so.

Check out this link. 2022 was the first year Ireland took more than 10,000 asylum seekers from abroad and they were predominantly from Ukraine. Ireland is not full.

The poor sods in Direct Provision, which I’ve written about before, are another story entirely. They are trapped in a horrible situation and bluntly, anyone in Ireland saying they are not welcome because Ireland is full, is missing out on a lot of our own history!

Where does this leave us?

There is a lot of rhetoric going around this country about Ireland being full. I hope in the above post, I’ve explained how not true that is.

When you hear this sort of rubbish, please challenge it. Of course we can’t accept every single refugee and asylum seeker from all over the world. That’s no problem. And, no one is suggesting that.

But equally, given the number of emigrants from this country over the centuries, maybe it’s time we started taking our fair share.

If 800 years of colonisation, brutalisation and discrimination from the Brits didn’t eradicate our culture, taking in a few poor sods fleeing death won’t either!

If you can’t see the connection between this and our spirituality… well, I’m not sure I can help with that. How we treat people should be inherent in our spirituality. Think of Brig Ambue, if nothing else.