Anti-Irish Racism

By Steve Higginson (James Larkin Society) and Jeff O'Carroll (Cairde na hEireann) - 3/4/2013

On Wednesday, February 6th 2013, Cairde na hEireann launched their report into the continuing prevalence of attacks against the Irish community in Liverpool by Far-right and loyalist groups. The meeting was attended by a broad swathe of community groups, trade union officials, Irish press and other concerned organisations across the NW and beyond.

The report makes for salutary reading and situates the mobilisation of Far-right and loyalists in the context of anti-Irish racism. The reason for the report? Quite simply there has been a deafening silence in various progressive quarters concerning the ongoing attacks. The silence allows for anti-Irish racism to be brushed under the carpet. It is as if anti-Irishness is acceptable nor is to be seen in any racist context.

Furthermore, since July 2012, there has been a continuous drip-drip of gossip, misinformation and lies whereby both Cairde and the James Larkin Society have been blamed for being sectarian and provoking reaction from the Far-right. No doubt this non-descript clique and their perverse logic, would have blamed Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jnr and the Civil Rights Movement for provoking racist reaction from the Ku Klux Klan. Presumably the Civil Rights Movement,to prove their non-sectarianism, should have invited the Klan to march with them or even better Rosa and Martin should have been trying to convert the Klan to some form of Trotskysm.

This form of perverse logic feeds anti-Irish feeling and also contributes to denying the Irish community public space to celebrate their cultural identity. The whispering campaign both outside and within the labour movement against Cairde and the Liverpool Irish Flute Band, shows a breathtaking ignorance. The Band has led off every major Merseyside Trade Union and Community march/demonstration since 1996.

Liverpool and its history of being a global-local cosmopolitan city ,is now in danger of allowing a re-engineering of public space, whereby any attempt to celebrate an Irish identity creates segregation rather than integration.: social and cultural exclusion rather than social and cultural inclusion.

Injustice wherever it resides, must be challenged. Neither can we tolerate a hierarchy of oppressions/racisms whereby anti-Irish racism is shrugged off with a quiet acquiescence. Concepts of freedom and equality can never be narrowed. It is fifty years since the Civil Rights Movement marched on Washington. Martin Luther King Jnr spoke of “ injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. The rights to public and communal space , as Rosa Parks and Dr King both recognised , are both civil and human rights.

Link to the report

Printer friendly page

Sorry Comments Closed

Comment left by T C on 7th July, 2013 at 16:08
Being a Liverpudlian of mostly Irish descent, I too have often wondered why our culture, although pervasive in the city for obvious reasons, is often marginalised and completely overlooked. Actually I am shocked and surprised that the NF and other far-Right groups are targeting the Irish here, but there you go. My view is that racism against the Irish is seen to be acceptable, because many English people are just racist against us, that most people of Irish descent in Liverpool are often Working class and so there is a class prejudice involved as well, and the clincher is that because it is white on white racism, it's not seen as serious or important to the often white Middle class anti-racists, who would rather be involved with white on black racism issues. I am convinced that when people turn a blind eye to any injustice, it gives the green light to all other prejudices. We have to tackle them all, or effectively we tackle none of them.