Irish Establishment Sneers at Anti-Migration Riot as ‘Hate, ‘Lunatic’

A bus and car on fire on O'Connell Street in Dublin city centre after violent scenes
Getty Images
Neil Munro

Poor Irish people staged a riot in central Dublin following the stabbing of three children by a man described as a homeless migrant, yet the Irish establishment is portraying the Thursday-night anti-migration riots as merely “hate,” “lunatic” and “far-right.”

The unprecedented riots come after years of growing community protests against the migration that is impoverishing Irish people with rising rents and flatlining wages. So far, none of the established Irish political parties have sought to curb or reduce the impact of migration on Ireland’s people.

“At the risk of sounding like a bleeding-heart lefty, that [riot] an expression of the disconnect that has been festering amongst disadvantaged young men for a long time,” reported an anti-establishment Irish news outlet, Gript.ie, which added:

But the media, like the government and the Oppositon, were eager to change the conversation, and Dublin city centre being set on fire gave them perfect cover to do so. So the usual nonsense about the ‘far-right’ started immediately, and the front pages are full of those photographs this morning.

The government offered a very different view.

“This is not about immigration,” Justice Minister Helen McEntee declared Thursday night. “These are criminals and thugs who have come into our city center and have used a horrific attack on innocent children for their own gain.”

On Friday morning, Ireland’s migration heritage, pro-migration prime minister — Leo Varadkar — quickly described the rioters as hateful and suggested he would clamp down on free speech and Internet-organized protests:

“It’s now very obvious to anyone … that our incitement to hatred legislation is just not up to date,” said Varadkar. He continued:

It’s not up to date for the social media age, and we need that legislation through, and we need to through within a matter of weeks because it’s not just the platforms who have responsibility here — and they do. There’s also the individuals who post messages and images online that stir up hatred and violence, and we need to be able to use laws to go after them individually as well.

Varadkar also portrayed the government as the victim of the drama: “As a country we need to reclaim Ireland, we need to take it away from the cowards who hide behind masks and try to terrify us with their violence.”

In 2020, Vardakar defended the deadly and destructive Black Lives Matter looting and riots in the United States. But he described the Irish protestors as “cowardly champions of Ireland”.

Amid the chaos, looters hit 13 shops, according to reports, and one police officer was said to have been seriously injured.  

The police chief quickly dismissed the Thursday night protest as caused by right-wing lunatics. “We have a complete, lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology and also this destructive tendency here to engage in serious violence,” chief Owen Harris told reporters.

There was a second, but less intense protest on Friday night amid an enormous police presence in the city. Dublin even borrowed two water cannon from the UK government in case it needed to subdue its own people further.

The government is a coalition of establishment parties, all of which support the mass migration that has pushed a huge number of Irish people into poverty.

So the government’s dismissal of the rioters is expanding the political opportunity for anti-establishment parties.

The anti-establishment voters appear set to win a majority in the next election, due by March 2025 at the latest.

The lead anti-establishment party is named Sinn Fein — “We Ourselves” in English — which is a left-wing nationalist party that has refused to denounce the establishment’s pro-migration policy. The party’s base consists of poor people, especially in northern Dublin, where some riots took place after the stabbings.

However, the party’s leader was quick to call for the resignation of the police chief:

“People for a long time have not felt safe in Dublin city centre and elsewhere,” she said.  “There has not been a proper response from Government or from the [police force] and that means that those responsible for those failures have to face the consequences of their failures.”

Conor McGregor, the very popular Irish martial arts fighter, slammed the establishment media and government for ignoring the migration-caused crime and poverty;

One of the most horrific crimes this nation ever seen has occurred, we do not care anymore what you [media] sad cases have got to say. In a war you are nothing. We are not backing down, we are only warming up. There will be no backing down until real change is implemented for the safety of our nation. We are not losing any more of our woman and children to sick and twisted people who should not even be in Ireland in the first place. Call it what you want. We do not care. May God help us all. Ireland for victory.

McGregor’s statement suggests he may try to revive Irish nationalist politics. If so, it is possible he could force Sinn Fein and the other parties to reduce the migration that has shifted massive wealth from white-collar and blue-collar Irish to investors, landlords, and CEOs.

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