Ruth Dudley Edwards argues that Northern Ireland previews England's future: a society where the loudest agitators, Sinn Féin and the IRA historically, extract concessions while public services crumble and cohesion erodes. She notes Northern Ireland's 124% funding compared to England's 100%, yet it boasts the UK's worst waiting lists, longest A&E queues, and highest antidepressant use. This stems from a lack of accountability, Stormont's collapse, Sinn Féin's refusal to take Westminster seats, and a civil service left adrift. Edwards sees England heading the same way, with Muslim independents prioritising Gaza and Sinn Féin's sectarian tactics amplifying division. The elite's appeasement, she warns, sacrifices stability for short-term quiet, a pattern Ireland's chaos exemplifies.
The Remix News piece zooms in on Carna, a rural Irish village of under 180 residents, where the Carna Bay Hotel—once a tourist hub—now permanently houses 84 asylum seekers from across the globe. Initially a stopgap for Ukrainian refugees in 2022, the shift to a broader migrant intake, backed by a Cork-based company and €1.5 billion in state spending for 2024, has gutted local commerce and morale. Residents like Maedhbh Ní Ghaora vent frustration at three years of "temporary" disruption, while pub owner Peter Fitzpatrick laments the loss of tourism—"the village is so-so" without its heart. Conor McGregor's claim of Ireland "losing its Irishness" captures the broader fear of cultural disintegration under a migrant tide locals feel powerless to stem.
Both articles spotlight a fraying social fabric: Northern Ireland's political paralysis rewards disruption over unity, while Ireland's migrant surge drowns small communities in outsiders they didn't invite. The "noisiest troublemakers"—sectarian leaders or unvetted arrivals—dominate, leaving quieter voices sidelined. Chaos, not cohesion, reigns as governance bends to external pressures.
Ireland's migrant influx, as seen in Carna, isn't just a numbers game—84 asylum seekers in a village of 180—it's a tipping point for social cohesion. The hotel's shift from weddings and christenings to a permanent asylum hub has gutted the local economy; tourists bypass a town with no draw, leaving businesses like Fitzpatrick's pub on life support. This isn't abstract: it's a tangible loss of what held Carna together. Across Ireland, €1.5 billion funnelled into asylum housing in nine months signals a state prioritising newcomers over natives, amplifying resentment. John Foalan's shift from welcoming Ukrainians to wariness of undocumented arrivals mirrors a broader erosion of trust—people feel their goodwill's been exploited.
Carna's story echoes in places like Lisdoonvarna, where 197 locals voted against a migrant centre and 15 for it, yet it opened anyway. This isn't democracy, it's imposition. The "Irishness" McGregor mourns isn't just nostalgia; it's the rhythm of rural life—tight-knit, self-sustaining—disrupted by a scale of change villagers can't absorb. A 300-year-old hotel in Tipperary turned asylum hub isn't progress; it's a symbol of heritage traded for expediency. Locals aren't anti-migrant by nature—Karl Rogers regrets selling his hotel—but the pace and permanence of this shift, driven by distant corporations and a tone-deaf government, shred the social fabric.
The state's suspension of the Carna plan for three months, only after locals scrambled an alternative, shows a reactive, not responsive, system. In Northern Ireland, Edwards notes a similar dysfunction: overfunding masks collapse, rewarding Sinn Féin's sabotage. Ireland's migrant policy mirrors this, throwing money (€1.5 billion) at a problem without addressing its impact on cohesion. When 84 strangers outnumber locals in a village's core, and protests like Maedhbh's are ignored, the message is clear: your community doesn't count. This breeds not just anger but alienation, a society fragmenting into "us" and "them."
Ireland's chaos parallels Edwards' Northern Ireland warning, appease the loudest, neglect the rest, and watch stability dissolve. Carna's breakdown isn't isolated; it's a microcosm of towns losing their moorings. The flood of migrants—some with "no papers, no nothing," as Foalan puts it—strains a system already thin, echoing Northern Ireland's overburdened services. Without control, Ireland risks becoming a patchwork of enclaves, not a nation—a lesson England and Australia might heed as Edwards predicts.
The Remix News piece nails the visceral impact—Carna's a ghost of itself, its social bonds frayed by a hotel-turned-barracks. The €1.5 billion figure grounds this in hard reality; it's not sentimentality but maths showing skewed priorities. Yet it skimps on why—global migration pressures, EU rules, or corporate profiteering—leaving the "why" murky. Edwards' Northern Ireland lens adds depth: Ireland's chaos isn't unique but a symptom of rewarding disruption. Her England parallel—Muslim independents mirroring Sinn Féin—is correct and the core idea holds: governance that ignores its base breeds disorder.
Ireland's losing more than "Irishness"—it's losing trust. When locals fundraise to reclaim their hotel, as in Carna, while the state bankrolls outsiders, the social contract cracks. Northern Ireland's antidepressant spike and Ireland's rural despair suggest a shared outcome: people unmoored from a sense of belonging. Edwards' "quiet patriots" elbowed aside by "noisy enemies" fits here—Carna's residents aren't heard, just steamrolled.
