Mazhar Bari, Zayneb Aziz, and Mohsin Ali feel as Irish as the next person. Aged 23, 11 and 15 respectively the three Muslims have lived here all their lives - they go to school, love to eat at McDonald's, enjoy cinema and pop music much as your average Dublin kid. They go to the mosque in Clonskeagh on Friday, do not drink alcohol, pray to Mecca five times a day and eat only halal meat.

As second-generation members of the 100-strong Pakistani community they say their ethnic identity causes them no discomfort in Ireland. "If I go to McDonald's I just have the veggie burger or the fish," laughs Zayneb.

They appear to slot in comfortably, though they adapt to Irish society by celebrating Ramadan and other festivals such as Eid privately. They are aware that they are "different" and, despite the fact that their middle-class status should give them the opportunities to build comfortable futures, they are conscious that few Irish make an effort to get to know them. Within minutes of being introduced to Mazhar, this reporter, who has come to ask what he thinks of Ireland, is quizzed on just how much she knows about Pakistan. Shamefacedly she admits knowing little beyond the fact that it was founded in 1947 and that there is some trouble with India over Kashmir. "If you meet someone and they don't really want to know much about you, you know they probably aren't going to be a friend," says Zayneb. She sees the interaction between different cultures as similar, albeit on a larger scale. To be true "friends", cultures need to get to know each other, she says.

Deepa Mann-Kler, equality and training officer with the Northern Irish Council for Ethnic Minorities, who has carried out research into the experience of second-generation immigrants, goes further.

"It is not enough to just know about other cultures. If you look at sexism, men and women have known about each other for thousands of years and still there's sexism. Addressing racism is about understanding power and how it works."

In looking at how the power of the majority community may be subtly wielded over second-generation immigrants, Mann-Kler's research examined the school environment among other areas. "Schools," she said, "must have a stated policy of not tolerating bullying, creating an environment where racism is not on and cannot be put down to lack of awareness."

This, she says, is a basic step, but other cultures should be taken on board as part of an evolving normality. She found that on feast days, for instance, pupils who wanted to celebrate Eid or the Chinese new year had to take sick-days.

"If there is a Chinese child in the class, rather than saying `We're going to look at Chinese new year because it's so-and-so's special day', the teacher should decide to look at it for everyone's good."

Sze Sze Choi (20), though born in Hong Kong, came to Ireland with her parents when she was a baby. Her father, Thomas, owns the Good World Chinese restaurant on Dublin's South Great George's Street. She speaks Cantonese with her family and Chinese friends and English otherwise. When asked whether her Chinese friends ever mix with her Dublin-born friends she says they do not. "They keep separate, mainly because of the language."

Her life is much the same as an Irish girl just out of her teens, though at home with the family she eats only Chinese food - "I like it best". She celebrates Chinese new year and the mid-autumn festival and on Sundays worships at the Chinese Episcopal Church on Dublin's Abbey Street with her family.

It is an important gathering point in the week for Dublin's Chinese community, she says. It's a time to come together and for some of the older members of the community an opportunity to get help with translating government documents and the like. "There are English classes for the older people as well as Chinese classes for the younger," she adds. Mann-Kler describes as "typical", that the impetus for English-language classes should come from within the communities themselves. She says that the young are often relied upon for interpreting skills, having to take days off school to accompany a parent to the doctor, for instance.

`In statutory facilities, what we should be aiming for is not equality of provision but equality of outcome." She points out that if a state agency is inaccessible to one section of the community, for instance the wheelchair-bound, it is effectively discriminating against that section. Statutory facilities should have multi-lingual paperwork and interpreting facilities where necessary, she says.

In response to arguments that the communities are so small here that such services are not necessary, she says that precisely because the communities are small, they are more vulnerable.

The supposedly classic "problem" faced by second-generation immigrants is not present among those this reporter talked to. None spoke of a tension between their parents' native identity and the Western one presented to them as they grow up.

Dr Robbie McVeigh, author and researcher in race and equality issues, describes the picture of "cultural bifurcation" as "simplistic". "The truth is that it is far more complex", he says. "Immigrants are affected by their new surroundings and in their turn they affect the culture they come to. There is perhaps no more tension between the old and the young of a minority culture than there is between people of different generations anywhere, on issues of music, culture and family values."

Indeed, Mann-Kler sees in second-generation immigrants the fusing of old and new, and the creation of whole new cultures. She points to arts, fashion and music scenes, in London and the US in particular, which have resulted from a synthesis of several world influences.

Both those of Pakistan and of Hong Kong backgrounds say they love visiting their parents' homelands, though add they don't think they want to go and live there themselves.

"Our parents have worked hard to be here and it has been a target for them to settle here," says Mazhar Bari. "Pakistan is a beautiful, wonderful country, with wonderful mountains, forests and sea . . . and one of the oldest civilisations in the world. But this, Ireland, is our home."