Ireland Is Not Full, But Some Hearts Are.

By Ben Gilmore

An anti-immigration protest outside the Custom House in Dublin in February 2024. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire/PA Images

Ireland stands at a moment that will define who we are. Across the island, from Belfast to Ballina, from Derry to Dublin, anti-immigration protests have surged, their chants loud and familiar: “Ireland is full,” “They’re taking our jobs,” “Our culture is under threat.” These words are not just wrong, they are a betrayal of everything this country has known. Ireland’s story is one of movement, of departure and return, of people crossing oceans in search of safety and opportunity. To claim that Ireland is “full” is to forget our own history, to ignore the truth that we are still rebuilding, still growing, and still learning what it means to welcome.

The facts tell a different story. The population of Ireland, across all 32 counties, is around 7.3 million (1). In 1841, before the Great Famine, it was more than 8 million. Nearly two centuries later, we have still not recovered what starvation and forced emigration stole. Ireland is not full. It is still rebuilding.

And rebuilding requires people. In 2024, Ireland recorded one of its highest levels of net migration since the Celtic Tiger years, with more people arriving than leaving (2). That included tens of thousands of returning Irish citizens alongside people from Ukraine, Nigeria, Brazil, Poland and beyond. These new arrivals are not outsiders. They are workers, carers, students, parents and neighbours. They are seeking the same safety and opportunity that generations of Irish people once crossed oceans to find.

The claim that immigrants are taking jobs does not stand up to reality. The island’s unemployment rate remains near record lows, while sectors from healthcare to technology struggle to fill vacancies. Tens of thousands of work permits were issued in 2024 to non-EU nationals, many in hospitals and care homes. Over 40 percent of doctors and more than half of nurses in Ireland were trained abroad (3). If you have been treated in an Irish hospital recently, there is a strong chance that the person who cared for you was a migrant. These people are not taking jobs. They are keeping our services alive.

Housing has become the favoured political weapon of the far-right. They insist migrants are pushing Irish people out of homes, but research shows the housing crisis stems from decades of underbuilding, speculative investment and political failure. Ireland needs at least 50,000 new homes a year to meet demand, regardless of immigration. Blaming newcomers for a crisis they did not cause is not only wrong. It is cruel.

In truth, migrants suffer the worst of this crisis. Far fewer own their homes compared to Irish-born residents. Many spend over a third of their income on rent and are excluded from social housing because of residency rules (4). The claim that migrants are being handed houses is false, designed to divide struggling people against one another instead of uniting them against those responsible.

Another dangerous narrative is that asylum seekers pose a threat to safety. In 2023, the Gardaí confirmed they had no evidence linking asylum seekers to any rise in crime (5). There has been no wave of violence, only isolated incidents distorted into propaganda. Let us be honest about what this really is. It is not about crime. It is about colour, about accent, about who is seen as belonging.

In recent months, one image has stayed with me. At an anti-immigration rally in the North, the Irish tricolour and the Union Jack flew side by side. Two flags that for generations divided our communities were raised together for the first time in my life, not in peace, but in resentment. In a place that has buried too many of its young to division, people stood united against those who came seeking safety. The irony could not be deeper: after centuries of learning how hate destroys us, we now choose to share it.

And maybe that is the greatest tragedy of all. That Ireland, a place once (and still) torn apart by borders, is now finding common cause not in reconciliation but in rejection. We should know better than most. We were once the migrants, and we still are. Thousands of Irish people leave each year in search of work and opportunity. Our diaspora is over 70 million strong. We asked other nations to open their doors to us. We built lives abroad, often in places that did not always welcome us. Are we really prepared to deny to others what we once begged for ourselves?

There is an old Irish saying: “Ní líonann aon tigh le daoine, ach líontar le grá.” No house is full with people, only with love is it filled. What makes a country too full? Numbers, or fear? People, or prejudice?

Migration has always enriched this island. Walk through any town and you will find Chinese bakeries, Filipino nurses, Somali taxi drivers and Brazilian cafés. Our classrooms, sports teams and communities are more diverse than ever before. Irishness has never been fixed. It has evolved through famine, war, partition and peace. It grows still. And it is stronger for it.

Yes, Ireland faces real challenges; housing, inequality, the cost of living. But migrants are not the cause of these problems. The wealthy landlords hoarding empty properties, the corporations avoiding taxes, and the politicians too timid to act are the ones who have failed this generation. It is right to feel anger. But it should be directed upward, not sideways. When we turn on each other, the powerful win.

As the old saying warns us: “an Irishman should not throw a stone at the foreigner, for he might strike his own clansman” (6). In a land built by emigrants, that truth should echo louder than ever. Let Ireland be a place that fills not with barriers but with welcome. A place opened by courage, not closed by cowardice.

The Ireland worth fighting for is not shrinking. It is growing. And there is room for everyone.

Ireland is not full. But some hearts are.

References:

(1) Central Statistics Office (CSO), Population and Migration Estimates, April 2024: Key Findings (Dublin: CSO, 2024).

(2) Ibid

(3) Department of Health (Ireland). Health in Ireland: Key Trends 2024. Dublin: Government of Ireland, 2024.

(4) IHREC, Economic equality and the right to housing in Ireland. Dublin: 2021.

(5) McGinnity, Frances, Emma Quin, Samantha Arnold, and Éamonn Fahey. Monitoring Report on Integration 2024. Dublin: ESRI, 2024.

(6) O’Connell Daniel, speeches on various public affairs. Dublin: James Duffy, 1846.