Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
GAA club’s integration policy pays off in Ireland’s most ethnically diverse town
http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/gaa-club-s-integration-policy-pays-off-in-ireland-s-most-ethnically-diverse-town-1.2237262Ballyhaunis is Ireland’s most ethnically diverse town. The foreign-national population here was 42 per cent at the 2011 census. A majority of children in the local primary school, Scoil Íosa, do not speak English at home. And the refugees housed in the Old Convent are only a small part of that ethnic mix.
The town is home to a well-established community of Pakistanis and Syrians, who came here in the late 1970s and built Ireland’s first purpose-built mosque on Clare Street not long afterward. A sizeable contingent of eastern Europeans also arrived during the economic boom of the mid-2000s, as well as a large number of Traveller families.
In a town where almost as many shop fronts are boarded up as are open for business, these communities have so far lived in peaceful, but parallel, coexistence.
“We don’t know each other really,” says Gerard McGarry, president of the local GAA club. The club hosted an integration day at the local pitch at the end of May. Ballyhaunis is a vibrant club, winning senior hurling and intermediate football county champions in 2014. And based on the number of volunteers mobilised today, backing for the initiative is widespread.
The town is home to a well-established community of Pakistanis and Syrians, who came here in the late 1970s and built Ireland’s first purpose-built mosque on Clare Street not long afterward. A sizeable contingent of eastern Europeans also arrived during the economic boom of the mid-2000s, as well as a large number of Traveller families.
In a town where almost as many shop fronts are boarded up as are open for business, these communities have so far lived in peaceful, but parallel, coexistence.
“We don’t know each other really,” says Gerard McGarry, president of the local GAA club. The club hosted an integration day at the local pitch at the end of May. Ballyhaunis is a vibrant club, winning senior hurling and intermediate football county champions in 2014. And based on the number of volunteers mobilised today, backing for the initiative is widespread.
Who knew?
