Paul Rouse: Sport has always been a friend to the Irish emigrant

Irish sport reveals the hollowness of anti-immigrant rhetoric and reminds us how unity, not fear, has always sustained this country

PRIDE OF IRELAND: Charlie Smyth in action for the New Orleans Saints. Pic: Kelly Gavin/Getty Images.

The spectacle of the Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, claiming that the numbers of asylum seekers in Ireland risks “a breakdown in social cohesion” is a dispiriting one.

That it has contributed – as part of O’Callaghan’s wider musings on migrants – to Miriam Lord’s decision to give him her “Politician of the Year” award in The Irish Times offers vivid insight to the shift (in framing at least) in how so many of the political elite have been influenced by relentless anti-immigrant campaigning.