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Sep
3
Xenophobia and Racism Affect Black School Children In Ireland
Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Demography, International Racism, Original Essays and Analysis, Race and Racism, Sociology, Uncategorized by Rachel
I’ve written in the past about European countries being forced to confront racism and xenophobia, which is especially the case in nations where large scale immigration is making the countries more ethnically and racially diverse. One of the latest countries confronting discrimination is Ireland. Unlike many other Western European countries, Ireland was never colonial power. In places, like France, Spain, and Britain many immigrants are coming from former colonies, but since Ireland didn’t have colonies, Irish immigration is a little less predictable. Nevertheless, Ireland is facing some of the same problems as other European countries. Many Irish people do not accept the new immigrants, and this is especially true for Black immigrants, who come mostly from West African countries like Nigeria.
Traditionally, Ireland has been a country of emigrants.1 Given this fact, it should be no surprise that there are more people of Irish descent in the US alone than there are in Ireland, but in a surprising twist of fate, the trend is beginning to reverse.2 With Irish birth rates above replacement level and a new wave of immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe, Ireland is actually gaining more people than it is losing. Some hope that this will contribute to growth in the Irish economy, which has been one of the weakest economies in western Europe.
Right now, there is little research on this trend, and the manifestations of anti-immigrant attitudes and racism come to light with stories this one. The gist of the story is that in a suburb of Dublin nearly all of the approximately 90 children who couldn’t find a school to attend were black kids.
The children will attend a new, all-black school, a prospect that educators called disheartening.
About 90 children could not find school places in the north Dublin suburb of Balbriggan , a town of more than 10,000 people with two elementary schools. Local educators called a meeting over the weekend for parents struggling to find places and said they were shocked to see only black children.
“That overwhelmed me. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I just find it extremely concerning,” said Gerard Kelly, principal of a school with a mixture of black and white students in the nearby town of Swords.
The parents at Saturday’s meeting in a Balbriggan hotel said they had tried to get their children into local schools but were told that all places had to be reserved by February.
Almost all of the children are Irish-born and thus Irish citizens, under a law that existed until 2004.
There is no way this is merely a coincidence, especially when a neighboring town has mixed schools. It should be noted that they are not starting a school that only admits black pupils, like this poorly worded headline from The Times Online suggests. The school is made up overwhelmingly of black children because those children “mysteriously” were not allowed to enter many of the local schools.
Part of the problem is that the Irish government allows schools to discriminate on the basis of religion, which ends up being a form of indirect institutional racism.
About 98 percent of schools are run by the Roman Catholic Church, and the law permits them to discriminate on the basis of whether a prospective student has a certificate confirming they were baptized into the faith. Some of the African applicants were Muslim, members of evangelical Protestant denominations or of no religious creed.
Since many immigrants are not Catholic, these schools were allowed to not accept them without a Catholic baptism certificate. It is difficult to know how many black children who were Catholic were also excluded. I know many of the African children are Nigerian, and many Christian Nigerians are Catholic, so I’d be curious to see how much religious discrimination and racial discrimination overlapped in this case. Clearly, this is a great case for the separation of church and state, and this is an issue that the Irish will have to confront as they become a multicultural nation.
I suspect that the 2004 referendum changing laws that allow parents of Irish citizen children to also become citizens is part of an anti-immigrant backlash. It will also be interesting to see how the role of the Catholic church changes because of immigration. They may lose some power. Ireland can’t call itself democratic when 98% of their schools are run in an openly discriminatory fashion.
Over the next few years, I expect to see more stories on discrimination like the case in Balbriggan. Hopefully, we will see more pro-immigrant organizations developing from ethnic Irish and immigrants.
- Emigration with an “e” refers to people exiting the country. This is how I teach the words in class: Immigration with an “i” means into and emigration “e” means exit. [back]
- Unfortunately, this article is now a paying article, but I was able to read in my New York Times home delivery. [back]
Comments
11 Responses to “Xenophobia and Racism Affect Black School Children In Ireland”
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This article is still available at http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/19/europe/19ireland.php . As a silver lining to a possible dark cloud, I also recall reading where an African immigrant was recently elected to office in Ireland. Can’t remember where though.
I thought the EU supported seperation of church and state? In which case, I’m betting that a case could be formed against Ireland with the EU if this continues.
This a total flip of the way Catholic schools are run in the US, at least in my area. The schools I know are about 65-80% non-Catholic, if they’re in the city (because parents want the discipline and smaller class sizes of a Catholic school, and can afford a parochial school but not a private one). IF they’re private, the number drops to maybe 20%, but they don’t actively choose Catholic kids over non-Catholics. In the suburbs, the ratio is different in areas where the public schools are smaller, better funded, and considered to be safer.
