How can you identify as Irish on the census if you are not white?Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Europe, Media Archive, Social Science on 2014-12-05 15:30Z by Steven |
How can you identify as Irish on the census if you are not white?
Manchester Policy Blogs: Ethnicity
Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity
University of Manchester, United Kingdom
2014-11-27
Lindsey Garratt, Research Associate
The census allows people to identify as Irish only if they are also white. What about the growing number of ethnic minority Irish?, asks Lindsey Garratt.
When I moved to the UK from the Republic of Ireland in August 2012, I filled in an application to privately rent a house. The form contained a question on ethnicity.
As I ticked the ‘white Irish’ box, it was the first time I had identified myself as anything other than part of the majority group of a country. Now outside the dominant category and the anonymity this sometimes provides, a fleeting nervousness passed through me – what if identifying myself as Irish went against securing the house?
This thought came and went in an instant, but what hasn’t left me was my second reaction – what category would I have checked if I wasn’t ‘white’, what if I was ‘black’ and Irish, what box could I tick then?…
…Uncoupling ‘white’ from Irish in the census would allow at least three important groups to be recognised. Firstly, those of two migrant origin parents born in Ireland, or those who themselves moved to Ireland and subsequently to the UK. Secondly, those of mixed parentage born in Ireland, who have moved to the UK. Lastly, those of mixed parentage, born in the UK…
Read the entire article here.