It is our fastest growing ethnic minority, but the increase has not been without pain. According to Imam Al-Hussein of the Islamic Centre on Dublin's South Circular Road, about 12,000 Muslims live in Ireland, half of them in the capital.

He estimated that the number had doubled in the past five years, attributing most of the increase to refugees and asylum-seekers.

Their arrival has been in tranches, beginning with Bosnians in 1992, 1,200 of whom are now here, he said. In 1994 approximately 500 Somalis came here, as well as increasing numbers of asylum-seekers from Algeria, Libya and Iraq. Comparatively large numbers are still arriving from those latter three countries. Then last year there was the arrival of the Albanian Kosovars, 850 of whom are still in Ireland.

The influx has prompted a change in the Irish public's attitude. On-the-street hostility has increased, shopkeepers have barred or asked some Muslim customers to leave. The South Circular Road mosque, Mosc Atha Cliaith, has been fire-bombed, causing some damage, and there has been discrimination against Muslim girls in secondary schools.

Meanwhile, the community is unhappy about the Government's plans to disperse asylum-seekers around the country, claiming this will isolate them and, as they are more noticeable in a small community, leave them more exposed to racism.

The Muslim community is also perplexed by Department of Justice decisions leading to asylum-seekers being deported. The community is confused as to the criteria invoked in such cases.

"So many genuine cases . . ., so many good cases . . .," said the Imam. "I don't know how they (Department of Justice) cannot see . . . They (asylum-seekers) can't go home. They will be imprisoned or killed, yet they are not allowed to stay."

He supported the joint statement by four Catholic bishops this week calling for all the asylum-seekers currently in Ireland to be allowed to stay. He strongly opposed the Government's dispersal policy. It meant that many asylum-seekers were "pulled away from their own community".

Where education, prayer facilities, and kosher food was concerned, they were generally better off living in highly populated areas such as major cities, "if not all in Dublin", he said.

Imam Al-Hussein, who is from Sudan and has been at the Islamic Centre in Dublin since 1983, said he has "not really" experienced racism here.

An organised Muslim community in Ireland began with the establishment of the Dublin Islamic Society in 1959, which assisted about 300 Muslim students at the Royal College of Surgeons. That Society became the Islamic Foundation of Ireland and opened its first mosque next to the Garda Club on Dublin's Harrington Street in 1976.

The Republic has six mosques, most of which are in houses. Dublin has two, on the South Circular Road and in Clonskeagh, while the others have been built in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, Galway, Limerick and Waterford.

The State also has a Muslim primary school, at Clonskeagh, with 245 pupils and 11 full-time staff paid by the Department of Education. The children are taught Islam by Muslim teachers paid by the community.

The Imam explained that in European countries such as Belgium and Denmark the governments also funded Muslim childrens' religious education.

The lack of a Muslim secondary school in the State has caused problems.

Rabia-a Najjair is Irish. She became a Muslim 23 years ago, met her Libyan husband in Ireland afterwards, and they have seven children. She has responsibility for women's affairs at the Islamic Centre and wears the traditional Muslim dress, including the hajab head covering. Muslim women wear the headdress once they reach puberty.

Rabia's three daughters have encountered intransigence on this matter from secondary school authorities in Dublin.

It has meant her older 17-year-old daughter quit a Dublin school recently, where she was in fifth year, and intends to continue her education in Britain where "there is relatively little racism", Rabia said.

Last month Rabia withdrew her other two daughters, a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old, from the school after they were refused permission to wear the hajab in school.

The children had encountered no difficulties at primary school. There had been "no racism present", she said.

Nor was there any racism from pupils or male teachers at the secondary school her daughters had attended. She did not wish to identify the school.

The main problem was with women teachers, who were openly hostile or, in some cases, deliberately ignored the children in classes.

A woman teacher told one of Rabia's daughters that "it was appalling a young girl was forced to wear the hajab and that Muslim women had no life at all". When confronted about this by Rabia, who refuted the comments, the teacher apologised.

Rabia wrote to the Department of Education about the hajab issue and was told there was nothing they could do.

She was referred to the school's board of management. The board ignored her first two letters, she said, but acknowledged the third and told her the issue was on the agenda for a future meeting.

After experiencing some of the hostility her daughters endured on a daily basis at the school she withdrew both children. She is trying to find another school for the girls.

Imam Al-Hussein recalled being asked to go to another secondary school to discuss the same issue.

The head sister told him the hajab represented "a threat to the Catholic ethos of the school" and she refused to allow Muslim girls to wear the head covering.

It was also pointed out that the girls' parents had signed a form accepting the rules of the school when their children enrolled.

Rabia, who has acted as translator for many pregnant Muslim women, spoke of the resentment in maternity hospitals when the women requested they be treated by women doctors. She has encountered hospital staff who were "fantastic" but some who were "totally racist".

As a Muslim Irishwoman, Rabia described racism in the State as "a horrendous problem" and detailed incidents of stone-throwing, egg-throwing and daily verbal abuse.

It was not always this way, she said. Before 1989, when she went to live in Libya for three years, her experience was that Muslims were made "extremely welcome" in Ireland.

As soon as she returned, however, Rabia realised that the community's attitudes towards Muslims had changed.