I’m not sure exactly how the school system works In Ireland,but I had the same thoughts as you. There are many American Catholic schools that wouldn’t be able to get many pupils at all with that kind of requirement.
Johnston, Thanks for the link.
Very interesting.
Side note: a white student told me today about what it was like being in an officially “integrated” Catholic school in New Orleans: they put all the Black children in the same all-Black classes, with the excuse that otherwise they might be uncomfortable or be attacked. This was not that long ago, the student is about 25 and he is talking about third grade and (I think) through elementary school, if not longer.
Rachael . I doubt you can support this remark .
With Irish birth rates above replacement level and a new wave of immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe, Ireland is actually gaining more people than it is losing. Some hope that this will contribute to growth in the Irish economy, which has been one of the weakest economies in western Europe.
Damn that is wrong! Ireland has one of the strongest economies. You need to check your facts before making conclusions. Since this fact is so far off base you should check out your other assumptions as well.
http://www.pwc.com/Extweb/ncpressrelease.nsf/docid/CBA5BC6807BF12E48025731A003BA57F
The latest economic analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers forecasts that the Irish economy will grow by 5.2% in 2007, more than double the average growth rate for the Euroland as a whole. Ireland is expected to better the performance of all other Euroland economies this year but decelerating growth should see Luxembourg and Slovenia move above Ireland in the Euroland growth rankings by 2008.
Ireland should retain its title as the Eurolands fastest growing economy in 2007, but is likely to fall behind Luxembourg and Slovenia in the monetary union growth rankings in 2008 according to PricewaterhouseCooperss latest report on the Euroland economies
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/money/archives/articles/2007/3/12/151009.cfm
David John Marotta
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Republic of Ireland and its economic boom period known as the “Celtic Tiger” is another textbook case study in economic freedom. Ireland’s strong economic performance is a direct result of its increased economic freedom and reduced government regulation. This correlation between economic freedom and economic growth is no coincidence. Investing in countries like Ireland which enjoy greater economic freedom typically yields higher returns.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/11/13/8393173/index.htm
Taming Ireland’s Celtic Tiger
Ireland’s economic tiger is the envy of Europe. But it may be impossible to clone – or to sustain
Fortune Magazine) — Tiger Woods wasn’t the only feline on display at the recent Ryder Cup in Ireland. The country’s roaring economy – nicknamed the Celtic Tiger – put on a good show too. Like the prestigious K Club that hosted golf’s premier tournament, once a crumbling country mansion badly in need of repair, Ireland has become a shining example of what new wealth can do. Other countries look enviously at an Ireland that has transformed itself in one generation from a threadbare country on Europe’s periphery to the second-richest (on a GDP-per-capita basis) in the European Union. Scarcely a week goes by without a national delegation visiting Dublin to learn how the Celtic Tiger was conceived and, more important, whether it can be cloned
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/international/features/e3i6b4cb6ebb520393dbf3451a5371d16c0
As Ireland’s economy booms, so does production
Michael,
Read carefully, I said “has been.” It’s doing quite well now, but for a long time ireland was well behind it’s Eropean counterparts.
Rachel…
I believe “has been” is the Present Perfect Tense which signifies an action or condition which began in the past, AND continues to the present.
I could be wrong about that. English is not my native language. It’s my naive language.
I’ll actually have to look at the numbers, but my sense is that it was far behind the other European economies, and it is catching up to them because the economy is expanding rapidly.
I am fairly certain the infrastructure and many other aspects of their economy are still behind places like France and Britain, but the article above suggests that their GDP is higher than other countries, so who knows.
I think I like the idea of baptism before entering through admission that is a perfect one.but one thing I hold again the Irish government is doing any every possible to kill the impression of racism from the people and making the people see the blacks as human just like the Americans do.
May God give grace ,power,strength and support to the Irish government to fight racism.
God bless you
bye
well, i guess where ever you go racism will never subside. Anyways i thought they called the irish the “black people of europe”. Damn, aren’t people tired of being ignorant, racist fools, yet?
|Rachel
Doesn’t sound like you know much about the reality of life in Ireland and your attacks on its society, government, education system, Catholic church etc are a stream of self righteous twaddle. Ireland has absorbed more immigrants from all over the world in a shorter time frame than any other nation on earth. There have been no riots and there is no equivalent of the UK’s BNP or France’s Front National or any other right wing party. Generally, the Irish people have shown exceptional tolerance and Christian acceptance-the same could never be said of most other countries in the world with 11% of its population suddenly foreign-born inside 13 years. Imagine such a proportionate change in the USA. Imagine a Muslim or African state absorbing non Muslims, non Africans in such huge numbers over a few years. There would be massacres, pograms, civil war. So don’t lecture the Irish on tolerance. They have bent over backwards to absorb absurd numbers of people in to their small society. All they get is your kind of drivel which seeks to stir up bad feeling by highlighting when things go wrong.