No, there is no white genocide or great replacement in Ireland

By: Arron Williams
September 18 2023

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Context

A video clip from InfoWars, a conspiracy news channel founded by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, asserts that Ireland's white population will suffer a "white genocide" and that Ireland plans to replace the Irish population with 4 million Africans. The video has been shared on Facebook and TikTok. Harrison Smith, the host of the show featured in the clip, claims, "It is a population of 5 million Irish people on the island of Ireland, and they have announced their intentions to bring in 4 million Africans to that country. If that's not genocide of the race of the Irish - if this is not white genocide - I don't know what is."  

Smith further states that it is "literally replacement migration." The guest in the video, Dan Lyman, further expands these claims, saying, "We're facing here an extinction-level event."

In fact

The Great Replacement is a known xenophobic and far-right conspiracy theory. There is no evidence that Ireland is planning to replace the Irish. This claim is based on misinterpreting and misrepresenting an article published in the Irish Independent. 

Towards the end of the video, an article by the Irish Independent titled "Ireland needs four million migrants to sustain state pension system" is shown as evidence of plans to replace the Irish population. However, the article, published in 2021, does not discuss plans to bring in 4 million migrants, nor does it mention African migrants anywhere in the article.

Instead, the article focuses on statements made by a statistician from the Central Statistics Office to the Irish Government-appointed Commission on Pensions. The statistician discussed how Ireland has a rapidly increasing aging population, which would leave fewer people in work to fund pension schemes. The statistician stated, "to maintain the current ratio of five workers to one older person in 2051 - it is estimated that an additional 4 million migrants would be needed." 

However, both the statistician and commission reported that it would be unlikely that a net increase in migration would resolve the issue. This critical distinction has been omitted from the video to make it seem like a plan to bring in migrants was proposed. 

The full report from the Commission on Pensions is available on the Irish Government website. This report also discusses migration as a method to tackle the aging population, but it does not state in any detail plans to do so, nor does the report discuss migrants from Africa. Instead, it concludes that "it does not appear feasible or reasonable to conclude that either fertility or migration can resolve the projected aging of the population."

Logically Facts has previously reported that the Great Replacement is a far-right conspiracy theory with French roots that has become a magnet for xenophobia and racism. Proponents of the theory allege that the increased presence of immigrants in "white" countries combined with lower birth rates among white populations will result in a non-white majority population that will take control of national institutions, eradicate the country's culture, and destroy the white population. However, this conspiracy has no basis in facts.

Furthermore, according to RTÉ, Ireland's national public service media, a localized version of the Great Replacement theory called "The Great Plantation" is used by the Irish far-right. This conspiracy merges historical misrepresentation with racist ideology to present the idea that the Irish are being deliberately replaced. Historically, "plantation" was employed by the English Crown in the 16th and 17th centuries to expand its authority in Ireland. This included incentives for land ownership and migration from Britain. The policy of plantation was a historical strategy to Anglicize Ireland. 

The article further states, "One cannot draw a historically legitimate or sustainable correlation between the state-sponsored colonizing plantations of the early modern era and the current Government's efforts to provide for refugees seeking relief from danger."

The verdict

The Irish government does not plan to replace the Irish population with 4 million Africans; no evidence supports such claims. The Great Replacement is a known xenophobic conspiracy theory. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.