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July 16, 2024 - 1:15pm
It would have been reasonable to assume that the relatively poor showing for anti-immigration candidates in Ireland’s local elections last month, like the unexpectedly strong performance by the governing coalition, marked the beginning of a decline for Ireland’s nascent populist movement. But yesterday’s serious disorder in Coolock, a working-class community in North Dublin, proves that the issue is very far from defused.
The clashes were sparked early yesterday morning when police moved in to remove a months-long protest encampment at Coolock’s disused Crown Paints factory, which is undergoing preparatory work to be used as an accommodation centre for migrants. In response, protestors burned excavating equipment at the site, injuring a worker, according to video released by Arab migrant construction workers sheltering in a van.
Over the course of the afternoon, protestors clashed with Gardaí at cordons erected to block the site, throwing bricks and using fireworks against police lines, while the authorities attempted to break up the demonstration using pepper spray and baton charges. Numbers grew as protestors confronted Gardaí until the evening, when demonstrators, blocked from the site, marched to the local police station, attacking and attempting to burn parked patrol cars.
While the Gardaí took control of the paint factory by nightfall, the disorder was a new benchmark in both Ireland’s anti-immigration movement and the state’s response. Dublin’s newly elected anti-immigration councillors — independents Gavin Pepper and Malachy Steenson and the identitarian National Party’s Patrick Quinlan — were prominent at the scene, recording videos backing the protests, and berating the police. All three were pepper sprayed. Pepper later accused Gardaí Commissioner Drew Harris, an Ulster Protestant and former PSNI Deputy Chief Constable, of “bringing sectarian violence from Northern Ireland to our streets” and employing “the bully boy tactics that the RUC used for years against Catholic and Nationalist residents”.
Yet while those supporting the protests accuse the Gardaí of excessively heavy-handed policing, the Irish media has accused Harris, who was present at the clashes, of not using enough force from the start, allowing the disorder to escalate. This morning, Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris condemned the “sheer thuggery” of the rioters, and criticised journalists for describing the attendees as “protestors”, stating that “when you decide to use a petrol bomb, you lose the right to be called a protestor.”
Ireland’s anti-migration movement has been marked so far by a series of mass protests and peaceful sit-ins, interspersed with occasional but dramatic outbursts of violence like those in Dublin last November, Newtownmountkennedy in April, and now Coolock. The imagery from yesterday, of ski-masked youths attacking lines of riot police, resembles Northern Ireland more than it does the hitherto-placid Republic, and presents a major challenge to the country’s political leadership. Attempts to relocate migrants to both rural constituencies and deprived urban communities have sparked violent reaction, yet the Irish government evidently feels that abandoning its distribution policies would mean surrendering initiative to the mob.
For Ireland’s largest opposition party, Sinn Féin, the protest movement remains a headache. Its leader Mary Lou McDonald last week attempted a reboot following the party’s lacklustre performance in the local elections, stating that “on the issue of immigration, we have failed to reflect where most people are at.” Following yesterday’s disorder, however, the party’s Justice spokesperson, Pa Daly, insisted — perhaps ironically — that “no matter what grievances people may have, they do not have the right to hold local communities to ransom with violence and intimidation,” urging a police crackdown to bring order to the streets.
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SubscribeMeanwhile, the Irish state finds itself grappling with the unenviable task of forcing through unpopular migration policies with police batons
Or they could, you know, not force them through.
The last time the government in Ireland had to force its policies through with batons was a long time ago… so long ago that the police back then had a different name that sounded sort of like… flack and bans.
Wasnt it called the IRA v the Irish Free State?
That would be too much like govt doing the will of the people. We can’t have that.
I may be being obtuse, but can someone explain what motivates the state to force through unpopular migration polices against the wishes of the wishes of the electorate
Very good question.
Their WEF masters, and no doubt the gulf states.
Money and power.
Because they are part of the European Union and have to do what they are told.
Locking these people up on terrorism charges will make things worse, not better
Political prisoners are always a rallying cry.
In Ireland? You think?
Could it be that some people are getting fed up with being ignored on the grounds that they are right wing, thick, racist bigots?
Slurs ? Do away with ethnic based states if you like. In meantime they are normal. France, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Ukraine, Israel , China, Japan
Only the Arabs get over 20:states due to Versailles
They are indeed. That’s why the law now has to come down harder on ‘racists’ than child-rapists: ‘20 year old German woman given harsher sentence than migrant gang-rap ist for calling him a pig: https://youtu.be/8DS-ssBXu78?si=8WdSgKQtVFP3F6zv
It’s beyond betrayal to use Arab migrant construction workers to build a migrant center. Are Irish workers too expensive? Could the Gov’t any more clearly signal your disdain for the native people of Ireland?
Hope they had no choice due to all the Irish workers refusing to. However suspect that the Govt are happy to use immigrants and put the locals in their place.
Train the Arabs to return and overthrow their corrupt regimes
Closing a factory in a poor working-class area struggling with a housing shortage, and then using the same facility to house people in the country not 10 minutes – all at expense of the public purse… what could go wrong?
Correction: Closing a factory in a poor working-class area struggling with a housing shortage, having the planning board turn down the construction of houses on the site, and then finally using the same facility to house people in the country not 10 minutes – all at expense of the public purse… what could go wrong?
An Bord Pleanála is behaving more and more like a rubber stamp for government policy.
