Mick Clifford: Far-right effort to generate hate is a damp squib 

Any hopes that ‘national day of action’ would dwarf water charge protests soon dissipated, says Mick Clifford

A masked protestor at the Dublin Port Tunnel as a group of demonstrators blocked the road during a protest against the asylum-seeker accommodation centre in East Wall, Dublin. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews

The day of action began badly for the anti-refugee protestors. In Athy, Co Kildare, gardaí arrested and later charged a man in relation to an alleged threat to set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers.

Stephen O’Rourke was one of those involved in planning a protest due to take place in Athy last night.

This wasn’t a good omen for the protesters’ so-called day of action. 

One of the main agitators, solicitor Malachy Steenson, had been on social media earlier in the day giving the impression that what was about to unfold would dwarf the water charge protests in 2014.

“I’ve lost track of the number of protests that are now due to take place,” he said. “This will be a national day of action.”

Ultimately, various factors combined to ensure it would be nothing of the sort. The elements were not in any mood for it. A weather warning went out that, once the sun went down, there would be a wind capable of blowing away the day. And so it turned out. 

You wouldn’t have put brass monkeys out in it, not to mind people who have nothing better to be doing than shouting abuse at men, women, and children who have fled conflict and persecution.

Derek Blighe speaking in Fermoy last night during the protest about the presence of people seeking asylum. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

The protests went ahead, but for the greater part were something of a damp squib. The latest flashpoint had been Ballymun, where over last weekend a couple of hundred people had stood outside the Travelodge hotel, spitting bile.

Yesterday’s effort involved a shift of location, with the protest starting further up the Ballymun Road, but the angry ranks had been thinned out. An estimated 60 people were present. They marched up to the M50 and the wind blew them back down again — but if this was a day of action, then you’d hate to see what might appear in a snooze fest.

Over in East Wall, there was no surge of hate. The gathering was up to around 100 but, for an occasion where a clarion call had gone out to mobilise anger, the response was something of a shrug. 

They blocked the road for a bit and marched all the way up to the entrance of the port tunnel, but there was no light at the end of it for a gathering that was a few hundred short of a real protest. It was more of the same at the other venues, such as Fermoy, where an estimated 50 people showed up.

Gardaí watch as demonstrators head to the entrance to the Dublin Port Tunnel to protest the presence of accommodation for asylum seekers in East Wall. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews

The result was a pretty bitter harvest for those who have been assiduously campaigning across social media in recent days. A dirty evening ensured any “maybes” were going to stay at home.

Most likely, the ramping up of opposition among the political classes across the airwaves and in newsprint in recent days probably swayed a few as well.

Last weekend’s actions in Ballymun, in which the crowd were at one point chanting “get them out” outside hotel windows behind which some children reportedly huddled, was enough to propel many frontline politicians to come out fighting. A vista that could be lifted from the 1930s deep south in the US is not the kind of image that the vast majority of people like to think reflects Ireland as it is today.

So this attempt to garner headlines went south before it even got off the ground. There was no day of action, no point where the far-right elements would be able to say that they found themselves on the road to wider appeal.

There will be other attempts in the future, and various societal pressures will probably increase in the coming months as accommodation becomes more scarce and the war in Ukraine continues unabated. 

This time around though, their efforts to generate hate came to very little.