Upvote:5
if it were a ban would they have stated it instead of stating it as refusal
This is a refusal because you failed to disclose your UK Visa refusals to the Irish authority
Ireland and the UK share immigration data, which is how they've seen that
This is likely to be a straight up 5y ban (like you would have had in the UK), and this really bad for your history.
From Traveller's comment :
Failing to disclose the UK refusals in the Irish visa application is fraud and almost certainly means a ban of up to 5 years
cos I need to know if I have a ban in the uk or not
Even though immigration data is shared, Irish and UK visas are separate (except in edge cases not covered here). A Irish visa refusal will not give you a UK ban
You may have a UK ban for deception, but you'd have to ask the UK authorities for that
See this answer on how to ask them for your data