Anti-racism and anti-immigration protests take place in Dublin city centre
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An anti-racism rally and an anti-immigration demonstration were held in Dublin city on Sunday.
O'Connell Bridge was closed for a time on Sunday afternoon as the Gardai erected extensive barriers to separate the two crowds. The United Against Racism rally began at the Central Plaza on Dame Street, marching through the city to O'Connell Bridge at around 2pm.
Several protesters carried signs saying: 'Blame the Government, not migrants'; and: 'Dublin stands against racism'. They also chanted: 'Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here.' The anti-immigration protest marched down O'Connell Street and turned left at O'Connell bridge before continuing along the quays.
Participants from both sides shouted and gestured towards each other from across the empty space between the barriers created by gardai. The anti-immigration group, which was the larger of the two, was thick with large tricolour flags. It chanted 'ole ole' and: 'Whose streets? Our streets'.
Several people were seen wearing 'Make Ireland Great Again' green caps and holding US or 'Trump' flags, and some signs critical of RTE. At one point, the famous rebel song 'Oro 'Se do bheatha 'bhaile' was played by the anti-racism rally over a speaker, and prompted some participants in the anti-immigration group to sing along and applaud at the end.
There was an extensive Garda presence at the location where the two protest groups were due to cross paths. The Garda Mounted Support Unit, the Public Order Unit, and Garda members from outside the Dublin Metropolitan Region were in attendance.
One Garda member was heard telling a member of the public he could not give directions as he was brought in from a region outside Dublin to police the protest. One mother said she and her eight-year-old attended the anti-racism protest as there was an anti-immigration demonstration being held close to her daughter's school.
She said the group are camped beside the primary school every day over a nearby International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) centre, which has been there since 2022. 'We want to just come down and show our support for all of the people who go to her school who are migrants, or who have migrant parents,' the woman said, who asked that she not be named.
'We want to pass the message over to the other side that this is unacceptable for Ireland today, especially for the youth to have to put up with this type of environment. It's been extremely upsetting for the children and the families.'
Councillor Conor Reddy said that communities across Ireland had been divided over the last year and a half and what happened in Ballymena in recent weeks was 'only a few steps away' in Dublin. He said anti-immigration marches would 'further divide our city' and that it was 'about time we put it up to them'.
'We're here to say that we are stronger when we stand together, that hate divides us, hate plays into the hands of Government. We've seen how far hate can take us – when you look at what happened in Ballymena in the north last week, that's only a few steps away here I fear, especially in my community of Ballymun and Finglas where we have seen houses attacked and unfortunately burned before people have gone into them, so we have to draw a line in the sand.'
He said the march was acknowledging that there are issues with housing and inequality, but shifting the blame to the Government rather than migrants. 'Migrants, asylum seekers people that own IPAS centres are also multi-property landlords, so the enemy is the same and it's about pointing that out.'
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The last thing the west and specifically the US, Israel and Europe want is for the Mad Mullahs of Iran to have their own nuclear weapon. This is not a normal regime. It is a country run by religious extremists who will use their 1 million strong army against their own people to stay in power. They had no problem executing almost 1,000 of them last year. Any critics of the regime and severely punished and their secret police have eyes and ears in every little corner of the country. They are threatening all sorts of revenge against the US and Israel but the harsh truth is they haven't got the firepower to do it. The Iranians have lost control of their own skies so every military base and every piece of military equipment they have is now a sitting duck. They can be picked up piece by piece. Their threat to stop oil tankers using the straits of Hormuz wouldn't last too long if the Americans sent a naval battle group to the area, to protect international shipping. 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Remember it was the Americans who claimed Iraq had chemical weapons after 9/11 and it later turned out to be nonsense. They financed a war with Iraq which led to the removal of Saddam and his execution. Trump won't seek regime change in Iran because it would drag America into a long protracted and costly war that he and the Republicans don't want. He wants his legacy to be as a peacemaker not a warmonger. Sending young men into battle on foreign shores would go against the grain for him and there would be no support in the US for it. What does all this mean for Ireland? The Government rightly kept its head down and didn't condemn the Americans for the Iran bombing .They know where their bread is buttered. It called for dialogue between all sides to resolve their dispute. Most of our EU partners don't care much for our neutrality. They will want to see us paying big pots of money into a European defence fund in the years ahead so the EU can defend us. At the moment we haven't the military numbers or weaponry to defend ourselves and are the laughing stock of the world. We are literally a sitting duck waiting to be invaded. If World War 3 ever does break out trust me neutrality won't save us. The Russians have already said they see us as part of Britain.
