Women assaulted - Disgraceful and un-Irish

The court case involving the disgraceful assault by three young Cork men on two foreign women on St Patrick’s Street in July of last year has the most disturbing ramifications.

There was a time when people would have considered such behaviour by any Irish man as not only loathsome but also distinctly un-Irish.

The outrageous assault — in which the two women were punched and kicked, and one had her eye socket broken — is all the more disturbing against the backdrop of the report published earlier this week by the ESRI on the changes in attitudes towards the immigrant population in Ireland.