Mick Clifford: Protests against asylum seekers hit a new low

Protestors began holding a demonstration at Racket Hall hotel on the outskirts of Roscrea after it emerged it was going to be used to house people seeking international protection.

A freezing depth was plumbed last Monday in Roscrea. Women and children were forced to run a gauntlet of hate. The arrival of a bus of 17 asylum seekers at the Racket Hall hotel was met with resistance. Some of those who had been protesting over the previous weekend were determined to stop these people entering the hotel and acquiring shelter. Gardaí were present to ensure that the blockade would not succeed. A few of the protestors engaged in a scuffle, attempting to ensure that the asylum seekers, as if they were carrying a deadly plague, would not be allowed into their town.

Afterward, there was high indignation from some of the protestors, but it wouldn’t take a head doctor to suspect it was rooted in a sense of guilt. Some female protestors arrived at the hotel the following day bearing gifts of toys for the children as if to compensate for subjecting the little ones to the kind of fear some of them would have thought they left behind in their country of origin.