RACIST RANTER CLAIMS HE HAS BEEN A ‘POLITICAL PRISONER’.

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Racist Graham Carey, unfortunately familiar to many for his posted videos of himself in a vehicle or in his bedroom, ranting about various things, in particular during the Covid epidemic in Ireland, has ended up in court for his virulent racist posts.

In common with most racists, he posted lies that he invented himself or parroted those invented by others. He’d been doing that for a long time but what got him into trouble with the Law was his role in mobilising people for an attack on Finglas Garda Station back in January 2023.

A woman had reportedly been attacked in the area and the rumour quickly spread that a migrant had been responsible. Of course Irish people can and do attack women but that wouldn’t be reason for a riot – but a migrant suspected? Obviously Irish warrior Carey would have to do something!

And so did other ‘Irish Warriors’ who quickly gathered and threatened the Garda station because allegedly ‘they weren’t doing anything about it’. The Gardaí went so far as to state that the alleged assailant was Irish but of course, to Carey and Co., that was obviously a cover-up.

Carey first came to the attention of the suffering public on social media when he was screaming on his video about Covid conspiracies, ‘unreasonable’ mask-wearing requirements and travel restrictions of the time but he quickly enough progressed to rabid racism.

Carey tended to be a solo video warrior and on at least one occasion in a larger gathering, possibly with Irish Yellow Vests1 on Custom House Quay, could be seen on video making threatening moves towards a few counter-protesters but moved away when they stood their ground.

His public defiance melted quickly when arrested over the Finglas incident and social media posts, apologised to Gardaí for being in error and in his first court appearance meekly offered the judge to have his bail on condition imposed he refrain from posting any more rants on social media.

In court more recently, with a pack in the courtroom to give him immoral support, he’s got some of his spine back as one can tell from this unusually detailed report on his court hearing.2

Carey claimed he had been ‘tried by media’ and accused the Garda witness, Detective Inspector Gavin Ross of not doing his job and said “there was never a rape in Finglas, they set it up to get me” and claimed he was “a political prisoner”.

He’s also claimed in the past that MI5 were stirring up other well-known fascists and racists against him.

Antifascist counter protesters have observed on many occasions how lenient the Gardaí have been towards fascists and other racists in general but leading a mob invading a Garda station and threatening the Gardaí presumably tends to remove some of that tolerance.3

Charged with using words that were threatening, abusive or insulting and intended to or likely to stir up hatred and distribution of a recording of images or sound likely to stir up hatred, both charges which he denied, Carey was found guilty by a unanimous jury last April.

The quoted statements from a transcript of his livestream produced in court were typical Carey style: the Government is “rewarding evil” by allowing “rape-ugees” into the country “in order that they can rape our people” and this is “putting your daughters on the fucking menu for them”.

The virulent and lying content continued: “we’re here because women are being raped, Facebook want your children raped. If we don’t see this as a war, then we are going to lose the war.”

“Our own people are going to be raped by them. These are not refugees. We are going to get these fucking rapists out of here.”

“Get back to where yiz (sic) came from. Get the fuck out of here before you die on this island. If you refuse to get the fuck out of here you’re going to die on the island and we’ll fuck your bleeding corpse into the sea.”

“We are going back to the law of the land. We have enough local lads to do what has to be done.”

Carey certainly knows how to stir up some people’s fears though otherwise his level of intelligence may be in question .

When he claimed that he had not been in Finglas but rather in ‘Northern Ireland’ (sic) when he recorded his 30-minute ranting video, Carey might not have been aware that the lorry he was driving would prove he had been driving in the State jurisdiction, which it did.

More to the point, perhaps, it seems he was actually on video leading a mob into the Garda station.

The offences come with a maximum penalty of a fine of €10,000 or two years imprisonment. The court was told Carey has previous convictions for careless driving, driving while over the limit, intoxication in a public place and threatening and abusive behaviour and two speeding offences.

The intoxication while driving might well assist in producing the volume and vitriol of some of his driving cab videos.

Carey chose to defend himself but wanted legal representation when found guilty as he could be facing a prison sentence. Of course, solicitors currently are engaged in industrial action in protest at the recent flat-rate one-off payment to lawyers representing clients granted legal aid.

He has been granted three adjournments to facilitate finding legal representation but apparently continues to be unsuccessful.

It would be a pity were this rabid racist ranter able, whatever the sentence, to claim unfair treatment due to lack of legal representation. But what could a lawyer actually do to help him? Ask for mercy (in front of his support pack)? Claim a difficult childhood? Mental illness? Substance abuse?

End.

SOURCES:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/graham-carey-to-be-sentenced-for-incitement-to-hatred-offences-1931021.html

1An Irish initiative piggy-backing on the French movement of the same name, it attracted a wide support until it became clear that the leadership were Islamophobic, homophobic and with racist threads within the movement.

2https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/graham-carey-to-be-sentenced-for-incitement-to-hatred-offences-1931021.html

3  The Garda witness said that Carey stated that “if gardaí don’t get out, he wasn’t responsible for what happened in the Garda station.”

TOXIC LOYALISM IN IRELAND – WORSE THAN DANGERS OF 12th JULY BONFIRES

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

If it turns out that the fire destruction of homes in Greenisland, Carrigfergus was caused by Loyalist bonfire embers,1 there may be renewed calls to ban the construction of such bonfires in the cause of safety.

Or even to prevent the deaths of people from Loyalist bonfire tower construction.2

If so, such calls will miss the main point, which is that Ulster Loyalist bonfires are an expression of sectarianism and racism. It is Ulster Loyalism itself which is toxic and more lethal than any mismanaged fire. That is what is expressed in burning Irish Tricolours, Palestinian flags, images of Irish individuals, representations of migrants and of Islam.

A Loyalist bonfire with Irish Tricolour and Palestinian flags to be burned along with images of the popular rap group Kneecap and an attempt at some message aimed at them in Irish. The rejection of SDLP and Alliance colonial political parties is clear, while that of Sinn Féin is taken for granted. (Photo: Niall Carson/ PA Wire).

