One arrest after man in wheelchair confronted at 'nationalist' rally in Cork city
A counter-protest organised by Cork Says No to Racism gathered in solidarity with library staff, outside the Cork City Library, Grand Parade, in opposition to the 'Cork Says NO' protest rally against refugees and trans-rights.
One man was arrested after a group of men attending a “nationalist” rally in Cork city centre on Saturday rushed a man in a wheelchair as he blew an airhorn to disrupt their event.
They grabbed the airhorn from him and one person threw it across the road before gardaí intervened.
One of those involved was arrested for an alleged offence under the public order act.
It was the only flashpoint on the street during an afternoon which saw about 100 people attend the nationalist Cork Says No rally near the national monument, and up to 300 people attend a counter rally outside the city’s main public library nearby.
The library remained open and operated as normal throughout the day despite concerns that the nationalist rally had been organised, and was addressed by people who have been involved in a spate of library invasions in recent months over the availability of certain LGBT+ reading material.
Those involved in the solidarity rally had gathered outside the library entrance since before lunchtime to counter the Cork Says No rally which was due to take place at 2pm.
Gardaí maintained a very visible presence on the street, with at least 20 uniformed members on duty in the area, to keep those attending either rally away from each other. Several garda vehicles were parked nearby. A number of plain clothes gardaí were also in the area.
Between the two groups, members of a men’s rosary group, who pray on the Grand Parade on the first Saturday of the month, knelt to pray a decade of the rosary before a statue of Mary.
Close by, those at the counter-protest were addressed by politicians, including SF TD Thomas Gould and Worker's Party city councillor Ted Tynan.
The crowd, many waving rainbow flags, chanted slogans including ‘Nazi scum off our streets’, ‘Cork a safe harbour for all’, and ‘trans rights are human rights’, as a number of people addressed the other rally.
They spoke on a range of topics including immigration, gender ideology, housing and what they said was the betrayal of the Irish people by the government and the mainstream media.
They also urged people who share their concerns to make their voices heard at next year’s local election.
One of the rally organisers, Derek Blighe, insisted the rally was not anti-librarian.
He predicted the media narrative would be how the “rainbow rangers had smashed the fash and rescued the books”.
But he said Cork Says No has always been about “illegal mass uncontrolled inwards migration” which he said is being facilitated by gardaí and the government, and he claimed that up to 650 people a week are coming into the country “mostly for welfare”.
By contrast, he said Irish people “are being turfed out of their homes”, some are dying on the streets, and others can’t afford rent or a mortgage and can’t get a council house.
The solidarity rally outside the library chanted and sang throughout the speeches.
The scuffle which led to the arrest occurred during Mr Blighe’s speech when a man in a wheelchair approached the area where the Cork Says No group had gathered and blew an air horn in an effort to disrupt the event.
He was rushed by a number of people, some draped in tricolours, and one of them grabbed the airhorn from his hands and flung part of it across the street.
Gardai intervened quickly and one man was arrested.
The crowds from both rallies had dispersed by 5pm.
Library staff said the library operated as normal, and was busier than normal.
Audrey Mac Cready, Katherine Mezzacappa and Conor McAnally, all members of the Irish Irish Writers Union travelled for the counter protest. Ms Mac Cready, a former librarian, said she travelled from Dublin to attend partly in solidarity with the librarians, but also to “protest for the good stuff”.
She described the rhetoric from those attending the Cork Says No rally as “pathetic”.
“I lived abroad for 16 years and I just love now that I’m living in Ireland again that it is so mixed, that we have everybody, that we have all the colours of the rainbow. It’s just fantastic,” she said.
Ms Mezzacappa, who lives in Italy, took a day out from her holidays in Maynooth to attend the counter protest.
“It’s important to be here. I don’t think anybody should tell anybody what they are allowed to read,” she said.
She criticised attempts by those involved in the other rally to conflate gay orientation with paedophilia, and to target vulnerable groups, and said: “Libraries are important. Nobody is forcing these people to read these books, especially in a time when you actually get everything on the internet in a moment.”
Mr McAnally, the secretary of the union, and who now lives in the US, said he travelled to Cork to attend the counter rally to oppose the far right.
“This potentially is the thin end of a wedge,” he said. "I live in Texas and Ireland, and in the US, we’ve seen the progression of this far-right hatred, its progression into politics, into laws, into more and more clamping down, and eventually after democracy itself,” he said.
“It starts off with culture wars of this kind, about LGBTQ+ people or other marginalised groups in society but very quickly it becomes about clamping down on information.
“And the first thing fascist regimes always do is try and clamp down on peoples’ access to information so that only their information gets through.
“And I don’t want to see the same thing happen in Ireland.”
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