Galway fire latest in string of suspected arson attacks on properties linked to asylum seekers
Damage to Dublin City Dorms on Parnell Street, which was used to accommodate asylum seekers earlier this year, was targeted by rioters last month. Picture: RollingNews.ie
Several properties and a TD’s car have been damaged by fire, or the target of attempted arson, since 2018 arising out of disputes over the housing of asylum seekers or Ukrainian refugees.
They include:
A fire breaks out in the Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville just hours before a meeting to arrange a welcome party for asylum seekers is held. It causes substantial damage to the hotel’s reception area and smoke damage throughout the building. One person is injured.
A second blaze breaks out at the Shannon Key West Hotel in Roosky, on the Roscommon-Leitrim border, which is due to house asylum seekers, a month after a smaller fire.
All residents of the hotel, which includes security personnel and a foreman, are evacuated and no-one is injured. Gardaí express concern “at the level of determination” shown by those involved in the fires.
Against the backdrop of local opposition in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim over plans to house asylum seekers in a 25-unit apartment complex at Rock Centre, Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny’s car is burned out outside his home nearby.
The High Court grants an injunction preventing protesters from interfering with works to complete the 25-unit apartment complex for asylum seekers. The court is told that there was an attempt to burn down a Tesco store attached to the apartment building the previous month.
Rawlton House in Dublin 1 is targeted in a suspected arson attack after false statements are circulated on social media that the building is being renovated to house international protection applicants.
The Department of Children and Integration confirms afterwards that the building had not been examined for such use.
A former primary school in Ballincollig, Cork, which had lain vacant for several years and which is being renovated to house Ukrainian refugees, is targeted by arsonists.
Three people wearing balaclavas are seen running from the scene. Fire crews arrive quickly and the blaze causes minor damage.
A makeshift refugee camp in a laneway on Upper Sandwith Street in Dublin’s south inner city is burned out following a tense, angry and violent protest in the area. The incident focuses national attention on rising levels of hostility towards immigrants.
Fireworks are thrown towards an open window at The Sailor’s Rest accommodation centre in Buncrana, Co Donegal, which is home to 50 asylum seekers.
It followed a social media campaign against the presence of refugees, which included threats to “burn the building”. Just days earlier, fire causes significant damage to a building in Lisfannon, outside Buncrana, that was earmarked as an accommodation centre for Ukrainian refugees.
The vacant building, Ridge Hall, on Shanganagh Road in Ballybrack, Dublin, which anti-immigrant protesters believe is being earmarked for refugees, is damaged in a suspected arson attack.
Locals are told that while house had been identified as a potential site to accommodate refugees. the owners of the property have an existing rental agreement in place with a private third party and that it is not being progressed through the refurbishment programme to house refugees.
At least two premises for asylum seekers and refugees are targeted during the Dublin riots.
In Finglas, a petrol bomb is thrown through the front of a premises earmarked for refugees. The Dublin City Dorms premises on Parnell Street in the city centre, which was used to accommodate asylum seekers earlier this year, is also targeted, with rioters smashing its windows.
Gardaí examine anti-asylum seeker sentiment as a possible motivation for a suspected arson attack on the site of the former Great Southern Hotel in Rosslare, Co Wexford, which is being developed into an International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) centre to accommodate about 170 asylum seekers.
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