Ruadhán Mac Cormaic: (Pro-)Migration Correspondent for the Times

Would it have been at all possible to write a fluffier piece about immigration to this country, do you think? This is by Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, the "Migration Correspondent" for the Irish Times:

Census throws up treasure trove for trivia buffs
Jan 16, 2008
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, Migration Correspondent

How many Presbyterian Pakistanis live in Ireland? Are there Chinese-born Travellers? Widowed teenagers? Most pressingly, how many Lithuanian immigrants live in semi-detached houses built between 1910 and 1940?

(...)

Immigration has thrown up intriguing marriages of nouns one wouldn't often see making a match: there is one Presbyterian Pakistani, a Brazilian Orthodox believer and a single Greek Muslim.

And while most Poles might be Catholic, the stereotype is upset somewhat by the 91 Polish Muslims, 30 Presbyterians, 23 Methodists and 329 Church of Ireland adherents who were in Ireland on census night, April 23rd, 2006. Their ethnicity is not to be presumed either, with 31 ethnic Asians, 20 Africans and two Scots holding Polish passports.... [link]

Trivia? Who's looking for trivia? The public wants (or at least needs) information, not fluffy factoids!

At least Mac Cormaic got the point that nationality does not equate to ethnicity. Too bad he doesn't do any critical thinking -- or critical writing -- with that information.

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, though, as he appears to be very pro-immigration, diversity, and all that PC nonsense.

He was, apparently, the "2007 Douglas Gageby Irish Times Fellowship winner for his project 'Changing Places: Migration and the Reinvention of Ireland'." [link] He was also the winner of the European Commission's 2007 "For Diversity. Against Discrimination" Journalism Award. [link]

I don't think any of us should expect a debate on immigration from Ruadhán Mac Cormaic or The Irish Times. That's certainly not going to be happening any time soon.