The record of Ulster Loyalism is as the communal enforcers of settler colonialism upon the indigenous Irish. When the United Irishmen, mostly led by Protestants, were organising in unity with Irish Catholics for Irish independence, the Orange Order was founded in 1795.

At that time it was not controlling the indigenous Irish that was of greatest concern to the British ruling class as much as the Republican Protestants, in particular the Republicans among the Presbyterians and the Orange Order targeted them too with propaganda and intimidation.

Once the threat of Protestant Republican rebellion was contained through intimidation, repression and emigration, the Orange Order concentrated on the majority mostly Catholic indigenous Irish, with general repression and periodic pogroms, continuing after Partition of Ireland in 1922.

The colonial Statelet institutionalised in law and practice discrimination against Catholics, enlisting the help and support of the majority of the Protestant working class, with the result of the worst housing and generally lowest wages in the UK – for workers of both communities.

The Loyalists mobilised against the Civil Rights campaign in the Six Counties, a campaign led by liberal Protestants as well as Catholics. During three decades of war that followed, Loyalist militias with British colonial army and police help, carried out bombings and sectarian murders.3

At this time of year people concerned for their safety or just peace of mind temporarily leave areas near to those under Loyalist control and not only in the Six Counties colony but in parts of Scotland too.

A REACTIONARY FESTIVAL

Unionist and liberal propaganda tell us that some of the bonfires are just good community fun, without flags, politician faces, migrant boat or mosque replicas on top. But the historical excuse for the marking of the 12th of July is the victory of William of Orange’s forces at the Boyne in 1690.

Loyalist mural probably in Belfast depicting at top gable end King William at the Battle of the Boyne. (Photo source: https://petermoloneycollection.com/category/events-people/king-billy/)

The Unionists celebrate this chiefly because they perceive it as a victory of Protestant forces over Catholic but also because it facilitated the destruction of the remnants of the Gaelic Order, breaking the power of Irish resistance in Ulster and completed the British conquest of Ireland.

Even without a single representation of person, country or religion on top of the bonfires, their very nature and what they intend to celebrate is reactionary, sectarian and colonial.

Most Ulster Protestants are probably unaware that although William was a Protestant and James II a Catholic, from whom Irish Catholics hoped to gain relief from repression, the Battle of the Boyne was actually part of the Nine Years War with William fighting for the League of Augsburg.

And one of the supporters of that League was none other than Pope Innocent XI because of what he and the League saw as the threat of King Luis XIV of France. The News of William’s victory at the Boyne was celebrated with high mass in a number of Catholic countries.

This year’s Loyalist Bonfire in Moygashel, Co. Armagh, with a representation of a Mosque to be burned on top and a placard calling for ‘secure borders’ against emigration. (Photo sourced: Sky News)

Loyalism has gone on to extend its hatred of Catholicism to Islam, of indigenous Irish to migrants from other lands, for example in the recent riots in Belfast.4

‘ONE MILLION PROTESTANTS IN A UNITED IRELAND’

We are frequently counselled to tolerate Ulster Loyalism, told that we must make Loyalists welcome into a united Ireland, that we need to accept their culture on equal level with others and are also subtly threatened with the potential violence of ‘One million Protestants’ if not accommodated.

The culture of Loyalism is toxic. It is intolerant, racist, homophobic, sectarian and violent. Might as well ask black people or native Americans to accept the Ku Klux Klan – after all, the KKK too have a community culture and they live in the USA along with everyone else.

A united 32-County Ireland should of course accept everyone as citizens. That is not at all to say that it should tolerate religious sectarianism, racism or homophobia. On the contrary it should oppose those evils through education and if necessary through application of the law.5

As for the implied threat of “one million Protestants”, that is to assume that all are sectarian Loyalists or at least that such are in leadership over the rest. Not all those reared in Six Counties Protestantism are Loyalists nor in fact even necessarily Unionists.

Removing the military, ideological and structural support for Unionism and Loyalism and also the control exercised by Loyalists on sections of communities will reduce Unionism and its most virulent expression, Loyalism, to a much smaller core who will have to make their choice.

Adjust to get on with your fellow citizens, or leave.

End.

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FOOTNOTES:

1https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fire-which-destroyed-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire-1925794.html

22026 https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582923-bonfire-death/

2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62111760

3According to Wikipedia, Loyalist paramilitaries killed 1,027 people during the 30 Years War, approximately 30% of all conflict-related deaths. 911 according to https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/sutton.htm (a biased source) including 33 in the no-warning Dublin and Monaghan Bombings of 1974.

4https://www.politico.eu/article/anti-immigrant-terror-takes-northern-ireland-back-darkest-chapters/

5In the wording of the 1916 Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty to all …”

SOURCES:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fire-which-destroyed-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire-1925794.html and https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/07/12/fire-that-destroyed-antrim-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire/

2026 https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582923-bonfire-death/

2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62111760

FAKE PATRIOTS MISUSE IRISH HISTORY AND THE HOMELESS CRISIS

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In recent days we have seen the far-Right mobilise people to allegedly defend the GPO and protest homelessness, not against its causes but instead against migrants. In defence of ‘Irishness’ they also menaced an annual religious Muslim procession.

Participants in these and similar events wave the Irish Tricolour and Irish Republic flags and claim to be ‘Irish patriots’ standing up for ‘the Irish nation.’ However, it’s far from that they are in reality as we can see.

They

  • disgrace the Proclamation

The far-Right claim to honour our national history of resistance to colonialism and occupation and even display copies of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence.1

Yet they are often also seen and heard denouncing Muslims, in direct contravention of the Proclamation’s words: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty … to all”; similarly they held protests when use of Croke Park was hired to celebrants of the Eid festival.

  • disgrace the GPO as HQ of the 1916 Rising

They have and do disgrace the very symbolic building they claim to be trying to protect.

They have often held racist gatherings outside it; one of their organisers2 (e.g. of weekly protests during the Covid crisis) leading a chant of support for British fascist Tommy Robinson, who defended the Paratroopers who carried out the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry.

Their recent protest at the GPO featured as speaker a man known for his active membership of the sectarian UVF murder gang, who admitted working for British Intelligence and who called for the strengthening of the colonial British Border – and was cheered for saying so.

