My love affair with Ireland began some time before I first set foot in the country.
I became hooked on Irish music while attending and running folk clubs in the North East of England. I would go on to spend several happy holidays there, later making repeated visits - Northern Ireland mostly but also, often enough venturing south, as a reporter.
I have made Irish friends in many walks of life and almost always experienced a warm welcome on my travels to their land. But the times are changing.
Europe's current obsession with immigration is affecting attitudes throughout the EU as well as in Britain. The politicians seem too incompetent and unimaginative to act in an effective way that does not at the same time lose sight of the need for compassion and a sense of proportion.
Recent events in Dublin are instructive, as I attempted to show in this analysis for The National ...
The island of Ireland, where the stabbing of three children outside a Dublin primary school last week led to rioting, is beautiful, often troubled and historically a great exporter of people.
Definitions vary but the Irish diaspora numbers between an official estimate of three million, born in Ireland but residing overseas, and an astonishing 100 million, the higher figure covering everyone of known Irish ancestry scattered around the world. Ireland's population, even taking account of Northern Ireland, part of the UK, stands at just seven million.
Dublin burning. Image: CanalEnthusiast
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