This chapter gives particular consideration to the political culture in which Irish approaches to governmental secrecy and freedom of information evolved and developed. It notes that openness and transparency in government institutions were not high priorities for the fledgling Irish state. Fresh from fighting the War of Independence and in the midst of Civil War, the Free State government that was established with Irish independence was driven by an expedient imperative to maintain control. From these beginnings, many have noted that the Irish state system that subsequently evolved was characterised by a centralised and secretive approach to government – governed more by pragmatics than principle. It is from this starting point that Chapter 2 documents the political and administrative culture of the Irish state as it evolved throughout the last century, demonstrating that once institutional norms are established, they take a great deal of effort and directed political intention to shift them. The chapter looks at Irish attitudes to FOI and illustrates the unevenness of reform efforts over the years, as well as the prospects for a future re-orientation.

In a short period of time, Ireland has had to develop policies for a population that has become increasingly diverse. This chapter explores the subtexts of two controversies generated by the growing religious and cultural diversity in Irish institutions: the (Muslim) hijab in Irish schools and the (Sikh) turban in the Garda (Police) Reserve. Using a critical discourse analysis approach, it highlights and examines the main argumentative strategies through which these controversies and their repercussions have been constructed and debated in Ireland. More specifically, it explores what these reveal about Irish institutions’ and Irish society’s level of acceptance towards diversity on a spectrum of non-toleration, toleration and respect-recognition. While the Irish educational system has offered a level of structural and practical accommodation to (religious) minorities, acceptance of cultural and religious diversity in state institutions can depend on a number of factors, including the limited nature of the claim and the size of the minority, and is also conditional on the consequences of such diversity for Irish institutions’ self-perceptions.

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book describes the simplifications that impair our perception of the relationship between Ireland and migration. It discusses both the laws and policies that frame migration and the statistics that represent the translation of the messiness of migration into manageable, quantifiable units. The book examines beyond the borders of women and Ireland, highlighting the countertopographies of migration to and from Ireland, where Ireland as a place and as an identity is repeatedly centred and decentred. It focuses on belonging, at scales that range from the individual and the home to the state. The book identifies social connections around language, family and community that offer possibilities for both encounter and distance, and that show how personal experiences may intersect with broader structures in a range of contexts, but with different outcomes.

Based on empirical research conducted in Northern Ireland, this chapter examines the way in which tolerance is displayed between minority and majority social groups. Following recent patterns of migration in Northern Ireland, achieving positive integration requires joint and multiple responses across different parts of society. It is too simplistic to consider legislation or very locally based responses or other measures alone. While these are fundamental to providing true recognition of minority groups, inter‐relationships and other contextual matters contribute to degrees of tolerance. This chapter challenges the notion that toleration is always the best strategy, showing how in particular circumstances non‐toleration can be more constructive than ‘mere’ toleration. By conceptualising integration through a matrix of tolerance, the analysis reveals a complex process that requires adjustment and change from all groups in society. It shows how the achievement of anything beyond ‘mere tolerance’ relies on proactive measures from government, civil society and individuals. The analysis concludes by identifying ways in which society may move forward and move beyond ‘mere tolerance’ to become truly integrated.

This chapter considers recent manifestations of intolerance that claim a liberal inheritance. Contemporary liberal intolerance draws upon the kind of ethnocentric liberalism elaborated on a philosophical basis by Richard Rorty. But independent, practical forms emerged after the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001 and in the anti-multiculturalism that gained ground in Europe following the murder of Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands. The chapter draws on Dutch and Irish examples of ethnocentric liberalism, and considers why ethnocentric liberal prejudice towards Muslims was widely condoned in the former but has not been in Ireland, where, in contrast, he identifies anti-Traveller prejudice as an example of this kind of ethnocentric liberalism, and an expression of modern social rules of belonging in the nation-state.

This chapter looks at the relationship between migration, work and Ireland, paying attention to the hierarchies that emerge when migrants experience work. It examines a specific employment sector, health care, which is often classified as skilled migration. The chapter also looks at inadvertent migrant workers: people whose main motivation for migration is not necessarily work, but who become part of the labour force in their new homes for a variety of reasons. This includes students and migrants on working holiday visas who, as migrant workers in different contexts, share similar experiences of precarity and marginalization. A combination of increased investment in the Irish health care system, population growth, changing training and work practices meant that, from the late twentieth century onwards, Irish hospitals began to experience a shortage of nurses.

This chapter discusses the tensions between belonging and not belonging, both for individuals and for groups. It considers questions of legality and illegality, highlighting the links between laws and migrant status, and what these mean for belonging. The chapter also considers citizenship as a formal marker of belonging, and links this to political belonging in the form of voting. The accounts of deportations on the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) home page are sandwiched between announcements of Citizenship Ceremonies. The first citizenship ceremony in Ireland took place in June 2011, in Dublin Castle. The issue of voting rights is important in the context of Ireland. Belonging occurs, and is experienced, in a range of spaces and scales, from the informal sense of being at home to the more formal belonging that is expressed through citizenship and legal status and the right to vote.

Large scale and rapid immigration to Ireland has significantly changed the face of the country. Recent Census figures show that, despite the economic recession, migration to Ireland is continuing, albeit at a slower pace. In addition, contrary to popular belief, many migrants have decided to make Ireland their home and have applied for citizenship. Cultural and religious diversity has become a lived reality in the country. Schools have an important part to play in educating young people how to develop strategies for living in a more diverse society, in accepting and respecting difference. This chapter reports on data gathered for two research projects dealing with cultural and religious diversity in the Irish education system. It discusses measures Irish primary and second level schools have put in place to cater for diversity in the student body and explores to what extent Irish and migrant students have developed a better understanding of each other’s social worlds – leading to an acceptance of difference and changing stereotypes.

The issue of racism and sectarianism is increasingly understood through the prism of 'hate crime'. This way of conceptualising racism and sectarianism is usually accompanied by the claim that society should be intolerant towards intolerance. This chapter argues that this involves a particular interpretation of tolerance and intolerance – one which deviates significantly from the traditional liberal conception of toleration. The chapter outlines public attitudes towards additional penalties for racial aggravation in race hate crimes. It then explores the rationales for these views by the public and points out that the main principle which is articulated by the majority of those who oppose hate crime laws, and a significant proportion who support the law, is one of equality in the eyes of the law. The chapter then judges hate crime laws against John Stuart Mill’s defence of tolerance, argue that they are antithetical to Mill’s defence of tolerance. It concludes by arguing, firstly, that hate crime laws undermine the principle of equality – which has been, and continues to be, fundamental to anti-racism. And secondly, that they undermine tolerance, which is fundamental to personal liberty.

Public education in Ireland is provided through private ‘patrons’ which are still typically, if not exclusively, religious-denominational bodies. Historically this patronage model was based on an understanding of religion as a public good and as an anchoring point of national identity. Correspondingly, it offered a framework for the recognition of the dominant religious identity as well as the toleration of minority religions – at least within the limits of practicability. However, the patronage model has increasingly been defended with reference to the secular goods of ‘diversity’ and ‘choice’. Accordingly the constitutional framework has been understood as a means of protecting parental ‘choice’ understood in religiously-neutral terms, rather than as protecting religious identity as such. And while religious freedom in education is reductively understood in the quasi-utilitarian terms of parental preference, the right to ‘choice’ is precarious and unequally distributed. This chapter argues that since the new politics of school choice treats religious and non-religious identities as disaggregated consumer preferences rather than as constitutive identities, it has largely superseded any concept of toleration as a normative framework or legitimation strategy for educational power structures.