ABSTRACT
Ireland has transformed from a country of emigrations to one of ‘in-migrations’ within 10 years. However, despite decades of intermittent and sometimes massive emigrations, there were immigrants and minority ethnic groups in the country long before the recent dramatic increases in ‘in-migrations’ (for a fuller analysis, see Keogh, 1998; MacEinri, 2000; Lentin, 2001; Goldstone, 2002). According to the 2002 census, approximately 6 per cent of Ireland’s 3.9 million population were not Irish and another 1.3 per cent were only part-Irish (CSO, 2002). The majority of non-Irish residents are British and nationals of other countries in the West. These countries dominated migrations to Ireland in the decades before the 1990s. The greater and more diversified in-flows of migrants that began in the mid-1990s have, however, resulted in dramatic changes on Ireland’s sociocultural and demographic landscapes.