Cartoon by D.Breatnach
  • disgrace the flags

The far-Right disgrace and misuse the very flags they wave so keenly.

The Tricolour was presented to the revolutionary Young Irelander republicans3 by French revolutionary republican women in 1848. It signified peace and unity between the descendants of settlers and the indigenous Irish in revolutionary struggle against the British colonial occupation.

The flag with the words “Irish Republic” painted in white and gold on a green background was made on domestic material of socialist Republican Constance Markievicz (see next section) in her house and delivered by her to the GPO.

It was installed and flown on the roof at the Princes St. corner by Eamon Bulfin4 (see next section), a migrant from Argentina.

  • disown but also misappropriate real patriots

In dishonest manipulation, the far-Right claim to honour our patriots and even invoke them in their campaigns. In their agitation against migrants they hide the fact that Constance Markievicz, Thomas Clarke and James Connolly were all migrants (Connolly and Clarke no less than three times).5

Also a migrant was Eamon Bulfin (see previous section) along with many others who fought for Irish freedom and even sacrificed their lives (including Erskine Childers)6.

Placards on an anti-racist rally on Custom House Quay some years ago. The text placard quotes the 1916 Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty to all”. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation (see earlier section), two – Pearse and McDonagh7 – were children of migrants and two were themselves migrants (Connolly and Clarke).

Among many such examples, the father of Young Irelander Republican patriot Thomas Davis (author of the song A Nation Once Again) was a migrant.

  • join with Loyalists and British fascists

A far-Right organiser calling for three cheers for British fascist Tommy Robinson was not the only such example and outside the GPO this week far-Right elements welcomed as speaker Mark Sinclair, a member of the UVF, a British colonial sectarian murder and terrorist squad.8

Prominent Irish leaders of fascist organisations have also shared a platform with Scottish fascist and Loyalist Jim Dowson.9 And of course how can we forget the desecration of the Tricolour unfurled among Union Jack and Loyalist flags in Belfast by some Dublin far-Right activists!10

Admitted UVF/ MI5 Sectarian Loyalist UVF murder gang member Mark Sinclair. (Photo sourced: Internet)
  • don’t act against British occupation

With all that background, it’s hardly surprising that the far-Right “patriots” don’t organise against the British occupation of the Six Counties or in support of Irish Republican political prisoners in jails on either side of the British Border.

  • burn buildings

Apart from misleading people and distracting them from the real sources of problems to Irish working people and seeking to intimidate refugees, what do the far-Right actually do? Ah, yes, they burn buildings that might be used as accommodation. A great help to the homeless indeed!

  • attack homeless refugee and migrant tents

But no, that’s not all. No, the brave ‘patriots’ slash tents and threaten migrants and refugees who are sleeping on the streets. They don’t take on the big landlords, bankers, property speculators and vulture funds – no, they strike down at people poorer and in worse conditions than themselves.

  • cover for the property speculators and vulture funds, big landlords, bankers

So with all this whipping up fear and hatred of migrants, the far-Right obscure the actual cause of the problems, which is not only Irish capitalism but its total subjection to foreign capitalism. The only ones to benefit from this activity are those who are the real causes of the problems.

  • are not patriots, nor nationalists

Despite their claims and flag-waving, the far-Right in Ireland are neither patriots nor true nationalists. They do not organise in defence of Irish sovereignty and against British occupation nor against foreign capitalist exploitation of Irish natural resources, labour or infrastructures.

Or the contrary, they work to distract attention away from these centrally-important issues for the Irish nation and raise false issues to divide the people. And usually their concept of ‘Ireland’ ends at the British border which the recent far-Right rally at the GPO called for strengthening!

  • are a sub-class of deprived individuals allowing themselves to be manipulated by fascists, MI5 and NATO

Many of those being mobilised against migrants come from parts of the cities neglected for generations, often associated with low educational level, substance misuse, unemployment and unresolved mental health issues.

The ideological fascists will recruit those elements to fight, not against the cause of their deprivation, the neo-colonial ruling class or the flooding of foreign capitalist companies into Ireland, assisted by banks and political decisions -but instead against migrant workers and refugees.

  • are filling a vacuum left by the Republican and Socialist movement

WILL WE LEARN FROM OUR FAILURES?

Many of those participating, while some are also unfortunate victims of Irish capitalism, will be recruited as the boot boys of fascism.

While it is true that historically capitalism in crisis turns to fostering fascism and that capitalism, including the neo-colonial variant in the Irish state is running out of other options, we must evaluate our own role in this development, examine our own failures, learn from and remedy them.

The ground was largely ceded to the Far-Right in the period of their initial growth during the Covid crisis. The socialist Left and Republican movement, in particular its organisations, had little response to the early FR mobilisations or to responding creatively to state-imposed restrictions.

Throughout that period and subsequently the socialist Left sector, despite its protestations of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, completely ceded the ground of Irish national sovereignty and its symbols to anyone who wished to occupy it.

They did not, for the most part, protest the use of State repression against Irish Republicans both sides of the British Border, whether through police harassment, special legislation and special no-jury courts, nor stand up for the human and civil rights of Republicans, including political prisoners.

Their distaste for the very issue of national sovereignty was reflected in their refusal to fly the Irish Tricolour, which, although now also the official flag of the Irish State, is originally and remains still a potent symbol of Irish Republican anti-colonial struggle over 170 years.

They might argue that they wished to be identified with the struggle of the working class rather than a nationalist one but they also chose not to fly the flag of the insurrectionary Irish working class, the Starry Plough, in among their internationally-recognised red flags.

The Irish Republican organisations in their fragmented movement, on the national question, failed to sustain unity even around opposition to repression of the states or even around solidarity with the movement’s political prisoners.

They also failed and, to an even greater extent, in fighting for universal affordable housing in a crisis which seems to offer no end and is seized upon by the Far-Right to target refugees and economic migrants, who of course have no responsibility whatsoever for the crisis.

This area too has been a notable failure of the socialist Left organisations which, although marching often enough in public demonstrations and participating in a couple of media-orientated occupations,11 failed to organise and lead a state-wide campaign of empty building occupations.

