Since the early 1990s, Irish society has visibly changed with the emergence of new immigrant communities of black and ethnic minorities. This text argues that Ireland was never immune from the racist ideologies that governed relationships between the "west and the rest" despite a history of colonial anti-Irish racism. Drawing upon a number of academic disciplines, it focuses on the relationship between ideological forms of racism and its consequences upon black and ethnic minorities, setting out a critique of racism in Irish society. Chapters on nation-building, Ireland's response to the Holocaust, refugees and asylum seekers, the politics of traveller exclusion and multiculturalism in Ireland examine the mechanics of exclusion resulting from institutional racism within political and administrative processes.