A Meath county councillor says she was subjected to a racial attack, including being “spat on”, in Navan town on Friday night.
Nigerian-Irish Yemi Adenuga was walking back to her car in the centre of Navan on Friday night when she was approached by a man who asked if she was “Yemi”.
She said it was not unusual to be stopped in the street by constituents looking for assistance or to have a chat, and she thought this was going to be one of those conversations.
She said he told her: “Shame on you. Shame on you for trying to teach us Irish people how to live our lives in our own country.”
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She said she was taken aback and asked him what he meant and he said he had heard her on the radio making comments about how people should live. “He then said: ‘You’re not welcome here. You’re not my councillor, I don’t recognise you and, if you’re not happy with how things are, you can go to f**k back to where you come from’.”
“He spat on me ... I’m still trying to gather myself because too many things went through my head.”
The Fine Gael councillor thanked two passsersby who intervened to make sure she was ok. The man then left, shouting repeatedly that she was not welcome here and should “get the hell out of our country”, she said.
“This happened in my town in a place where I have served as a re-elected public representative for seven years. I have given and continue to give my service to the people of this town. I’ve experienced all matters and all forms of discrimination and attack, online and offline. People are saying derogatory things to me. I’m so used to it now; I brush it off like water, but to get spat at?” Ms Adenuga said.
“Ireland is my home. This is my home and by God I’m not going to let anyone tell me otherwise or drive me out of here because this is my home.”
Sinn Féin’s Cllr Eddie Fennessy, who serves the municipal district alongside Ms Adenuga, said being a councillor is difficult these days but it must be a particularly difficult situation for a person of colour.
He said Ms Adenuga is a person of the “highest integrity”.
“Her only concern is the community and the people she represents. Racism has no place in our society, and whoever carried out this disgraceful act deserve to have the full rigours of the law applied to them,” he said.
