Hate mail ‘highlights need to stamp out rampant racism’

HATE mail sent to a Nigerian woman in Tralee reflects Ireland’s rampant racism, a leading civil rights campaigner has claimed.

Killarney Green Party candidate Bea O’Neill, one of the country’s leading civil rights campaigners, said yesterday: “It is ongoing on a daily basis, and unless the Government and local authorities do something to combat it, things will get much worse.”

Earlier this week, Tralee food store owner Lara Olukunle received a series of hate letters accusing Africans of trying to take over the town.

One of the letters ended with a threat: “One of these days, I will walk through the town with a machine gun and kill every pregnant f**king ni**er I see.”

Ms Olukunle said she was terrified by the letters.

“He said any black pregnant woman he saw on the street he would gun down,” she said. “The person who wrote this deadly letter is very scary.”

Ms O’Neill, who was nominated last week to contest next June’s local elections on behalf of the Greens, said she was horrified but not surprised by the letters.

“I know that racism is rampant in Kerry and I am fully convinced that it is equally evident throughout the whole of Ireland. This person sounds like a serious nut, but the threat is real and things are going to escalate if we do not put a stop to it.

Tralee gardaí said yesterday they had no definitive leads on the author of the letters.