Thread: Ireland gets its first black mayor

Ireland gets its first black mayor
Staff and agencies
28 June, 2007

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago

DUBLIN, Ireland - Ireland elected its first black mayor Thursday, the latest sign of how rapid immigration is changing this once all-white nation.

Adebari, 43, who has been an independent politician on Portlaoise Town Council since 2004, was backed by both the right-wing Fine Gael party and left-wing Sinn Fein.

Little more than a decade ago, a black person in Ireland risked being gawked at, so rare was the sight of visitors from different racial backgrounds. But Ireland has absorbed more than 30,000 asylum seekers — particularly from Africa‘s most populous nation, Nigeria — since the mid-1990s, a wave attracted by Ireland‘s booming economy and its relatively lax immigration rules.

"I got involved in the community and I volunteered. It gave me the opportunity to meet people firsthand and they got to know me," Adebari said. "We all have to make an effort to reach out to one another."

Asylum-seekers flocked to Ireland in part to gain European Union citizenship on the basis of having a child born in the country. Ireland in 2004 stopped granting citizenship to foreign parents of an Irish-born child, a law that had been unique in Europe.

So he volunteered at a local tennis club, helped found a lobbying group for unemployed people in Portlaoise and ran for office, winning a council seat on his first try in 2004.

"I want to encourage immigrants to be a force in their communities, to engage with their communities," he said. "People will get to know you. Their perception of you will change just like that. That‘s what happened to me."

http://www.localnewsleader.com/kindred/ ... &id=128056

Asylum-seekers flocked to Ireland in part to gain European Union citizenship on the basis of having a child born in the country. Ireland in 2004 stopped granting citizenship to foreign parents of an Irish-born child, a law that had been unique in Europe

Wow I don't even recall hearing that Ireland changed that. You would think that there would have been a loud response from the normal immigrant rights groups.