Mick Clifford: Protest without a plan — the worrying void at the heart of Ireland’s far-right surge
Gardaí on duty near the GPO where a demonstration took place to counter an anti-immigration protest in Dublin City centre. Picture: Conor O Mearain/PA Wire
Anyone for the last few tricolours? The man on O’Connell Street was doing a brisk trade Saturday afternoon.
An odd passe-rby takes up the offer and joins the legions either waving or wrapped in the national colours, en route to the Garden of Remembrance.
From there, at just after 2pm, a parade was formed and took off down towards O’Connell Street, with a fleet of Garda public order vans leading the way. This was what was billed as a far-right protest, although some among them take exception to the label.
Various estimates of the size of the crowd have been made, but it took nearly an hour for the marchers to pass the GPO, where they were met with a counter demonstration.
They claimed it was to commemorate the 1916 Rising, but in this, they were just the latest in a century of various usurpers who have robbed the graves of patriots.
On one level, the gathering had all the appearance of a family day out, plenty of laughter, April sunshine and stray breezes carrying the waft of cannabis. In the real world, this large gathering was a purveyor of fear.
Last Thursday, Tusla sent out a notice to foster parents of minors who have come through the international application process. The notice said that an anti-immigrant protest was taking place and that “safety protocols should be agreed for those young people placed in Dublin” as well as a recommendation to instruct those “placed outside that no free time to Dublin is permitted this weekend”.
The notice was well placed. A recurring chant from the parade was “get them out”. "Them" are asylum seekers and many of those marching want them out of accommodation, out of the country.
They want this based largely on the disinformation that, according to one marcher who spoke to the , “the whole place is being flooded with them and the government are behind it”.
There were around 15,000 applications for protection in the last twelve months in a state of five million people.
“Get them out,” they chanted over and over. One of the most depressing sights among the marchers was two young girls, maybe nine or 10, swigging from soft drinks and chanting with glee: “Get them out”.
Malachy Steenson, elected to Dublin City Council last year, was prominent wearing a green Make Ireland Great Again hat. Conor McGregor recorded a post from the Garden of Remembrance, but was not marching.
There were signs from various locations, claiming to speak for places like Finglas and Coolock, but there is no indication that this was representative of the majority sentiment in these enclaves. What it does point to is serious disaffection in working-class areas, some of which is finding its voice in kicking down.
At around 2.15pm, outside the GPO, the Garda operation was in place. There were vans from the public order unit, barriers corralling in the counter demonstration, a line of grim-faced gardaí and four horsemen, there to ensure there would be no Apocalypse.
The counter-demonstration, led by People Before Profit and the Green party, and including a number of civic and anti-racism groups, were completely outnumbered by the marchers. “Blame the government, blame the markets, blame the landlords,” those corralled at the GPO chanted.
A cordon of barriers penned in the counter-demonstrators. As the march passed, the volume reached for the blue skies with opposing chants trying to outdo each other.
A professional Garda operation ensured that stray words or missiles would not get out of hand and spark off something dangerous. The most notable feature of the meeting of the two sides was the propensity for so many to have their hands raised with phones, filming as if this whole episode should be captured for posterity.
One individual did deign to talk to the , where others declined, including an angry, tall, bearded man who just offered a middle finger.
“You can put me down as Hughie from Sheriff Street,” the agreeable man said, mentioning that he took an hour off work just to show his support.
“The main problem is the housing. There are people out there who can’t get a place to live. One young woman I know is in a tiny room with three small children. People have enough of the politicians.”
And what about the constant anti-asylum seeker drone? “That comes into it, but if the other thing was sorted, you wouldn’t have the same opposition to it,” he said.
Among the sea of fluttering tricolours, there was a single banner on housing.
It was around 3.10pm when the last of the marchers passed the hallowed site of the 1916 Rising and the gardaí began to relax. By then, the waft of cannabis was being smothered by the smell of horseshit, indicating that the horses had been as nervous as everybody else for the potential for things to turn ugly.
Ironically, the two sides in this Saturday afternoon coming together have one thing in common. They both agree that the direction of the country is excluding large cohorts of the population.
Their respective solutions differ greatly, and the far-right crowd don’t appear to have any coherent direction beyond hate, but the event certainly highlights some disturbing undercurrents in society at a time when politics as usual appears to be the approach in Leinster House.
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