Why don't Irish people befriend foreigners?

My own experience from both sides ( moving to a new country and being here with some non-nationals)

Coming into a new country, first thing I did was find a few people from " back home" as we spoken the same, looked the same, acted the same and in some cases knew the same people. It made me living away a bit easier, and then to be fair being white Irish we were not exactly welcomed with open arms by the locals.

My experience here, I did try to hang out with a Latvian guy I worked with, really sound and he and I are still good friends, but when he brought me to a group of his home friends, they didn't make an effort to speak English despite him telling them to, didn't speak much about anything in Ireland.

I suppose it could have been me also, but looking at what makes a friend a friend, it is usually shared experiences over time, so hard to get when you just arrive and have no real common interests.

Mad there's still talk about this, when the answer was given early on in the thread.

In general it's difficult in Ireland - especially as a man - to make new friends once you've left college. People have their friend groups from school and college and tend to stick with them. Work colleagues are work colleagues, you see them in work and for after-work parties, but you don't text them randomly on a Saturday to go out for beers.

Any new friends tend to be made through existing friends rather than out of entirely new groups.

And since most people over 30 have few "foreign" friends from school or college, this makes it appear like they're inaccessible to foreigners. When the reality is that they're just as inaccessible to other Irish people too.

Even when you get to the point of having kids, it's rare to get past the "our kids are friends, and we'll talk superficially but that's about it" level.

Birds of a feather, flock together.

The OP could offer to take both of them. I'm sure both your friends would be delighted. They'd still have you over for birthdays and celebrations etc.

I suppose they'd have to keep contact with you anyways even if they befriended the OP, what with you being their only child and all

Are you always this waspish when somebody challenges your opinion?

I have never once heard a friend, acquaintance, or colleague either in Ireland or in a decade living abroad, state that they refuse to be friends with foreigners because they see them as lesser. Indifference or disinterest, absolutely. Sense of superiority as a motivating factor, never.

If this is something you've experienced, you may need to reconsider the circles in which you mix.

Yes i'd agree with you leg end they are treated differently, call it covert racism or just ignorance but it happens for sure, same as it happened me in Australia with the paddy and mick nicknames ect. I also agreed with the post above stating it could get worse with some of our imported friends murdering people, i know plenty of women that will only get in a taxi for example with the traditional looking irish taxi driver

No, I just got waspish.

It's funny because it's true

People are busy with their own lives they don't need to make a new social circle. People in a location where they don't know many people will stick together and form a new social group as you have done. An Irish person moving to another country will do the same thing.

Go to any country in the world and you will find this. It's not an Irish thing. It's just human nature.

The difference is if you were in another country everyone including the Irish you know would be all foreigners.

It's just the nature of traveling somewhere else. Once you're traveling or working in another country your attitude to everything else is different.