By two o’clock last Thursday afternoon outside the GPO on O’Connell Street in Dublin, the latest anti-immigrant protest had gathered, coinciding with the return of the Dáil, the scene awash with tricolours. “Get them out!” the chant began. A woman stopped me to ask what was going on. I told her it was an anti-immigrant protest. She said she was from Latvia. “I’m an immigrant, amn’t I?” she said. I asked her how the protest made her feel. She looked around. “Bad,” she said, and rushed off towards Talbot Street.
“Irish lives matter,” the chant went as the crowd approached the statue of Daniel O’Connell (later misidentified by a protester as a statue of Michael Collins while giving directions over the phone). “Foreigners!” one older white woman screamed at passersby. “Close the borders!” protesters shouted as people stood stony-faced waiting for a bus on D’Olier Street. Rounding College Green, one middle-aged man was becoming more exercised: “This is a Christian country, get out of Ireland, Islam, we don’t want you,” he roared at no one in particular, following up with “hang them all for treason, every last one of them, don’t let any of them escape. You’re dealing with the devil here”.
“Ireland needs a referendum on mass migration,” one man shouted. Calls for a referendum were repeated in chants throughout the march. “We demand our land, our country, our sovereignty,” someone shouted outside Trinity College. “Defund the NGOs,” a new chant went. “Get them f***ing out!” someone shouted. “Get the bastards out.” “No passport, no entry,” another roar went.
At the bottom of Grafton Street, a small counter-protest, blocked by a line of gardaí, chanted “refugees are welcome here”. Protesters approached to shout abuse at the anti-racist group. The shocked faces of passersby on Dawson Street gave way to more gardaí, and an empty Molesworth Street blocked off by a barricade towards the Dáil. “What do we want?” one man began roaring. There was a pause and then no response, an almost comedic vacuum of clarity. Eventually they settled on a chant: “Sinn Féin are traitors.”
By now, a small counter-protest had also gathered at the junction of Dawson Street and Molesworth Street. “Far-right loyalists off our streets,” they chanted. “F***ing communist bastards,” one man waving a tricolour, who is a frequent protester, roared. “You watch out for all them lefties,” one man in a GAA jersey said. Around 3.20pm, the crowd set off on a new path down South Frederick Street. Gardaí walked with them, and were abused and antagonised. “Zero respect I have for the guards, zero,” one woman shouted.
A call went up for a sit-down protest at O’Connell Bridge. But this was a disorganised bunch. A disagreement broke out, with some protesters demanding they continue to the GPO. Others resisted, saying it was a much better tactic to block traffic on the bridge and the north quays. An ambulance struggled to get through. There was singing and dancing, jolliness and hugging, handshakes and camaraderie. The strange temperature was at times surreally haphazard. One protester carried a ginger cat on a leash. Another attempted a ropy version of the song Grace. One man grabbed a loud hailer and said he had travelled from Liverpool and warned those gathering of gardaí kettling protesters.
At 5pm, a garda ordered the dispersal of the protest over a loud hailer. A robust line of gardaí spanned the street. A special brand of rage was reserved for them. “You took an oath,” people screamed. “Traitors!” people screamed. “Animals!” people screamed. “Black and Tans!” people screamed. “Thugs!” people screamed. “Scumbags!” people screamed. “That f***ing garda’s not even Irish, the c***,” someone shouted towards one garda. “I’ll tell ya, you’d love a rifle,” one man said at the junction of Henry Street. Repeatedly, calls went up from the crowd that this was a “peaceful protest”.
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Perhaps the grimmest moment I saw came towards the protest’s conclusion. At the junction of O’Connell Street and Middle Abbey Street, as the line of gardaí slowly made its way up the capital’s main street, a woman protester argued with a woman counter-protester (the latter was waving her middle finger at those protesting.) Both of these women were middle-aged. During their verbal sparring, a frail elderly man, who was white, attempted to cross the road, pushing his walker tentatively into the scene. He was neatly dressed as so many older Dubliners are, going about his day in his suit jacket, shirt and tie, a shopping bag hanging from his walker. “Mind the man,” the counter-protester said, moving to let him pass. But the original protester would not. As he tried to cross the scene, she tapped him sharply on his arm and shouted, “Don’t push, you horrible little f***ing creature, you little bastard.”
Last Thursday I saw a disjointed cacophony of rage. Although all of this is underpinned by etho-nationalism, the targets of this fury can apparently now include elderly men on the street. What stood out to me about that encounter was not just the unhinged anger. It was the cruelty.