Both articles scream chaos over cohesion. Ireland's migrant flood, like Northern Ireland's political quagmire, shows what happens when control slips, identity blurs, resentment festers, and communities splinter. Edwards' elite-bashing lands: a government disconnected from its people, as in Carna or Stormont, doesn't fix problems; it foments them. Ireland's a live case—unmanaged inflows turn villages into pressure cookers, not melting pots.
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/04/07/northern-ireland-shows-where-england-is-headed/
"The Irish Unionist historian and writer Ruth Dudley Edwards has written an incisive piece for the Telegraph in which she explains how England's future can be seen in Northern Ireland where they appease the noisiest troublemakers:
Of the many lessons I learned from covering Northern Ireland for decades, the most depressing was that the British state almost always employed bribes and appeasement to shut up troublemakers.
British ministers – relieved that by and large these days political violence is off the agenda – have the pathetic belief that, if sufficiently humoured, everyone will see sense and work together for the good of the province.
This reached its apogee in 2007 when, after years of lying and stonewalling from the IRA over decommissioning, Jonathan Powell – Tony Blair's Chief of Staff and now, God help us, Keir Starmer's National Security Adviser – invited Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to his wedding.
It turns out from a Northern Ireland Select Committee report that the province has the worst public services in the United Kingdom:
NI has the highest waiting lists, the longest A&E queues and the greatest number of prescriptions for antidepressants. Par for the course, the call from most quarters is already for the provision to get more money.
But last year, the Conservative government agreed to fund Northern Ireland according to its estimated level of need of 124%. In simple language, this means that the province gets £124 for every £100 to England.
A complete lack of political responsibility reigns supreme:
Since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement Stormont has been in a state of collapse: there is no collective responsibility at ministerial level in the devolved government; the civil service is demoralised; Sinn Féin MPs still refuse to take their Westminster seats, and since they want Northern Ireland to fail, most of the party's republicans are focused on doing it damage while extracting the maximum from the British Treasury.
Of course, the greatest need is in the areas wrecked by terrorism and tribalism, and with the cynical representatives who shout the loudest for government assistance. But no one argues with them.
This is because whoever shouts the loudest gets the most. In Northern Ireland, quiet patriots are elbowed aside by noisy enemies of the state.
In England, we humour Islam because we are afraid of it and sneer at Christianity because we are not.
Anyone who feels frightened on this front should study what happens when – fearful of the threat of terrorism – electorates vote on sectarian lines.
England is heading that way, with the recent striking success of Muslim independents in elections to the House of Commons last year; their priority is Gaza.
Their stoutest supporters are Sinn Féin, who are uncompromising supporters of Palestinian activism and have led the way in making Ireland the most antisemitic country in Europe; sectarian voting is the key to their success.
Anyone trying to understand what's going on with some of our Muslim politicians should nip across the Irish Sea and study how republican tacticians got their way in war and in peace.
We are in peril as a society because our enemies have skilfully learned how to turn a liberal democracy against itself. And we have a metropolitan elite that hates its own country, undermines its culture at every turn and thinks free speech should be restricted because – like our Prime Minister – they don't know it's an essential bastion of every democracy. J.D. Vance was right."
https://rmx.news/article/an-irish-tale-of-being-overrun-my-migrants/
"The only hotel in the village of Carna on the west coast of Ireland, the Carna Bay Hotel, used to attract hundreds of tourists every summer for weddings, christenings, and other programs. But after the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out, the owner signed a contract with the state in 2022 to temporarily accept Ukrainian refugees, writes Mandiner.
Now a plan calls to permanently use the building to house 84 asylum seekers from all over the world in the center's 28 rooms. There are not even 180 full-time residents in the town. The U.K.'s Daily Mail reported on this, also citing MMA fighter Conor McGregor for saying the country "potentially losing its Irishness," with illegal migration "ravaging the country."
The paper notes that this is an issue for towns across Ireland, with the government spending close 1.5 billion pound on housing asylum seekers in the first none months of 2024.
One International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) center even opened in a 300-year-old hotel in Tipperary County.
Carna residents are protesting and feel the government is ignoring their concerns. "Our community is filled with anger. This is the third year and they still call this temporary?" Maedhbh Ní Ghaora told Daily Mail.
"Tourists don't stop here anymore. There's no point. The hotel was the center, without it the village is so-so," said local pub owner Peter Fitzpatrick
Karl Rogers, the hotel's former owner – who is getting a lot of flak from locals for signing the first contract to temporarily house Ukrainian refugees after Covid crippled his business – is also disappointed. He said that if he had known this would be the fate of his beloved hotel, he would never have sold it. The catch may be that the current owner is a company based in Cork city – Ireland's third largest city, and is presumably not working for the well-being of the residents of the rural villages. Instead, for business reasons, there will be 80 permanent "guests" instead of a sporadically operating hotel, regardless of what the locals want.
This company submitted the application for the possibility of accepting refugees; the government only suspended its consideration for three months because the locals submitted an alternative proposal.
64-year-old John Foalan told the paper: "'When the Ukrainians came we welcomed them, but we see what's happening in other areas, people turning up with no papers, no documents, no nothing, just expecting to walk in." He also warned of what happened in Lisdoonvarna, County Clare, where 15 votes were cast in favor of the government plan for a reception center and 197 against it, but the center was opened nonetheless.
Now, a local development cooperative is trying to buy back the building for a community-run hotel using fundraising and tender resources."