Immigration, race and ethnicity in an already divided society: dealing with ‘new’ diversity in Northern Ireland

Introduction The past decade has witnessed tentative debates on cultural diversity and multiculturalism in Northern Ireland (Geoghegan 2008; Gilligan et al. 2011; McVeigh 2009). Although the region has been home to a number of small but wellestablished communities for many decades (see Dietz 2011; Irwin 1998; Irwin and Dunn 1997; Hainsworth 1998; Kapur 1997), the enlargement of the European Union (EU), alongside a relative economic stability in the decade after the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, has created the conditions for an even more plural society, with increased levels of immigration, especially noticeable in the mid-2000s (McDermott 2008a; Bell et al. 2004). As a consequence, a more heterogeneous society has emerged, which has challenged dominant assumptions of Northern Ireland as merely a region of competing Irish and British identities. This chapter highlights how government and society have reacted to these levels of ‘new’ diversity and focuses on the challenges faced in a post-conflict region that has pluralised through recent in-migration. First, the changing nature of Northern Ireland society is explored through a brief overview of the recent 2011 government census (NISRA 2011). The chapter then investigates the emergence of racism as well as current social attitudes towards immigrant communities by drawing on the results of the 2012 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey – the annual social attitudes survey collected by ARK at the University of Ulster and Queen’s University (ARK 2012). Attention then focuses on how evolving debates on multi-culturalism have in some cases been interpreted by sections of the population through long-cemented discourses of Ulster unionism and Irish nationalism. Finally, the chapter examines the impact that such concerns have had on recent government policy agendas that aim to encourage the more stable vision of a ‘shared future’. These are only some of the matters arising in the context of recent immigration but they offer insight into some of the nuances involved when an already divided society experiences such social and cultural change in a relatively short period.