And so, here we are today, when the FR are able to bring Tricolour and Irish Republic flag-waving crowds on to the streets in false claims of patriotism, dividing and seeking to intimidate migrant workers and anti-racists, burning buildings and insisting on their definition of ‘Irish’ being correct.

Our omissions and failures, if we recognise and act to remedy them, also point the way forward.

End.

1In a travesty of frequent Irish Republican ceremonial occasions, it was even read out at the recent Far-Right gathering outside the GPO which was addressed by a known member of the UVF sectarian murder gang.

2Under the name Dee Wall (real name Dolores Webster).

3Including to Thomas Meagher ‘of the Sword’ who later recruited for, joined and fought in the Union Army in the US Civil War against slavery. Meagher unfurled the flag first in Wexford and later in Dublin, both acts in 1848.

4Bulfin came to Ireland around the age of ten with his family and later joined the IRB and the Irish Volunteers. After the surrender in Moore Street he was sentenced to death, later commuted to life sentence, then from Frongoch prison camp deported to Argentina from where he was the Latin American representative for the Movement.

5Clarke and Markievicz were both born in England. Clarke was first a migrant to Ireland, later to the US, then back again. Connolly was born in Edinburgh and a migrant to Ireland, then to England, then to the USA before his return to Ireland.

6Childers was born in England. He captained the yacht that brought the Mauser rifles and ammunition to Howth. Later he joined the IRA, took the anti-Treaty side and was executed by the Free State during the Civil War.

7The father of the Pearse brothers was English, as was McDonagh’s mother.

8During his trial for bank robbery for the UVF in Glasgow, Sinclair declared he had been working for MI5 which was well known to be steering Loyalist organisations. The UVF and British Intelligence bombed Dublin and Monaghan in 1974, causing the deaths of 34 people and a full-term baby, the highest death toll of one day during the recent 30 Years War.

9Rowan Croft, Herman Kelly (Irish Freedom Party) and Niall McConnell (Síol na hÉireann).

10A prominent group among the Dublin far-Right calling themselves Coolock Says No.

11https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/07/09/former-loyalist-uvf-prisoner-addressed-anti-immigration-protest-at-dublins-gpo/

12For example, the 27-day occupation of Apollo House, Dublin, from 15 December 2016 by housing activists and homeless people, with speeches and performances by prominent musicians.

FAR-RIGHT MARCH AND COUNTER-DEMONSTRATION IN DUBLIN

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

The Far-Right mobilised a large number1 of people for a national protest march in Dublin on Saturday 26th April, pretending the main target was the Irish Government and the housing and health service crises but was purely racist, anti-immigration.

A counter-rally was organised from the Left in front of the GPO, past which the far-Right demonstration was scheduled to pass. They were kettled on three sides by crowd barriers with two Garda vans and Gardaí on foot in front of them.

A number of far-right elements gathered on the sides of the confined mass to throw insults at the anti-racist there, policed very lightly and gently by Gardaí, in stark contrast to how the latter have treated some anti-fascist and anti-racist activists in the recent past.

Among the anti-racist crowd there were many flags of the People Before Profit and Labour parties, an Irish Tricolour or two, two Starry Plough flags and a couple of Palestine flags.

Section of the counter-protest to the anti-immigration march in Dublin on 26th April (Photo: D.Breatnach)

When the Far-Right march came down O’Connell Street, as might be expected from past experience, they carried a flood of Irish Tricolours and some ‘Irish Republic’ flags.

It was not the first time the Left – and these are for the most part the electoral Left – had acted so stupidly from a visual point of view. Because they claim to represent the workers, they pretend to scorn nationalist flags – well then why not at least fly the Plough,2 flag of the Irish workers?

But no, flying red and pink party flags and leaving the national stage to be represented by the Far-Right. And why not fly the flags of national rebellion anyway, are they not honoured for their anti-colonialism and revolutionary spirit? Why neglect to confront the Far-Right with the contradiction?

I have been pointing that out over years without any seeming effect on the Left (or indeed on the Republican movement). However the Mála Spíosraí (Spice Bag) artist group posted a similar objection, making many of the same points and they may have better luck with it.3

The Far-Right when they arrived were met with jeers but the marchers were jeering the anti-racists also. It was interesting to hear the anti-racist crowd switch from shouting that “refugees are welcome here” to baiting the Far-Right with: “Where’s your Union Jack?”4

Confronting the pretend patriotism of the Far-Right with their leaders’ connections to British fascists and Loyalists is much more effective than some of the slogans that are regularly shouted by the Left on these occasions. Reminding people of McGregor’s wearing a Poppy5 might be useful.

Creating slogans to expose their role in distracting attention from property speculators, big landlords, bankers and foreign multinationals on to migrants, who don’t cause any of the problems, would be very useful but expecting creativity and initiative in the electoral Left …!

At least one of the FR leaders, Malachy Steenson and some marchers were seen wearing caps in Trump imitation with “Make Ireland Great Again” printed across them. Unless pre-invasion 1169, there was no hint as to when the ‘great’ period in Ireland’s history might have been.

The country was under total occupation by the 1800s. The Irish State was set up in 1922 on a partitioned land with continuing high emigration. Steenson is an ex-Republican so presumably he knows this. Can he be hearkening to the days of the Church domination of the neo-colony?

Among the banners and flags seen among the marchers were those of Irish fascist organisations, the National Party and Irish Freedom Party. Slogans of “Ireland for the Irish” and “Get them out” were frequently to be heard and “Ireland is full” was seen on a number of placards.

The first two slogans are shouted by people many of whom have no interest in freeing the Six Counties from British Occupation nor the whole country from foreign multinational companies; in fact these are issues which the fake “Patriots” of the Far-Right never address.

On population statistics alone it can be shown that Ireland is far from “full”, given that the population of the country now is lower than the 8 million plus which was recorded in 1845. But lies of the sinister repeated by the ignorant and credulous have long been the stock of fascism.

Homelessness is due to affordable housing shortage, in turn is due to construction, sale and rental being for profit alone. We’ve had a housing shortage for centuries and expelling immigrants will not cure it – a social housing construction program can but the Far-Right never agitate for that.

