Irish Journal of Sociology

This article re-theorises the 2004 Citizenship Referendum, in first theorising ‘Ireland’ as a 32-counties occupied territory spread over two racial states, and as Britain's first colony. Second, the article theorises citizenship as a badge of social subjection and a measure of standing exclusively granted by racial states. Unpicking the meaning of citizenship, the article explores the impact of coloniality on the reconstruction of Irish citizenship as white supremacy. Third, the article proposes that the Citizenship Referendum resulted from the postcolonial Irish bourgeoisie wishing to emulate England, rather than continue to rebel against the ongoing British colonisation of Ireland. In conclusion, I follow McVeigh and Rolston in proposing that in view of the rise in ‘whiteness riots’ in Ireland north and south, our anti-racism scholarship and activism must re-focus not only on the abolition of the racist citizenship regime, but also aim to end Ireland's unfinished revolution.

The 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum debate must be situated within a longer history of Irish racial formation and cannot be understood as an isolated constitutional adjustment. While public figures invoked racialised tropes of Black maternity as opportunistic, narratives of ‘citizenship tourism’ circulated within state discourse that presented the amendment as a race-neutral administrative correction. By distinguishing implicitly between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ migrant, political rhetoric positioned whiteness as the tacit norm of national belonging and reinforced anxieties about blackness in Ireland. This paper argues that such discourse entrenched an existing structure of exclusion, establishing Irishness as hereditary and consolidating whiteness at the centre of the nation.

More than 20 years after Ireland's 2004 citizenship referendum, young people with non-Irish heritage continue navigating complex questions of identity and belonging in contemporary Ireland. Drawing from expressive arts psychotherapy practice with unaccompanied minors, this paper explores how creative approaches can support adolescents experiencing belonging uncertainty in post-referendum Ireland. Through a composite case study of Maryse, a 16-year-old unaccompanied minor from the Democratic Republic of Congo participating in an expressive arts youth group, the paper demonstrates how therapeutically informed creative activities supported identity exploration using a three-stage trauma-informed framework. Key practice principles emerge including prioritising choice and agency, practising cultural humility and accessing multiple coping channels through embodied approaches that honour diverse cultural traditions.