Ireland needs to defend what the Irish Independence struggle was about. Power to Irish Celts.
During the summer of “mostly peaceful” arson, mayhem, and rioting in the US, sober voices told us that violence is the voice of the unheard. Well, that cuts both ways. The public could not be any more clear regarding its opposition to the wholesale importation of people who have no desire to assimilate into the host culture. And the govt has been equally clear in basically telling the natives to shut up.
When traditional means are exhausted, when people believe they have been backed into a corner, and when they see nothing left to lose, this is what happens. Govts across Europe have failed the people they are supposed to represent, tossing them aside for the sake of people who often hate their new homes and want to change them into their old homes.
It’s very effective to lock people away. Those in the Teddy Boy race riots of the 1950s were locked away for years. It may be the same in Ireland.
My initial reaction to this is that it was about time something like this happened, and that I’d immediately join them. But then I think of social justice riots like in Minneapolis and think that we should be better than that. Kinda hard to square
“social justice riots” – those were looting sprees. The point was simple destruction of businesses after all the liquor was stolen.
The spineless europhiliacs in the Dail have sold their country out. This is where, unlike the UK, the Irish people take back control of their society and culture. No more endless importing African or Muslim men. None. End asylum, family reunion and routes to citizenship for illegal migrants. Or we will.
Sinn Fein is a disgrace to its early 20 cent predecessors.
It will take armed opposition. Get machetes now.
Ireland for the Irish! The globalists can’t have that now can they?
Possibly Paul McCartney can re-issue “Give Ireland back to the Irish, make Ireland Irish again”…or possibly not…
aul’s now a New Yorker. But we love him
“relatively poor showing for anti-immigration candidates in Ireland’s local elections last month,”
Believe this was mainly due to the poor coordination between the anti immigrant candidates.
Yes, that’s right.
There are a number of very small anti-immigration groups that are not really given the chance to (or can’t!) make a coherent argument. Many people ended up trawling through a long list of independents attempting to deduce which are most likely to be sympathetic.
In addition, a party called Independent Ireland appeared from nowhere a couple of months before the election that did ok. I had a suspicion they had been created as a “lightning rod” party to attract/dilute the anti-immigration vote. They have since morphed into something akin to FF/FG.
Ireland needs a single party with a clear message to stop this invasion – and quickly. The situation is getting desperate.
Judean Peoples Front / Peoples Front of Judea.
Exactly. It reminds me a lot of what was happening on the far left in Ireland as elsewhere. The only breakthrough came from the milder Independent Ireland party.
The symbolism is clear. The native Irish, threatened with ethnic cleansing, are being battered with clubs by a racist and fascist police state.
To many people, including those on the right, including those who don’t want this colonisation, still can’t say the words ‘anti-white’ hate.
But the only force that can prevent the colonisation of Ireland and Europe is if the native Europeans unite against the forces of anti-white hate.
Every other group defends themselves form ‘hate’, yet europeans, white people, have no defence mechanism…at the moment.
Hopefully the mechanism is proportionate.
It’s going to take armed resistance. Like with machetes.
Kill the migrants. Send them home in body bags.
Why is it that every time I “like” a comment (give a thumbs up), I met by a “thumbs down” seemingly equaling out the positive? This happens ever time. Is this part of the algorithm? I find it bizarre. Is this “everyone gets a trophy”?
Some sites scramble the upvotes and downvotes shown to you after you cast a vote as an anti-bot measure, so that‘s probably it.
When you update the page, actions which are waiting to be registered are added. If a down-vote is waiting, it will happen then. Next time you upvote, do a “page refresh” first. If I am right, you will see no immediate counter-vote.
Question from an American: Isn’t Ireland required to take in immigrants because it it is a member of the EU?
Denmark has a pretty much closed door to immigrants and is in the EU. Way too strict for my liking but it shows it is possible. The Irish uniparty government hides behind “international obligations” to force an unpopular policy on a powerless public.
Thank you.
I think Denmark has an opt out? I think the point about EU immigration is that your border is a porous as the most liberal member state because free movement does not allow you to restrict movement between member states.
Ireland is not a member of the Schengen travel area. Only land border is with the United Kingdom.
It’s a very typical Irish response. They are less open about the impact that the US Democrats (and multinationals who fund them) have in Ireland.
I would like to see what would have happened if the migrants hoisted up Palestinian flags.
I recall saying some years ago to the Irish part of the family, they’ll come for you. Well, here they come.
As far as I know, entering the State (at an airport) with no papers is a criminal offense. We all know that they cannot board an aircraft without papers, so the migrants are deliberately destroying or discarding them. Such criminals should not be welcomed into the asylum system, but immediately deported. But the State seems to turn a blind eye. Which is something they won’t do to “hate speech” if that Bill goes through..
Attack on democracy? Who asked the Irish people if they want Africanisation or Islamisation? Americans likewise are forced to swallow aliens with no interest in American culture.
And now Irish security sources are ‘reportedly exploring terrorism charges’ against those who don’t want real terrorists turning up to their shores en masse to be housed & paid for – as has happened all over Europe. Cf Sweden, France, Germany, Uk etc.
Don’t let the boats beach. Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes, then pour it on.
It’s pressure from the EU club to adopt their migration policies or suffer the consequences of serving your own native people. Like what the EU is doing with Hungary, Poland etc. Except both those countries are holding the line, not like pathetic apologist Irish political parties.