A Sydney community were left in shock after witnessing offensive graffiti telling Irish people to “go home”.
Expats Rebecca, Caoimhe and another friend were walking home from Coogee Beach when they made the discovery on an electrical box in Randwick, in Sydney’s East.
“Irish go home,” it read.
Speaking with Yahoo News, marketing worker Rebecca, originally from Dublin, said she was left “in shock” by the blatant message.
“It was really surprising,” she said. “We’ve all lived here for a few years and haven’t seen that.”
Randwick is home to the largest concentration of Irish people in Australia. More broadly, Australia is home to one of the largest populations of Irish-born people outside of Ireland.
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“Irish go home” was written on an electrical box in Randwick.
(Supplied)A growing number of Irish calling Australia home
In 2024, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced a major milestone: more than 103,000 Irish now call Australia home.
Rebecca described the graffiti as a “targeted message”, adding that it felt “disappointing” for Irish people to see it.
Despite the discovery, she said generally she feels welcome in Australia, despite a few “throwaway comments”.
She said she has often heard the stereotype “County Coogee,” in which Irish nationals congregate specifically at Coogee Beach.
“I definitely do think that we congregate in certain areas; the reason for that is having a sense of community,” she explained.
“As Irish people move to the other side of the world, your friends become your family, you’ll move to where you’re close to other Irish,” she said.
Rebecca believes the stereotype is “unfair”, given that a large proportion of those who do come to Australia are young professionals, working in in-demand industries like medicine, teaching and construction.
“I think we are contributing a huge amount to society, and I don’t think that it’s a fair thing,” she said.
Marketing worker Rebecca said the message was “unfair” to Irish people who call Australia home.
(Supplied)
Irish people in Australia have faced anti-Irish sentiment before. It came to a head in 2017 when Marlene Kairouz, a minister in Victoria’s state legislature, warned residents against unlicensed tradesmen.
In a clip aired on local TV in Melbourne, she said: “If anybody knocks on your door that has an Irish accent, automatically ask them to leave.”
She was forced to apologise after being accused of “blatant racism”.
Irish nationals in search of cost-of-living escape
Rebecca said that one of the contributing factors in many Irish leaving their homes to migrate to Australia is the fact that wages are higher and that there is an ongoing “cost of living crisis at home”.
“We can have a better standard of living here,” she said.
According to academics at Maynooth University, housing and healthcare were highlighted as major reasons why many are considering emigrating.
Rebecca said it’s “virtually impossible” for young Irish people to get on the property ladder.
She added that the weather is a huge plus, too.
After Yahoo News contacted Randwick Council, it was confirmed that the graffiti had been removed.
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Immigration lawyer and Irishman Cathal Lynch, previously told Yahoo News, he continues to see an increase in the number of Irish people eager to make Australia their home.
“The majority of people who come here on that one-year visa do want to stay on,” the director at ALC Lawyers told Yahoo.
“There was Covid for a couple of years, and nobody could get into Australia. Then there was a massive spike off the back of that… The number of Irish coming in is still increasing.”
Cathal explained that Irish construction workers continue to make up a large share of those moving to Australia as the country grapples with a housing crisis and a significant shortage of skilled tradespeople.
“The highest area of demand that we see is Irish tradies,” he explained. “A lot of very successful construction businesses over here are Irish-owned, and they establish multi-million dollar businesses.”
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