‘Our only hotel has been shut to house migrants’
Rural Ireland in revolt as influx of asylum seekers stretches housing and services to breaking point
Riot police standing guard outside the Racket Hall hotel in rural Co Tipperary are tetchy. The 40-room guesthouse in one of Ireland’s oldest market towns remains intact but recent history suggests it could soon be reduced to a smouldering wreck.
Lorry driver Justin Phelan has no intention of setting the building alight but his message to the 160 asylum seekers destined for his hometown is clear: “Roscrea is full”.
“The services are on the ground here in this town,” said Mr Phelan, 34. “Not just in this town – all across the country they’re on the ground. There’s God knows how many people on trolleys today in Limerick hospital.
“We have around five GPS in this town. You call any of them this minute and he’ll say, ‘I don’t have space, I’m full up.’ There’s 33 children in my daughter’s class. Just imagine adding two more, with language difficulties. What effect is that going to have on the rest of the children in the class?”
Mr Phelan is one of many keeping vigil outside the hotel in what is a snapshot of unrest across rural Ireland at the government’s perceived clumsy handling of migration.
Protests have been increasing across the country at resettlement programmes as the housing system creaks, leading, in some extreme cases, to public buildings being torched. Huddled around one of the open fires at the entrance to the hotel, Mr Phelan said he had “been here every day” since last Thursday, when Dublin gave local politicians 24 hours’ notice that the hotel was being closed to the public to house asylum seekers.
Weddings and parties scheduled to take place in the town’s only hotel have been cancelled after the owners reached a deal with the government.
After some demonstrators tried to block a bus carrying the first 17 arrivals, mainly women and children, from entering the car park on Monday, scuffles with the police broke out.
Immigration to Ireland rose by 32 per cent, to more than 140,000, in the year ending April 2023. Of these arrivals, over 13,000 were asylum seekers. Since the Russian invasion, nearly 100,000 Ukrainians have come.
The immigration influx – the largest since 2007 – comes amid a shortfall of 250,000 homes and high rents. The government recently admitted there was not enough room to house new arrivals, slashing the monetary allowance for Ukrainians by four fifths and offering asylum seekers tents in which to sleep.
In Roscrea, many residents have been camping outside the Racket Hall hotel through the night. “This is the only hotel in our town and if you take it away, as bad as our town is now, it’s going to be worse,” said Mr Phelan.
But the reaction in Roscrea has not all been negative, with some leaving toys outside the hotel’s doors for its young guests. A number of families who have attended the demonstrations are at pains to point out that their gripe is with government policy, not with the individuals arriving in their town.
While Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, said that communities where asylum seekers were being housed had legitimate “fears”, he added that “nobody in a democracy has the right to veto who moves into their area”.
A poll in May 2023 found that 75 per cent of voters believed Ireland had taken in “too many” refugees. Protests have also taken place in the deprived suburb of Ballymun and rural towns in counties Carlow and Mayo.
The disaffection has escalated to full-blown revolt by some in local government. Mayo county council voted unanimously on Tuesday to cease co-operation with Dublin over the housing of asylum seekers – the first council in Ireland to do so.
Responding to the backlash, Mr Varadkar said that the 10 areas most “under pressure” because of refugee arrivals would receive additional policing, education and health resources. He went on to condemn the move by Roscrea residents to obstruct the arrival of the asylum seekers as “anti-democratic” and “against the spirit and the values of our nation”.
Last year, thugs rioted in Dublin, setting trams and police cars alight and looting shops, in response to an incident outside a school in which an Algerian, who was an Irish citizen not born in the country, allegedly stabbed several people. The unrest was organised online in Whatsapp messaging groups, with one chat encouraging members descending on the city centre to “kill all foreigners”.
There have been 13 arson attacks on migrant facilities, and sites wrongly thought to be housing migrants, over the past year, and no arrests have been made. A threat of arson against the Racket Hall Hotel in Roscrea was also reported to the police on Monday.
There are particular concerns about the influx of “unvetted” single males into the country. Last year, almost 70 per cent of “international protection applicants” arriving at Dublin airport, where most asylum seekers are processed, did so without valid identity documents, according to the justice department. The number of male asylum seekers was more than double that of women. In 2022, 4,200 people arrived without documentation – and most asylum applicants that year were also single men.
There is also widespread concern about dwindling public services. Last year, the Irish College of General Practitioners warned that a GP shortage posed a significant public health risk, and that the crisis was particularly stark in rural Ireland. However, provincial towns have also taken a disproportionate number of refugees in the past year, according to a recent analysis of Ukrainian asylum seekers by the Irish Independent.
This has led to a sense of unfairness with how migrant accommodation has been allocated. The populations of some towns, such as Lisdoonvarna, in Co Clare, have more than doubled as a result of incoming refugees, many from Ukraine. Sandra, 47, a support worker, said her town’s predicament also applied to the rest of rural Ireland: “Any town which is a pushover gets bombarded. We stayed quiet for so long, but it’s time to speak up.”
‘Any town which is a pushover is bombarded. We stayed quiet for so long, but it’s time to speak up’