In a time when collective memory should guide nations toward compassion, the Irish finds itself in a moral contradiction. A country that once stood as a global symbol of colonial resistance and diaspora-driven survival is now witnessing rising xenophobia aimed largely at the Indian community. Recent attacks on Indian students, professionals, and migrants in Ireland aren’t isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a deeper social shift. And if left unchecked, they threaten to erase the very empathy born of Ireland’s painful history.
The Indian in Ireland Today
Today, Indian migrants in Ireland are predominantly students, skilled professionals, healthcare workers, and service providers. They power Irish hospitals, tech companies, delivery apps, universities, and agricultural supply chains. They bring in not only economic contribution but cultural diversity and community vibrancy.
However, their growing numbers have become a target for an emerging nativist rhetoric. Indian immigrants, many of whom are temporary residents, are now being scapegoated for housing shortages, unemployment, and “cultural dilution.” This trend isn’t new, but what makes it tragic, is the nation in which it is unfolding.
Ireland’s Colonial Past: A Blueprint of Suffering
To understand the magnitude of this irony, we must revisit Ireland’s historical experience.
For over eight centuries, Ireland lived under British colonial domination. It was not merely a case of foreign rule; it was one of systematic humiliation, cultural erasure, and racialization. The British did not treat the Irish as equals; they treated them as subhumans.
During the Great Famine (1845–1852) — largely a result of British policy failures and deliberate export of Ireland-grown food, over one million people died, and another two million were forced to flee, scattering across the Americas, Britain, and Australia. This was not just a famine; it was a genocide of neglect.
How the World Treated the Irish Diaspora
Irish emigrants who survived the journey were met not with welcome, but with walls of prejudice.
In the United Kingdom:
- Irish Catholics were depicted in newspapers and journals as “drunken apes” and potential criminals.
- In Victorian England, popular cartoons portrayed the Irish as savages, dirty, violent, and incapable of self-governance.
- They were barred from housing, skilled jobs, and even from full citizenship recognition.
In the United States:
- “No Irish Need Apply” wasn’t just a phrase; it was a practice. Thousands of businesses explicitly rejected Irish applicants.
- Irish workers were considered less desirable than freed Black labourers in some Southern states.
- In Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, Irish families lived in squalor while being accused of destroying American values.
- Irish women were often forced into domestic servitude and faced both sexual exploitation and racialised abuse.
In Australia and Canada:
The French-Canadian Genealogist
- Irish convicts in Australia were deemed “wild Irish” and denied legal justice and proper housing.
- In Canada, they were segregated and policed. During the typhus outbreak in 1847, Irish migrants were blamed for bringing the disease and left to die in “fever sheds.”
The global humiliation of the Irish was not abstract; it was real, lived, generational.
How Ireland Rebuilt Itself With Empathy
Ireland’s journey to sovereignty in 1922 was not just a political achievement; it was a civilizational reawakening. The Irish state rebuilt itself on the back of memory: the memory of being exploited, humiliated, and displaced.
That memory was embedded in its literature, its revolutionary ethos, its Catholic solidarity movements, and its left-leaning diaspora networks. For much of the 20th century, Ireland stood with oppressed nations across the world, from Palestine to South Africa to post-colonial India. The Republic was admired for its principled foreign policy and its rejection of imperial arrogance.
So what changed?
The New Irish Nationalism: A Dangerous Shift
Ireland has undergone a rapid transformation in recent decades. The Celtic Tiger years brought prosperity, but also rising costs and social pressure. Housing prices, job insecurity, and cultural change have created an atmosphere of unease, and unfortunately, as in many Western nations, immigrants have become easy targets.
But attacking Indian migrants as if they are responsible for housing shortages caused by poor planning and speculative real estate is not nationalism, it’s cowardice. It is not an assertion of identity, but a betrayal of it.
When Irish youth chant anti-immigrant slogans, they echo the very voices that once cursed their ancestors in English cities. Indian nurses are harassed on the streets of Cork or Dublin, it mirrors the abuse faced by Irish nuns in New York. When Indian students are told to “go home,” it is the same insult thrown at Irish dock workers a century ago.
A Mirror That Irish Refuse to Look Into
Indians are not colonisers in Ireland. They are not exploiters. They are the modern-day equivalents of 19th-century Irish immigrants, often homesick, overworked, and desperately trying to earn a better life for their families back home. These Indian immigrants mostly live in crammed apartments, take up jobs below their qualifications, and remit money to support ageing parents or pay back education loans.
When an Indian delivery worker is punched in the face for “not belonging here,” it is not an isolated incident. It is a national memory lapse.
When a country forgets its suffering, it starts justifying others’ suffering.
Memory Should Be a Bridge, Not a Wall
Ireland’s historical pain should not be a reason for exclusivity, but for solidarity. Of all nations, Ireland knows the agony of migration, the sting of exclusion, and the trauma of being seen as a demographic threat.
Instead of repeating the sins of others, Ireland has the chance to become a moral leader to show the world what a truly post-colonial nation looks like: principled, inclusive, and dignified.
That requires effort. It requires political leadership that doesn’t take the easy route of blame. It requires educational systems that teach empathy. And it requires Irish citizens to ask themselves: who are we becoming?
From Shared Pain to Shared Future
Ireland and India are not strangers. They share more than just colonial pasts. Leaders like Éamon de Valera and Jawaharlal Nehru admired each other’s struggles. The Irish and Indian revolutions inspired each other. Both countries have built vibrant democracies after centuries of degradation. Both are nations of storytellers, poets, and idealists.
But that shared history means little if, in the present, one chooses to forget it.
The world once watched the Irish fight for dignity, identity, and home. Today, it watches them decide how they treat those walking a similar path. May they choose memory , not amnesia.
If you forget your chains, you might forge new ones — for someone else.
