Irish people living in Britain feared they would become the target of a rise in attacks on ethnic minorities in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, diplomatic correspondence reveals.
A series of internal memos and communications from the Irish Embassy in London the hours and days immediately after the vote record a high level of anxiety within community groups in Britain.
As well as the concerns of those living in the UK, the documents detail the surge of embassy requests for Irish passports, even extending to UK citizens living in other countries.
According to the 2011 census, there are about 680,000 Irish immigrants in the UK, concentrated in cities like London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle.
As the referendum approached in early 2016, the majority of these were in support of Britain remaining a part of the European Union.
After the referendum result came in, one memo noted, there was “apprehension that the reported increase in attacks on minority ethnic groups might result in attacks on Irish people or centres”, even though at the time of the memo no reports of such activity had been received.
A cross section of Irish community leaders and groups consulted by embassy officials, expressed “surprise at the underlying anti-immigrant sentiment of some Irish people who migrated to Britain in previous decades and generations”.
‘Snapshot of reaction’
Although “only a snapshot of reaction”, embassy officials met with community organisations to seek out their feelings on what Brexit might mean to them.
“In areas which voted Leave, eg outer London boroughs like Bexley, [there was] a sense that migrants were mistakenly perceived as the reason for pressure on [for example] GP appointments, schools and social housing,” the memo – released under the Freedom of Information Act – said.
There was also concern expressed over pension protection and benefit entitlements as well as free movement in the EU.
“Every group I have spoken with to date has reported a significant spike in requests for passport forms and information regarding acquiring Irish citizenship.”
Irish Community Care Merseyside, an organisation that typically distributes about 400 such forms in a year, gave out 160 on the Friday following the EU referendum alone.
By the following Wednesday most organisations had used up their entire stock.
The rush for passports and queries on how to obtain them has been well documented.
London embassy staff were aware of the challenge they faced in the hours immediately after the Leave campaign declared victory.
A communication sent just after midday on June 24th, the day after the referendum, noted that more than 2,500 emails had been received requesting passport applications overnight, and had risen to 4,500 by early afternoon the following day.
Officials requested the go-ahead for “urgent overtime” into the following week “in order to deal with the extraordinary demand on resources”.
“It is essential that we get on top of this early and start sending out forms before we are completely swamped.”
Passport applications
By June 29th, 8,150 envelopes containing Irish passport applications were posted from two offices.
On the eve of and on the day of the referendum, 755 emails were received by the Department of Foreign Affairs at their “Passport London” address.
The day after, that number jumped to 9,515 and reached a total of 18,901 by June 27th.
Additional staff were assigned to the passport office and to the London embassy reception desk. Temporary clerical officers were requested for a period of four weeks.
“We will get them to focus on labelling and filling envelopes, while permanent staff read emails and print labels as required,” a memo on June 27th suggested.
On the same day another memo noted 10,700 emails in London, coming in at a rate of 200 per hour. Workers, battling to keep pace with inquiries, were processing 200 a day.
“It is hard to know whether everyone requesting passport application forms are eligible. It is more efficient use of time to just provide forms to those who have already asked, making it clear (as we do with the cover note) what the eligibility criteria are.”
The level of demand, or of interest, is perhaps not surprising when compared to the number of people who would be eligible.
A memo to the office of the secretary general in July put a conservative estimate on the number of those living in Great Britain and Northern Ireland meeting the criteria for Irish citizenship, and who had not claimed it, at about 2.1 million.
“If 10 per cent were to apply over the next year this would result in an increase of over 30 per cent in applications over the total received in 2015.”
Irish documentation
The rush for Irish documentation is not the sole preserve of those living in the UK.
“There is also a lot of interest among British citizens living overseas as evidenced by queries to our mission network,” the memo said.
A letter from the Irish Embassy in Luxembourg, titled "Rise in passport applications", said: "The Embassy is beginning to receive queries about passport applications from UK citizens resident in Slovakia.
“One caller indicated that he and some of his friends who are UK passport holders but have Irish parents are now gathering the documentation needed to make Irish passport applications as they fear that in the event of a Brexit their Slovak residency permits could be affected.”
Formal requests for passports from individuals of different nationalities through individual missions are difficult to trace.
However, separate statistics show that passports issued to people born in the UK this year were well over the annual average.
In the 10 months to October, 41,168 passports had been issued to UK-born applicants (spiking in August and September), compared with 34,177 for the entire of 2015, itself the highest level of passports issued in the five years since 2012. The average over that time was 32,458 a year.
