BELFAST, Northern Ireland — One Friday morning two years ago, Harvey Mills took a train to Belfast from his quiet hometown of Ballymena. While he told his parents he was off to meet some friends, in reality, he was on his way to speak with a shaykh at the Belfast Islamic Centre. This was the 17-year-old’s second meeting with the religious leader. At their first encounter, Mills, curious and eager, told the shaykh that he wanted to convert to Islam. The shaykh urged him to reflect for a time on his decision and return to the mosque when he was certain. And return he did.
After the conclusion of Friday noon prayer, the shaykh called a nervous Mills to the front of the mosque’s congregation to recite the shahada, the act of conversion to Islam. Facing a crowd of 50 to 60 worshippers in the vast, carpeted room of the Islamic center, Mills declared his belief in Allah, the one true god. After he accepted the religion, worshippers embraced the new convert, welcoming him into the community.
Mills concedes the oddness of his conversion. “For a 17-year-old at the time, it’s kind of a weird thing to get into,” he said. “I just always admired how the Muslims around me acted.”
The recent convert comes from a family with a detached relationship to religion. His father is Protestant, but denounced his faith, while his mother was raised atheist.
Mills’ conversion is an indication of Islam’s growing influence in Ireland despite a rise in Islamophobic sentiment. Anti-immigrant sentiment has spiked in the country — the ire of which is often beset on Muslims. But it has not dampened the enthusiasm of some Irish people to convert to the faith.
Although immigration accounts for the majority of Islam’s growth in the country, conversions to Islam, especially among young people like Mills, have grown noticeably in recent years, according to faith leaders. The reasons are varied — from spiritual seeking to solidarity with Palestinians. But the trend marks a discernible shift in Irish cultural and religious identity.
“I have probably helped a few hundred people convert to Islam,” said Shaykh Dr. Umar al-Qadri of the Islamic Center of Ireland in Dublin. Most notably, al-Qadri helped the late Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor adopt the religion in 2018. “Almost every month, I convert at least one person, sometimes every week,” he said, adding that many of these people convert at a young age.
The trend is similar in Belfast, where Zein Ibrahim, a project officer for a cross-cultural youth program in Belfast, said he has encountered roughly three conversions per month.
“Back three years ago, I had never witnessed a conversion happen firsthand,” said Ibrahim. “But in the past two years, it has become extremely frequent.”
There has been a noticeable increase in conversions to Islam in Belfast since the outbreak of the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, according to Ibrahim.
He said it is more common for Irish Catholics to convert than those who identify as English. Irish openness to oppressed groups globally, especially Palestinians, has contributed to an embrace of Islam.
“Ever since the civil rights movements started all around the world, the Irish have always attributed themselves with the oppressed,” said Ibrahim.
In Belfast, Irish support for the Palestinian cause is evident across the landscape. Palestinian flags line the streets of Catholic neighborhoods and murals depicting Irish-Palestinian solidarity adorn Belfast’s historic “peace walls,” which divide Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods and serve as a reminder of a violent period in the city’s history, which many see echoes of in Gaza.
While Ibrahim believes the Gaza war has contributed to the recent uptick in converts to Islam, he cautions against overgeneralization, because most people, both inside and outside of Ireland, have deeply personal reasons for their conversion.
“The answers are quite different,” said Ibrahim. “Especially when it comes to something as spiritual as someone converting and going against everything that they were brought up upon, they have very personal reasons as to why they convert.”
Al-Qadri said an increase in cross-cultural exposure has also facilitated conversions: “A lot of people accept Islam because they happen to be friends with Muslims.”
Mills concurred with this sentiment, citing two Muslims in his life who helped convince him to convert. During the pandemic, became friends with a Muslim while playing basketball, and also grew up in Ballymena with Muslim neighbors.
Islam is the fastest-growing faith in Ireland — and across Europe. In 2022, the number of Muslims in Ireland increased by 29% compared with the 2016 census, reaching a total of over 81,000 Muslims, according to Ireland’s Central Statistics Office.
“I never thought in a million years I’d become a Muslim,” said Lorraine O’Connor, an Irish convert to Islam and the founder of the Muslim Sisters of Éire in Dublin, a faith and charity organization.
O’Connor converted in 2005 after going through a difficult divorce. She said this was one of the lowest periods of her life and encouraged her turn to religion. Having a complicated relationship with her Catholic faith, O’Connor discovered respite in Islam’s theological teachings.
“For me, it is the oneness,” said O’Connor. She said the religion’s monotheism, along with its emphasis on routine and charity, called her to convert. In Islam, she found meaning in a life she felt was growing meaningless.
O’Connor is not alone. Converts compose the majority of her congregation. At an iftar dinner during Ramadan this year, O’Connor calculated that roughly three-quarters of worshippers were converts. Of those, about 60 were in their 20s.
Irish people are deeply spiritual, according to O’Connor, and like her, many have tattered relationships with Catholicism due to the religion’s complicated role in Irish history.
“People are looking for what fits them,” said O’Connor.
The decision to convert to Islam in Ireland is a break from the false dichotomy of religion in the country.
“A lot of people when they think about religion [in Ireland], they think Protestant or Catholic,” said Mills. “Even my Muslim friends, they would get asked who is a Catholic Muslim or Protestant Muslim.”
Mills has told his mother and sisters about his conversion, but not his father out of fear of his reaction. Although his dad is not a devout Protestant, Mills is still wary of what he may think.
“I’ve met some guys that got kicked out of their house,” said Mills.
Rising Muslim immigration into the country has been met with some Islamophobic sentiment. In November 2024, an anti-immigrant riot broke out in Dublin after a man with Algerian roots allegedly stabbed three children.
O’Connor acknowledged that the Muslim community in Ireland faces much trepidation amid a rise of Islamophobia.
“It is a tyrant,” O’Connor said of Ireland’s anti-immigrant movement. Her organization, the Muslim Sisters of Éire, has fed Dublin’s needy for nine years. She has experienced pockets of hate, saying some Islamophobic individuals have told her she has no right to use the word “Éire,” the Gaelic term for Ireland, in the name of her organization. But she is unscathed by these offenses, remaining steadfast in her dedication to her community.
“Your faith teaches you not to fear anybody,” she said.