New’ Ireland’s changes go more than skin deep

Country long known as a land of emigrants is transformed by migrants

By Daniel Strieff
Reporter
MSNBC
updated 1 hour, 39 minutes ago

PORTLAOISE, Ireland - As revelers worldwide celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a pint of Guinness, dyed-green milk or visions of red-bearded leprechauns, it’s a good bet that few of them will have Rotimi Adebari in mind.

But, for those seeking an authentic vision of today’s Ireland, perhaps they should.

The election last year of Nigerian-born Adebari as mayor of Portlaoise is the most prominent manifestation of the changes sweeping this island, which is rapidly evolving from a land of emigration into one of immigration, where at least 1 in 10 people is foreign-born.

This transformation — fueled by a decade-long economic boom and relatively liberal immigration laws — means Ireland has gone from Western Europe’s poorest and most homogeneous country to one of its wealthiest and most cosmopolitan in little more than a generation.

For the first time in its history, Ireland, which sent hundreds of thousands of emigrants to the United States, Britain and elsewhere, is wooing large numbers of migrants.

That has forced the country — and communities like Portlaoise, a commuter town of 14,000 residents 50 miles southwest of Dublin — to get a crash course in integration.

“When I came into this town in 2000, I could count the number of people that are born outside of Ireland that live in Portlaoise,â€