Expelling immigrants might seem to shorten health service queues but in fact would lengthen them as those members of staff in paramedical services, nursing, surgery, cleaning and security left the country. But none of the anti-immigrant propaganda is about logic – quite the contrary.

A position that it’s patriotic to allow only the Irish-born to live and work in Ireland would have meant lost us four of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation James Connolly, Tom Clark, the father of Patrick (and Willy) Pearse and the mother of Thomas Mac Donagh.

The racists flying the “Irish Republic” flag may be unaware that it was painted on one of her curtains in the house of London-born Constance Markievicz, delivered by her during the 1916 Rising to the GPO and installed on the roof by Eamon Bulfin, born and reared in Argentina.

The Irish Tricolour was presented to Irish Republicans by French Republican women during the Paris Revolution of 1848. The Harp on a green background was the flag of the United Irish, nearly all of whose leaders’ antecedents had come from other countries.

IT’S OUR FAULT

We can expose the ‘patriotism’ of those who ignore the foreign occupation of one-sixth of our land but organise against foreign workers; we can laugh at the ‘patriotism’ and ‘anti-globalism’ that thinks it fine to follow “Poppy” McGregor cosying up to a US imperialist president.

But in the end, those contradictory positions and don’t-compute beliefs won’t matter. The fascists are out to mobilise the ill-informed and gullible who have been hurt by the capitalist system and, it must be said, who have been largely ignored by the Irish Left and by Irish Republicans.

At the very least, the progressive forces could have fought for a wide public housing program. A campaign of occupations could have forced that though people would have gone to jail for it. Attempts were made by the Revolutionary Housing League but they were not supported.

The speculators, big landlords and bankers would hate it but in the end could afford to let it happen. They would still be in charge and still making money. It was not a revolutionary demand.

But the campaign was not pressed and now the Far-Right are there with a simplistic but completely wrong answer: stop immigration.

The electoral Left is not interested in fighting fascism but instead in anti-racist posturing. The Irish Republican movement is in general more interested in getting the British out of their 6-County Irish colony. Even on causes with which they agree, they can rarely stand on the same ground.

The advance of the Far-Right is the fault of the spaces left empty by the Left.

end.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

1The numbers quoted varied hugely. The first report on Breaking News had them at twice the number of the counter-protest, which they estimated at 2,000, an under-estimate to my opinion by almost a thousand. The next B News report put the anti-immigration numbers at “hundreds of thousands”, i.e at least 200,000! A more realistic guess would be around 10,000.

2The Starry Plough, flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world, formed to defend the workers from police attacks in the employers’ attempt to break the Irish Transport & General Workers Union with a Lockout of union members.

3The Tricolour will be a right-wing symbol soon if it’s not front and centre at counters. Being allergic to your own flag is moronic and damages your legitimacy as a national movement. A sea of red and pink flags without the hard won symbols of Irish nationalism plays into the right-wing narrative that left is inherently anti-Irish. Fly the tricolour if you don’t want it to end up like the St George’s flag in England.

The left have a tendency to abandon things that are being co-opted by political opponents. In a country where nationalism, socialism and patriotism go hand-in-hand, this would be extremely damaging. Look no further than the Provo/Stickie split in the 1970’s for an example of the left losing legitimacy by putting the red before the green during a crisis.

You’re not just fighting the domestic right, you’re fighting US and UK conservative media and Zionism. Ireland is unique in Europe as a post-colonial state and we can be unique in how we fight our culture war. Nationalism should not be given away, the ‘left’ should not become the generic caricature pushed by right wing media. Our national flag should vastly outnumber all other symbols — it is a symbol of resistance.

4Increasingly the Far-Right leaderships have been exposed in alliance with British fascists and racists such as Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage and with British Loyalists such as James Dowson.

5In 2015 Conor McGregor wore the red Poppy, causing controversy in Ireland as the symbol is firmly associated with the British imperialist army. McGregor claimed it represented all soldiers in all wars, which is patently nonsense. The Poppy is trademarked and produced by the British Legion to commemorate the UK soldiers killed – not even those of the Commonwealth, to say nothing of the soldiers on the other side, nor the millions of civilians killed.

WHAT KIND OF ‘IRISH NATIONALISM’ IS THIS?

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Claiming to be ‘Irish nationalists’, denouncing refugee accommodation, calling LGBT people “paedophiles”, promoting “Christian values” and attacking Muslims, calling people “traitors” for expressing solidarity with Palestinians.

What kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this?

In recent years far-Right elements in Irish society have been pushing an ideology composed of the elements listed above, while claiming to represent the Irish people and the Irish nation. In their justifications they sometimes refer to struggles in Irish history and to Irish culture.

They do this not only in words but also in debasing flags of the Irish struggle, such as the Tricolour and the ‘Irish Republic’ flag, by waving them at their public events and even, on occasion by playing Irish Republican ballads on their PA machines.

Plenty of Irish Tricolour flags brandished on this anti-immigration march in Dublin in May (2024). Flags of the fascist National Party can also be seen. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Yet with a tiny unrepresentative exception, these elements have not been involved in the promotion or creation of Irish music or dance. They have not struggled for the promotion of the Irish language nor do they themselves speak the Irish language.

As to the history of Irish struggle, again with the exception of a miniscule minority, the far-Right elements have not fought against the British occupation, not picketed British Occupation buildings, not confronted the colonial police nor agitated in solidarity with Republican prisoners.

Again, I ask, what kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this?

Palestine solidarity ‘treason’?!

As Ireland experienced a wave of solidarity with the Palestinian people facing a campaign of genocide by the Zionist regime and its Western powers allies, these far-Right elements not only disdained that solidarity but harassed and labelled those who expressed it as “traitors”.

Again, I ask, what kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this?

How is opposition to genocide or solidarity with another colonised and oppressed people the activity of ‘traitors’? Surely it is the natural reaction of people with our history? Doesn’t the term ‘traitors’ mean that the accused have aligned themselves with enemies of the Irish people?

In fact, that is precisely what these far-Right elements are doing themselves. They are aligning themselves with a number of Western imperialist powers but in particular, in the case of Ireland, aligning themselves with the rulers of the UK, invader and occupiers of the Irish nation.

