Three young children were among five people injured in a knife attack in Dublin on Thursday that sparked riots in the city centre and which police have not yet ruled out any motive over, including whether it could be terror-related.
Public transport was suspended and patients advised not to travel to a nearby maternity hospital unless absolutely necessary after clashes between riot police and anti-immigrant protesters, who arrived at the scene of the attack beside the main thoroughfare of O’Connell Street.
A double decker bus was burned to the ground in front of the Daniel O’Connell statue at the head of the street and windows were smashed at a nearby Holiday Inn hotel and McDonalds restaurant. A Footlocker store was looted.
“They are disgraceful scenes. We have a complete lunatic, hooligan faction driven by far right ideology engaged in serious violence,” Police Commissioner Drew Harris told reporters after deploying 400 officers to restore public order.
A police car was also burnt out.
Such rioting is almost unprecedented in Dublin. There are no far right parties or politicians elected to parliament, but small anti-immigrant protests have grown in the last year. The government is reviewing security around parliament after a recent protest trapped lawmakers inside.
Harris said all lines of inquiry related to the attack remained open, contradicting a senior officer who had earlier told reporters that police were satisfied the incident was not terror-related.
I feel like I’m missing something here. A crazy guy knifes a bunch of kids, the cops come in and take care of it appropriately, and loads of unrelated people choose to… Checks notes Riot about immigration. Why?
We’re the kids immigrants? Was the attacker? Was everyone involved Irish? None of the articles I’ve seen say anything about it.
Can someone who knows more fill in some of these gaps?
I think perhaps the crowd thought the attacker was from an ethnic minority.
None of the mainstream papers are saying, so I just held my nose and checked a tabloid, which coyly said that there are “rumours” the attacker is an immigrant.
Whereas we know one of the rescuers was an immigrant: https://www.thejournal.ie/motorcyclist-hero-stops-school-stabbing-6231383-Nov2023/?utm_source=shortlink
One of the stories I saw mentioned that the (alleged?) attacker lived in Ireland for twenty years. Reading between the lines, I’m guessing he looks like he’s from elsewhere.
It would be nice if the papers came out and said what was going on though.
Mayhem in my hometown tonight, I’ve never seen anything like it here, absolute scum.
Yes I was quite amazed to read about this. In your view, is the anti-immigrant sentiment targetting Ukraininans or is it broader than that?
I hope you stay safe!
These feral scumbags get riled up misleadingly on twitter and tic tok and use our governments failure to build enough housing as an excuse to target any non Irish group, it wasn’t a protest it was an opportunity for them to loot and wreck the city they claim to love
Thanks for the explanation.
Ugh. Social media can be a blessing or a curse, increasingly the latter when its fueled by hate-driven algorithms.
Warnings about a surge of hate posts targeting Dublin on swastika (X, formerly twitter) were posted within hours of the attack.
That’s interesting. Sounds like it was coordinated then.
From the article:
The scene was still sealed off shortly before 1800 GMT when a group of around 50 anti-immigrant protesters briefly broke through a police barrier. Some shouted “get them out” and one kicked the wing mirror off a police car. Another was draped in an Irish flag.
A larger crowd then began throwing objects and firing fireworks at riot police in helmets and shields, once they were deployed, and the rioting spiraled out of control. The crowds began to disperse around 2100 GMT.
Hmmmm piss Israel off, all of a sudden insane violence on the streets… Very CIA…
