Letters Editor
Irish Independent
Re: Peter Flanigan—‘New Irish Far Right’ (4 June 2026)
Peter Flanigan makes the argument that given the size of the Irish diaspora, Irish people in Ireland should support immigration into Ireland. (“In this context, an Irish person being against immigration is like a Brazilian person being against football.”) The two issues—the scope and history of the Irish diaspora and current Irish migration policy—are not meaningfully related. Treaties sometimes create reciprocal migration rights. Intra-European Union migration rights are set by treaty, as well as Irish-UK migration, also set by treaty. But such treaties are the exception, not the rule. As a general matter, when Irish migrants have been welcomed into foreign countries, it is not because those other countries expected or negotiated for a reciprocal welcome of their nationals into Ireland. When Australia, for example, opened its borders to Irish migrants, it did so to benefit Australia and Australians. If and when Ireland were to open itself to Australian migrants, those with or without any particular skills or independent means, is a decision for Ireland, its citizens, and its government.
Irish citizens living at home—who have neither personally benefitted from migration into foreign nations, and who have not personally asked other countries to open their borders—are not morally or legally bound to support any particular policy for migration into Ireland, much less to support large scale migration into this country. And the fact that their cousins and other relatives, living or long dead, have moved abroad, recently or long ago, does not change the moral calculus of what is good for this country and its people today. The number of migrants welcomed into this nation, the rate as which they are admitted, as well the conditions under which they come and remain—all should be primarily decided on the basis of what benefits the citizens of this nation: Ireland. And that question—What benefits the citizens of this nation?—is not meaningfully related to the long history, both good and bad, welcoming and otherwise, of Irish migrants into foreign nations.
Seth Barrett Tillman
A U.S. citizen living and working in Ireland since 2011
Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Tillman on Migration,’ New Reform Club (June 4, 2026, 12:42 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2026/06/tillman-on-migration.html>;
