Searching for a New Citizenship in the Republic of Ireland, 1990s–2000s: Equality or Diversity?

Abstract

Ireland is still a relative newcomer in the international debates about cultural diversity and citizenship. In Northern Ireland, the debate on cultural identity is only now beginning to move beyond the binary focus on the so-called ‘cultural traditions’ of the two main social groups. In the South, the perceived cultural homogeneity has only recently been put into question, as a result of the inward migration phenomenon of the last 15 years or so. According to the 2006 and 2011 censuses (Central Statistics Office 2007, 2011), around 15 per cent of the people now living in the Republic of Ireland were born outside the country (with an increase between the two dates), and this new, and quite abrupt, development has been something of a shock to the system. Among other things, it has led to a tentative recognition of the pre-existence of diversity in the country, with the Irish Traveller community in particular being granted ethnic minority status. It has also more generally led the Irish state to develop certain policies in reaction to the diversification of the socio-cultural make-up of the population, one of the issues for analysts being the extent to which it has followed in Britain’s footsteps in developing a policy of multiculturalism or whether it has somehow managed to chart an alternative route. Bryan Fanning discusses some of these developments, as well as the persistence of a form of perceived monoculturalism, at the turn of the century (Fanning 2002).