That connection was amply demonstrated when the colonial police savagely attacked people attempting to set up a Palestine solidarity camp in the grounds of Queen’s, the colonial university in Belfast. As it is also by burning Palestinian flags alongside the Tricolour on Loyalist bonfires.

A sectarian July bonfire with the Irish Tricolour, ‘Irish Republic’ and Palestinian national flags on top awaiting burning. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Or by English fascist and Loyalist flags accompanying Zionist flags on demonstrations in England. And by far-Right posters and activists who called for friendship with English fascist Tommy many-names Robinson, notorious for supporting the Paratroopers’ 1972 massacre of protesters in Derry.

Love Irish history?

Recently a far-Right person posting on social media, while claiming to “love Irish historical sites”, denounced efforts to save the Moore Street market and 1916 Battleground because “it’s not Irish any more” and called for it to be torn down “to get them1 out”.

She called for the destruction of the oldest street market in Ireland and the site of the last stand of the GPO Garrison, the 1916 Battleground where at least four Volunteers were killed and the last place of freedom for hundreds, including five of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation.

Again, I ask, what kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this? It is in fact aiding the property speculator who wants to demolish and obliterate Irish history and heritage, a speculator currently based in Britain, though actively assisted by Dublin City Managers and successive Irish governments.

Another poster on social media calling itself “Christian Wisdom” asked people to vote for “Irish nationalist candidates” in the forthcoming elections within the Irish state, the sub-text being against migrants or Left-wing candidates and presumably for religious sectarianism.

What kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this?

It aligns itself with the western imperialist powers, including the invader that has been in occupation of some part of our country for 800 years and still is.

It denies people the democratic rights to express their sexuality.

In promoting Christianity as ‘Irish’ and in opposition to free expression of sexuality, it seeks to put us back under religious social control and also opposes the 1916 Proclamation, which guaranteed “religious and civil liberty and equal opportunities… for all.”

In blaming migrants and refugees for homelessness, it is covering up for the actual people who cause that crisis: the bankers, property speculators and big landlords who keep making huge profits out of people’s needs and misery.

Who are they really? They are certainly not ‘Irish nationalists’ in the sense of the many who fought and sacrificed all in the struggle to free the Irish nation through 800 years of Irish history.

Fascists and racists based in Coolock, North Dublin city photographed in joint rally with loyalists in Belfast in 2024. (Photo sourced: Internet)

What it really is and what they really are

What they are disseminating is not at all Irish nationalism.

On rational examination of the evidence, I must conclude that these people are not Irish nationalists at all. But since they claim very stridently that’s what they are indeed, I must conclude that they are using that label to cover their real identity.

What they are really is simply nothing more nor less than Irish fascists, serving property speculators, corporate landlords, bankers, the native Gombeens and foreign imperialists. Or the ignorant manipulated tools of those fascists.

In total, enemies of the Irish nation, of working people and of all democratic freedoms.

End.

1Presumably meaning people born abroad (as were James Connolly, Tom Clarke, Constance Markievicz, Eamonn De Valera, Eamon Bulfin, the father of the Pearses and mother of Thomas Mac Donagh, father of Thomas Davis … and hundreds of other Irish patriots).

A TERRIBLE DEED BECOMES A FASCIST EXCUSE

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

A man stabs three children and a teacher in Dublin, after which certain elements riot, burn public transport and Garda vehicles and threaten migrants. What is the connection between these events?

The terrible stabbing was carried out and the assumed assailant is under arrest, facing charges and if convicted will certainly lose his freedom. The alleged assailant, it is claimed, was a foreign national1, he was himself injured and is in hospital under arrest.

Burning Dublin Bus and car on O’Connell Bridge, Dublin City centre Thursday night (Photo cred: Brian Lawless/ PA)

Yes, but what’s the connection between all that and street riot, burning public transport and police vehicles and threats to migrants?

None whatsoever, to the rational mind. But in far-Right minds and those of their fascist instigators, one migrant assailant condemns all migrants.

Very late mobilisation of the Garda Public Order Unit (Photo sourced: RTÉ)

How is that logical? If an Irish person carried out an attack in Britain, should all Irish people in Britain be judged culpable and attacked?

SCATTER-GUN BLAMING

In fact that’s exactly what happened many times, perhaps most memorably to the Birmingham Six, Maguire Seven, Guildford Four and Judith Ward. Of course, the real reason behind that was the State terrorising of the Irish community, who were protesting British repression in Ireland.

And, as it happens, there is hidden fascist reasoning here too, because for some time now, fascists and other far-Rightists have been blaming migrants and refugees for the crisis of homelessness in this neo-liberal and neo-colonial Irish state.

Migrants and other minorities, insecure, without strong support networks, often unorganised, are vulnerable and among the first and easiest targets of fascist movements in most parts of the world, dividing the working people and obscuring their real enemies.

In Britain in the 1800s the targets were the Irish; in Germany, Britain, Ireland and other places in the 1930s, those to demonise and attack were Jews and socialists2; in Britain during the latter half of the last century the Irish again but also Afro-Caribbeans, S. Asians, Africans and Muslims.

Far-Right rioters attacking late-arrived Garda Public Order Unit (Photo sourced: Internet)

EXCUSE

And it turns out, interestingly, that two out of three of the men who intervened to save the children were also migrants.

But riots and burning buses? A catharsis of the sub-working class of the inner city, alienated and disregarded for generations, devastated by substance addiction, most recently mobilised by fascists against Covid restrictions and, yes, against refugees and migrants then too.

Out of such material were the Brownshirt stormtroopers formed in 1930s Germany; out of such material too did former Garda Commissioner O’Duffy form his fascist Blueshirt movement that later helped form the Fine Gael party.

The big capitalist ruling classes use fascists to split the working class and suppress its resistance organisations and capability, so that the rate of exploitation can be increased and profit margins be defended or increased. The upper echelons of fascism are duly rewarded with government posts.

In the organising for fascist power, elements among the police and army are often in sympathy with the fascists or actually recruited by them. Or fascists may simply be tolerated, or painted as merely the other side of the threat to society, i.e the Left.

