Fergus Finlay: Magnificent march a first step to counter attempt at Irish apartheid

They may not often achieve their demands, but marches are important to create the sense that people, together, are on the move.

People take part in a demonstration in support of migration and diversity in Dublin City centre. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

It’s a little over half a century since I first took part in a protest against apartheid. I never thought it might be necessary to walk in a march against people who effectively want to introduce apartheid in Ireland.

I think it was 1970. Everyone who got involved in any kind of protest back then was regarded as dangerous. Even (maybe especially!) a tiny group of students who had got on a bus from Cork to Limerick to stand against the Springboks outside Thomond Park. 

We were shouted at and spat at — including by a priest — and we were vastly outnumbered by the people who wanted to go to watch South Africa play.

We’d been warned in advance that we might be in for some rough treatment. There was, of all things, a Labour TD in Limerick at the time named Stevie Coughlan who denounced all opposition to the Springboks tour as being fomented by dangerous left-wing elements.

In the end, a couple of hundred of us gathered outside the gates of old Thomond Park, with our pathetic banners, while thousands of rugby fans coursed past us. Our protest was to little avail at the time, because protest against apartheid was only really starting to grow then. It was to become far more powerful over time.

We weren’t protesting that day against people who supported apartheid. We were trying, vainly, to convince people who thought apartheid had nothing to do with them, and certainly nothing to do with their beloved Munster team. 

The most common refrain at the time — it was always used against any attempt to highlight the evil of apartheid — was that sport and politics shouldn’t mix. It was a fallacy then, and a fallacy ever since.

But here’s the thing. ‘Ireland for the Irish’ is as pure an expression of apartheid as you can find in the modern world. 

There are people in Ireland willing to bully and threaten and intimidate — and maybe worse — on the basis of race or colour. That’s why it’s necessary to march.

The purpose of marching

In the half-century or so since the Springboks came to Limerick, I must have marched hundreds of times. I’m always happiest when I’m marching for rather than against something. 

I’ve marched for better housing, disability rights, equal marriage, the right of people in broken marriages to a second chance. I’ve even, God help me, marched for tax reform.

But I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the times that a single march had the impact we all wanted. That’s not the point, I guess. 

The point of marching, if it doesn’t sound like a complete tautology, is to create the sense that people, together, are on the move. The bigger the march, the bigger the movement behind the march.

Which is why Saturday’s march through Dublin was so important.

The anti-racism rally organised by the Ireland For All coalition. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

It sent a really powerful message on behalf of us all. And I think it may have been the start of a movement — a movement of thousands of people saying: "Whenever you need us, we’ll be there".

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I chose to walk with friends in the Labour Party. But later I discovered there was another banner, right at the end the march, that said Grandfathers Against Racism. I’m kind of sorry I didn’t spot them there, other grizzled old-timers doing their thing — and despite the gender-signalling on the banner, not all grandads either.

There were a lot of chants on the march, and they tended to be of the “against” variety. Against far-right politics. Against hate and fear.

Bernadette McAliskey said it too — that unless different choices were made, we are on the road to fascism.

A different mood

For sure there’s a danger of that. But if I’m being honest, I felt the mood of the march was different. To me it said, there are tens of thousands of us here. We’re Irish. And you’re welcome. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of black faces and foreign accents. Men, women, and children. You could tell easily that there were middle-class and working-class people there, walking side by side. It was united, and the single message of “Ireland for all” was coherent and strong.

Everybody in that march knows there are huge quality-of-life issues in Ireland that have not been addressed, despite our wealth. Many were angry at the different priorities that seem to be reflected in policy choices.

The event was organised in response to some anti-migrant protests that have been held outside centres housing refugees or asylum seekers in counties including Dublin, Cork, and Kildare. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

But everyone knew too that it was neither refugees nor asylum seekers that caused those issues. We have a housing crisis. We have huge healthcare deficits. Our education system is not where it needs to be. 

If we didn’t have a single refugee in Ireland, those things would still not be resolved.

So what is the far-right politics we’re all afraid of? The truth is — right now — it doesn’t exist in Ireland. Not, at least, on the surface of Irish politics. Yes, there are tiny little fringe groups, and there are mainstream right-wing politicians and commentators who are forever calling for “civilised debates” about immigration.

One typical kneejerk response from them — without evidence, naturally — is to minimise the size of the march and describe news reporting of it as fake news.

Then there are the really ‘clever chaps’ putting rubbish such as the following on Twitter: “That march in Dublin today is about par for what you’d expect the entirety of the Irish institutional left with hundreds of millions of taxpayer euros behind them to be able to muster with a month or so to prepare. A few thousand people, a good chunk of them on the payroll.”

You really would wonder what they’re afraid of, wouldn’t you?

Could it be because they’re afraid to say what they really mean — that they want the borders closed and the foreigners gone?

Danger of the far right

But that’s the stuff on the surface. In the bowels and cesspits of the internet, far-right politics is taking hold. Their messages are vile and full of hate and fear.

You can get a flavour of it here by following the people they troll. I won’t name those victims of the trolls only because I don’t want them getting even more of it, but there are good and decent people active on social media who constantly have vicious hatred thrown at them — simply because they want Ireland to be a welcoming place.

The Ireland For All coalition takes its name from local groups set up to counter anti-migrant protests. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Far-right politics has led to violence and murder in the UK, and we can all see the untold damage and corruption it has caused in the US. It may be in its infancy here, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.

Most of us, I believe, know that Ireland has to do more to welcome people who are oppressed. We have benefitted hugely from immigration so far, in all sorts of ways.

Our health system, our social care system, our construction industries — they all need more immigrants, and the sooner, the better.

But if the underground politics of the far right is allowed to spread its poison, more of us will come to believe that this is some vast conspiracy to overthrow the values we hold dear to us.

It’s nonsense and it’s untrue. But it’s pernicious and evil. We’re going to need more marches.