Basking in a soft green glow Ireland, for the Italian media, exists t o provide occasional weekend-supplement travel articles. The island is remote (yet easily reachable by low-cost airlines, they stress), and populated by young creative types guzzling guinness. It is also, reassuringly, a Catholic country.
Given that Ireland is rarely in the news here, particularly since peace ‘broke out’, a recent analysis piece in Diario, a current affairs magazine caught my eye.
The piece focussed on the growing Islamic community in Ireland, and had some useful information and insights to offer. Pity, then, that its opening two paragraphs could well have been written by the late Fallaci.
The opening paragraph sets the tone, where we’re introduced to the first Mosque in Dublin, on the South Circular Rd, which is in a deconsacrated protestant church. “In place of the cross, at the top of the bell tower adapted as a minaret, there is the Islamic cresent”. A valid, if somewhat dramatic description. The intent is clear – in this case Islam has supplanted Christianity physically. No mention is made of another deconsacrated church on the very same rd. which has been turned into luxury appartments.
Well and good. Up to this point the article is technically correct, though, in this monkey’s humble opinion, misleading. The second paragraph, where census statistics are brought in, however, is not just misleading, but factually incorrect, and bordering on the barmy.
After the paragraph heading, “Catholics under 90%”, we’re told that Islam is Ireland’s second religion. It is not. The 2002 census figures, on which Diario bases its article, show clearly that Ireland’s second largest religious denomination is that branch of Protestantism gathered together under the label Church of Ireland.
We’re told of the astonishing growth of the Islamic community in Ireland, growing from 3,873 people in 1991 through to 26,000 people in 2002, with an estimate that by the time of the next census (taken this year, with preliminary results now available – though not in relation to religious demographics) the population will have grown to 40,000 (no source is cited for this estimate). To put things in perspective, even were the estimate to be correct, Islam would still not be the second largest religious denomination of the state, given that adults describing themselves as ‘Church of Ireland’ or ‘Protestant’ in 2002 totalled over 115,000.
But, and this is why the article is misleading and barmy, the ascending numbers of Islam are placed alongside the descending numbers for Catholicism (down to a dismal 3.5 million), against the backdrop of a Church converted into a Mosque. Hey presto, you arrive at a conclusion which would have made even La Fallaci blush: “So, on these numbers, the future of Ireland is Muslim.”
With a Ratzinger style flourish the article has set up the clash of civilisations paradigm. Catholic numbers are going down, Islamic numbers are going up – Q.E.D Ireland will be Islamic.
On these numbers, to put it politely, me arse. Even were the information published correct, which it is not, the conclusion is outlandish. If we take Diario‘s highest estimate of an Islamic community in Ireland at 40,000 people, that still adds up to in and around 1% in a population of over 4 million people. Then again, the article makes ample use of statistics without ever mentioning the total population of Ireland.
The conclusion also presumes that population trends of a given religious denomination will remain constant. It was this ridiculous notion that allowed Orianna Fallaci to proclaim that the future of Europe is to become ‘Eurabia’ (and Fallaci gave incorrect and incomplete data to support her looney tunes as well).
The genuinely thought-provoking themes in the article, for example the changing nature of Islamic imigration to Ireland, or the question of incitement to hatred legislation, get lost behind the bluster:
“In Ireland one can always discuss any argument: anyone can say what they please, downing a pint of black Guinness. Following on from the tradition of free speech, then, also the fundamentalists that in other countries are silenced, here can say what they like*. In a liberal country it can happen like this. It begins with re-adapting a deconsecrated church into a mosque, it fisnishes with saying that a holy Islamic war against the west is a good and justified thing”.
It’s a pity that, amongst the interviews conducted for the piece, nobody pointed out to Diario, that the Irish in England suffered the same facile type of equation when, during the IRA bombings of the ’70s and ’80s, to be Irish was to be considered a terrorist.
There is an wonderful article to be written on the Islamic community in Ireland. Sadly, that published by Diario isn’t it.
*Ireland, like many other countries, has an incitement to hatred act, under which people can be prosecuted. How easy it is to bring a succesful prosecution is another matter.