Wounded national pride was a factor in making Germans amenable to the Nazi message. The Irish people certainly have reason for wounded national feeling but these far-Right elements, for all their Tricolour-waving, by and large have no history of activity in the Irish Republican movement.

They may feel that they have lost something but in fact they never had it. Such elements also turn to opportunist looting and in the city centre shops selling shoes, expensive bicycles, alcohol and clothes were broken into and looted.

The disadvantaged and disinherited are ironically mobilised — by the very authors of their woes — against the working people, the only social sector that can change the system to one of equality and a decent living for all. They are deserving of pity certainly but dangerous for all that.

Another view of the burning Dublin Bus on O’Connell Bridge with O’Connell Monument to the left (with its British bullet-holes from 1916). (Photo sourced: Extra.ie)

THEY HAVE BEEN ENCOURAGED

And during the Pandemic, the far-Right and fascists have been encouraged to a false feeling of strength, treated extremely tolerantly by the Gardaí, even as the far-Right continually breached laws, attacked anti-fascists and threatened LGBT people and migrants.

There’s a few faces from a little further back missing but thanks to LAF for this, including Screaming Dee Wall, Gemma O’Doherty, Niall McConnell …

Dublin City Centre was much quieter than normal on Saturday, with less stalls than usual open in Moore Street and less shoppers. Thirty far-Right types gathered near the Spire in the City Centre and menaced a group with a banner reading “Grandfathers Against Racism”.

It was remarked that until the arrival of the Public Order Unit, the Gardaí allowed the mobs to collect and gather strength, even setting a patrol car alight. This has led to some calls for the resignation of the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris.

Among those calling for their resignations was Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin, the party with most elected TDs (MPs) in Leinster House3, the parliament of the Irish State, who commented that the riot could easily have been predicted, given previous far-Right behaviour.

Harris, of course, is accustomed to “softly softly” managing the largest collection of fascists and far-Right thugs in Ireland, i.e the ‘Ulster’ (sic) or Orange Loyalists. After all, his previous job was Assistant Commissioner of the colonial police force, the Police Service of Northern Ireland.4

But the monster hates his facilitators too and breaks out against them when he can find no easier targets upon which to vent his rage. And in all probability, those who facilitated the monster in the recent past will now repress it to an extent.

But in the course of that, repressing all progressive resistance movements too. Garda violence and the water-cannon borrowed from the colonial police force will certainly be inflicted far more upon progressive movements than on the far-Right.

The monster hates his facilitator and his creator but ends up serving their purpose even as they use him without the slightest regard for him as a living, hurting being.

And the working class, even as they know this, must organise to defend itself against that monster while at the same time reaching beyond it, to pull down the monster’s creator once and for all.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1It is well known that fascists and far-Right agitators lie and ascribe foreign status to the perpetrators of crimes when they are of indigenous background, apart from tarring all migrants with the brush of an individual’s crime. And when the attack is by an indigenous person upon a migrant, of course the fascists remain silent.

2In Nazi Germany, other targeted and murdered minorities included Roma (‘Gypsies’), the mentally ill and disabled.

3But currently in opposition.

4A colonial armed gendarmerie, formerly the sectarian Royal Ulster Constabulary and, prior to 1922, the Royal Irish Constabulary. Their soft approach on Loyalist violence and disorder was and is in direct contradiction to their repression of even non-violent activities of Irish Republicans.

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/dublin-stabbings-and-riots-a-visual-guide-to-how-events-unfolded-1556624.html

https://www.sundayworld.com/crime/irish-crime/sinister-threats-to-kill-foreigners-broadcast-on-social-media-before-dublin-riots/a967680324.html

ANTI-FASCISM, HOUSING AND REFUGEES

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Refugees living in tents on streets in Dublin were targeted last week by fascists and antifascists have confronted the latter in defence. Shelters of refugees have been torched.

There’s been some anti-immigrant discourse in Ireland, especially promoted by fascists and racists for a few years but it really took off during the Government’s handling of the Ukrainian refugee influx.

The Irish Government for pro-NATO reasons prioritised these over other refugees, also placing the Ukrainians in empty buildings in working class areas already low on social infrastructure and without consultation with the local community, some of whom reacted angrily.

The Irish Government handed the fascists and other racists a great opportunity and they grasped it.

After that issue had died down a bit, the fascists were looking for something to take its place and found it again in other refugees, this time those who were NOT being housed by the Government and were instead living in tents on streets around the IPO office in Mount Street.

Refugee tents near the International Protection Office (left of photo) in Dublin recently (credit Sasko LazarovRollingNews.ie)

The International Protection Office was supposed to organise to provide for the basic needs of refugees – in fact are legally obliged to – while their cases were being processed and had been failing to do so, hence the people it had failed living in tents around the area.

FASCISTS GO TO ATTACK THE REFUGEES

The refugees got some sympathetic coverage in articles in the Cork Examiner and Irish Times1. Perhaps it was this that stirred up well-known fascist Phillip Dwyer (known hater of women, migrants, LGBT and Muslims) to go and attack those people living on the street.

On Thursday 11th Dwyer turned up with his “security” people, i.e fascist goons, thinking to run the refugees out of there and perhaps do worse. But he was met with resistance including some people helping the refugees, two of the goons got hurt and they backed off.

According to a statement on Revolutionary Housing Action’s Twitter account, one of the defenders was ambushed when he went to collect his bike and while fighting them off, they threw a bike at him. Dwyer and his fascist hounds promised to be back.

Streetlink homeless service stated that on Friday, they were threatened and their outreach van pummelled while they packed refugee belongings and then boxed in so they had to suspend their outreach service for that evening, handing on outreach contacts to other services.

On Friday 12th Dwyer was back with a larger mob but met by a broad group of antifascists, including RHL, AIA, PBP, CATU, CYM, DCAR and independent antifascist activists2 (AIA statement onTwitter, Saturday 13 May). Dublin Republicans Against Fascism were there too.

Section of antifascists in the foreground on Friday, police in the middle distance and fascists and the curious beyond. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

The violence against persons was now turned on the pitiful shelters and belongings which, on Friday night were set on fire.

