At an educational convention I attended this summer time, an Irish Druid presided over a gap ceremony. She blessed the proceedings and shared reflections on Irish indigeneity, religious beliefs and our connection to the land.
The convention was centered on decolonial idea and follow. It was due to this fact all of the extra worrying to see how the white, settled (versus travelling), Irish identification positioned as an indigenous expertise.
It’s the majority tradition in Eire however was being introduced as by some means akin to the Māori of Aotearoa (New Zealand), the Sámi of Scandinavia, the Maya of Iximulew (Guatemala) or the Lakota individuals of Turtle Island (North America) – or to Eire’s personal indigenous minority, the nomadic Traveller or Mincéirí group.
Claims to indigeneity have turn into widespread in new-age Celtic spirituality. Druids and different associates are looking for to reclaim pre-colonial and pre-Christian beliefs and practices. This may occasionally appear innocent, however there’s extra at play right here than meets the attention.
These actions are sometimes primarily based on solely a tenuous understanding of Celtic spirituality and might contain the unacknowledged appropriation of the beliefs and practices of different indigenous individuals. This appropriation at occasions comes hand in hand with essentialist views round race and gender.
Extra unlucky is the growing crossover between Celtic spiritualists and ethnonationalists. The latter push an imaginary of a “pure” white, Celtic ancestry the place “Eire is for the Irish”.
This discourse is being harnessed by an more and more belligerent and empowered Irish far-right. Events and vigilante teams now extensively espouse ahistorical claims about threats to a supposed Irish “indigenous” identification posed by non-white, non-Catholic migrants.
Indigenous identification
The worldwide indigenous inhabitants is an estimated 400 million individuals. Although the range that exists between indigenous populations signifies that no strict definition exists, the UN recognises that indigenous persons are minoritised populations who’ve “historic continuity” with a spot earlier than it was colonised or settled. They’ve a “robust hyperlink to territories and surrounding pure assets; distinct social, financial or political programs; distinct language, tradition and beliefs”.
The indigenous rights motion got here to the fore within the Nineteen Nineties, looking for to convey consideration to genocidal violence and the oppression, marginalisation and social exclusion of indigenous individuals. The purpose was at all times to recognise their proper to self-determination. This can be a political motion which challenges the historic affect of colonisation in addition to resistance to neo-colonial tasks.
With our personal historical past of colonisation, settlement and occupation, many Irish individuals really feel an affinity in direction of indigenous rights and decolonisation actions. They’ve expressed this via solidarity with many alternative anti-imperial struggles, together with the brigadistas who fought on the republican aspect of the Spanish Civil Conflict and Indian independence.
Extra lately, many Irish individuals have demonstrated an affinity with Mexico’s Zapatistas and the Palestinian wrestle.
Alamy
However the invocation of indigenous identification by white, settled individuals can lend to false equivalencies between struggles. Irish individuals actually have a foundation for anti-colonial solidarity within the continued British sovereignty over Northern Eire. There, these figuring out as Irish nationalists or expressing Irish tradition have been systematically discriminated towards.
However the Republican wrestle in Northern Eire is most of the time framed as a sovereign, nationalistic or spiritual, somewhat than indigenous, wrestle. The white, settled, majority in southern Eire has, since independence, by no means been denied language or different ethnic, spiritual or cultural rights by the Irish state.
Claims to indigeneity from the settled inhabitants are challenged by the existence of the nomadic Irish Traveller – Mincéirí – group. There are 32,000 Mincéirs in Eire, making up an estimated 0.7% of the inhabitants.
They’re understood as a nomadic tradition which diverged from settled Irish tradition about 400 years in the past. They’ve skilled systematic discrimination and exclusion underneath the fashionable Irish state which denied their standing as an ethnicity for years, refusing them fundamental rights and lodging that may assist the survival of their nomadic tradition.
The group lastly achieved recognition from the Irish state as a definite ethnic group, with their very own tradition, language, beliefs, traditions and social organisation, in 2017 after a long time of advocacy.
Political manipulation
Within the run as much as the final election on November 29, there was a proliferation of far-right events. Their candidates overtly assist anti-immigrant, “Eire is full” platforms, whereas glossing over our continued historical past of mass emigration and the truth that migrants make up a mere 2.7% Eire’s inhabitants.
Authorities representatives and opposition events have been feeding into anti-immigrant narratives. To appease (and even enchantment to) anti-immigrant sentiment inside their assist base, these events have blamed immigrants for a scarcity of housing, the poor state of the well being service and even the cost-of-living disaster.
Diluting the that means of indigenous identification, whether or not deliberately or in any other case, doesn’t assist this case. Fairly, it lends legitimacy to spurious claims of threats to Irish identification and tradition posed by migrant populations.
