Brian O'Connell

Now, someone who is embedded within the community in New York also is sports journalist Anya Hurrican, and she's been living there since 2021.

This is some of what she had to say.

What we heard at the Oireachtas Committee yesterday was that there's a feeling perhaps it's had some impact on numbers at certain events.

And generally, because we do hear stories that ICE are uncompromising, to say the least, in their approach now, how is that filtered down?

And generally, what's GAA like in America at the moment?

Is there many Americans playing GAA?

Yeah, I suppose there are two parts to this.

One is the difficulties maybe getting visas and how it's becoming harder to get working visas.

But the second is for people who are in America who perhaps their situation needs to be regularised, perhaps they're undocumented, the difficulty they're having in getting a pathway to staying living in America.

So John Foley from Folio Law Offices in Boston says,

is an immigration lawyer quite well known.

He's been working for a number of decades.

He's an Irish citizen.

But he gave me an assessment of the landscape in America right now.

What does it mean for Irish in America who may not be legal, who may be undocumented?

And so the people who come to you, John, who are trying to regularize their situations, what can you offer them?

Has it become more difficult for you to try and get a solution?

Well, the story is, I suppose, Moiraas has often been described or had been described as one of the longest cul-de-sacs in Europe, an area which in the past was rife, as we know, with unemployment issues.

But there is a very strong, a very resilient community who over the last 20 years have undergone significant change.

The changes, for example, I mean, you can see it if you go to Myros, you can see the employment opportunities.