On Saturday 13th, the fascist Irish Freedom Party held their rally on Custom House Quay against hate speech legislation being considered by the Government. From there they marched, not against the Government but against the homeless refugees.

According to local sources, the fascists distributed leaflets asking people to be electoral candidates and promising to help the inexperienced.

What was the connection between a protest allegedly about ‘free speech’ and a march on homeless refugees? Absolutely none, except the standard fascist agenda of targeting minorities to divide the working people and scream about free speech while using violence against their targets.

But in a cunning move, the NP who have never helped any area, were there afterwards cleaning up the area and placing flowerpots there.

Meanwhile, on Thursday night, the Revolutionary Housing League stated that they had opened one of the many empty buildings in Dublin to house the targeted refugees. The RHL have been opening up empty buildings for over a year now and encouraging others to do so.

Subsequently, Leo Varadkar, of the very Government that set up the conditions for this to happen, declared how unacceptable the attack on the refugees was. And following strong criticism from the Refugee Council, the State suddenly found it could house most of the refugees.

If true, hopefully good for those refugees but the fascists will now bleat about how “foreigners are getting treated better than the Irish” to the gullible and, also among themselves, be commenting that violence brings results.

The fascists have been stirring up local community fears with allegations that some of the refugees are paedophiles on the run from justice in their own countries, for which there is not a shred of evidence.

Ironically, while they attacked LGBT people as “paedophiles” some of the far-right have for decades been defending the Catholic Church hierarchy in Ireland from criticism and accusations of abuse of children and women in their institutions.

Lies spill from fascist lips as a matter of course: “immigrants are rapists and paedophiles, LGBT people are paedophiles, migrants are rapists, migrants are being treated better than the natives, the whites are being replaced by people of colour, muslims are taking over”, etc, etc.

THE GARDAÍ AND THE FASCISTS

The Gardaí, including the Public Order Unit, stood between the antifascists and the fascist-led mob on Friday, then kettled the antifascists for awhile, then followed the antifascist contingent up Pearse Street with fascists tailing along. When the antifascists dispersed, some of them were attacked.

The Irish Times on Monday 15th reported on a complaint from the Garda Representative Association that they are unable to police these events, don’t know about refugees, need training, etc.3

What is there to know? Refugees are as entitled as anyone else to be kept free from violence and the Gardaí could have arrested a number of fascists, had they wanted to, under the Public Order Act, which they regularly use against left-wing protests.

In September 2020, when unarmed antifascists went to counter-protest a Yellow Vest4 rally against masking5 and were attacked by masked (!) thugs recruited by the National Party with wooden and metal clubs, the POU understood enough to draw batons and attack – the antifascists!

Scene on Butt Bridge in September 2020 after armed fascists had attacked the unarmed counter-protesters at Custom House Quay and then the Public Order Unit had attacked them also, pushing them back off the Quay with raised batons, threatening to strike. (Photo: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism)

The following week, the Gardaí allowed NP fascists in Kildare Street to jostle and threaten a handful of LGBT campaigners and to club one of them to the ground. The Gardaí then ordered the woman, blood streaming from her head, to leave.

On both occasions the Garda press office issued statements saying that there had been no serious incidents. But the videos of the woman being assaulted and then ordered away went wide on social media and within a few hours, the Gardaí had changed their story.

In September 2020, longtime fascist and member of the National Party Michael Quinn (left, carrying wooden club disguised as Irish Tricolour flag) attacked veteran LGBT campaigner Izzy Kamikaze while she observed fascists in Kildare Street. The Gardaí forced Izzy to leave and later told the media nothing of any note had occurred, later having to change their press statement after the circulation of video footage. Quinn was later convicted of the attack and jailed for two years. (Images sourced: Internet).

However, it was ‘up to the victim’ whether she made a complaint (for an armed attack in a public place seen on video?)! She did, and eventually the particular assailant, Michael Quinn of the NP, was jailed for two years.6 But for Gardaí collusion with fascists and lying to the press? Nothing.

WHAT NOW?

Given the wars instigated by US/NATO and EU around the world and deprivation by foreign exploitation of people’s natural resources, refugees and other migrants will continue coming to Europe, including Ireland.

The fascists will continue to target minorities and wave their fake patriotism and social concern while they recruit for their parties, diverting attention from the housing profiteers and the facilitating ruling class while they strive to drive wedges into the working people.

The local working class residents, for example in the block of flats overseeing the site of the conflict, will gain nothing except an undeserved bad reputation for what happened in their area and in which perhaps a few teenagers were opportunistically involved.

Already the recently-completed block of apartments just down the road from them is advertising one-bed apartments for 2,000 euro a month and two-beds for 3,000. None of the local working people of course will be renting those.

The cause of the housing crisis in Dublin will continue: property speculators, vulture funds and multi-unit landlords will continue to rake in profits because the Government won’t build housing for affordable rent in case it should compete with them.

Unless, that is, a real hard struggle including militant occupations and defiance of court orders is taken to them forcing a change, be it reform or revolution. This is a task for the Left which of course can never be carried out by fascists.

But hopefully many anti-fascists have learned or had reaffirmed the need for unity in a broad front against fascism and that confrontation and preparedness for physical defence against fascists is needed, while also discussing the most appropriate tactics for different situations.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/05/04/homeless-asylum-seekers-its-hard-sleeping-outside-its-cold-its-wet-its-no-life/

2Including anarchists.

3https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/05/15/gardai-have-sufficient-resources-to-stop-violence-against-refugees-harris-says/

4The Irish Yellow Vests were a right-wing populist organisation, led by Ben Gilroy and Glen Miller, fascists and islamophobes.

5The rally was on Custom House Quay, scene of the NP’s rally last Saturday.

6Man who used wooden post to strike a woman during an anti-lockdown rally is jailed (thejournal.ie

SOURCES

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/05/04/homeless-asylum-seekers-its-hard-sleeping-outside-its-cold-its-wet-its-no-life/

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/05/15/gardai-have-sufficient-resources-to-stop-violence-against-refugees-harris-says/

Man who used wooden post to strike a woman during an anti-lockdown rally is jailed (thejournal.ie)