As some of you might have heard, there was a massive riot in Dublin last Thursday, and it was something the whole of Ireland hadn’t seen in decades.
For those who may not be in the loop, here’s what happened: a man approached the Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire school near a busy part of Dublin and started stabbing young students and their teacher assistant. Two adults, including the assailant, and three children were injured. One of the kids, a five-year-old girl, was in critical condition. The two adults were in serious condition. It was believed the attack was random, though the gardai (Irish police) were investigating whether the man, an Irish citizen of Algerian origin who had been living in the country for 20 years, had any connection to the school.
The attack was stopped by a food deliveryman, a Brazilian immigrant, who used his helmet to stop the attacker. He has been praised as a hero and 280,000 Euros has been raised on GoFundMe as part of that praise.
News of the attack spread quickly throughout Ireland and many were upset, and started discussing the incident on social media. This is how the riots began to form, and the timing couldn’t have been more coincidental if that’s the appropriate word.
Earlier last week, a report came out from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, which is a think tank in London, that found the far-right was growing in influence in Ireland, thanks to social media (sound familiar?) and the platforms that host them, with little being done to stop misinformation and hate speech on the sites, most notably X, formerly known as Twitter. Disinformation and misinformation grew in Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic with anti-vaccine and other conspiracies shared. But then it all evolved to include refugees and asylum seekers, the LGBTQ+ community, 5G, the Ukraine-Russian war, and other topics.
As the report found, “Of the accounts analysed, the top 50 most prolific accounts were responsible for over 35 percent of the total content, and the top 10 for over 14 percent of the activity.” This is something that is very common on social media when it comes to misinformation and disinformation. It basically means all you need is a handful of people to spread lies and use hate speech to get into other people’s heads.
Which is exactly what happened in the hours after the Dublin attack. Anti-immigration rhetoric has been growing in Ireland. The murder of schoolteacher Aisling Murphy in 2022 by a Slovakian immigrant seemed to add spark to the growing far-right, and there was also a protest in September outside Irish parliament, that got so chaotic, the lower house of Parliament went into lockdown. Even over the summer, a library closed earlier one day because of protests over allegations of LGBTQ+ content in children’s books, as well as anti-immigration speeches.
So Ireland is looking like many other Western countries. No one is immune to the far-right, its rhetoric and the chaos it can cause.
Anyway, The Journal reported in great detail: allegations, fear, and hate speech spread around social media after the attack, lies began to spread as well. There were accusations that the attacker was an illegal immigrant and debates over his country of origin. Calls to deport all immigrants rang out on social media as well as finger pointing at the Gardai, Irish parliament members, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar. In fact, Varadkar’s address was circulated online and there were talks of protesting outside his house.
Then politicians got involved, with one posting on the Telegram app, “All hands on deck. Defend our kids.” Audio recordings from one of the protesters, with an account labeled Kill All Immigrants captured the person saying, "They can’t control us all…Let’s have little groups splintering off, doing what we got to do. Seven o’clock, be in town. Everyone bally up, tool up. And any fucking gypo, foreigner, anyone, just kill them. Let’s get this on the news, let’s show the fucking media that we’re not a pushover. That no more foreigners are allowed into this poxy country.”
And of course, there was the widely reported, “riots, race, and the end of the ‘Irish welcome.”
Another, Derek Blighe, the leader of the anti-immigrant Ireland First political party said on Telegram: “Your children are in mortal danger, and the Irish government are responsible.”
Blighe later shared a false rumor that the five-year-old girl had died. He got that fake report from a known anti-immigration activist who has also been posting antisemitism since the Israel-Hamas war began.
And around then, that’s when mayhem came to Dublin. A hotel was set on fire because protesters believed immigrants were staying there. As some of you may know, more fires were started, on cars, that bus, and police cars - two Gardai escaped theirs just in time when it was set ablaze. Gardai were attacked and had objects thrown at them while more gardai from nearby counties were brought in for backup. Stores were looted and their windows smashed.
It should be noted that the aforementioned anti-immigration activist was at the riots and he livestreamed it, continuing to insist the children from the attack had died (they did not) and even said, “lunatics are being let in without any vetting”. Meanwhile, the people born and raised in Ireland…
So that is what happened. Anger and fear piled on, and the far-right lit the flames, pardon the pun. Some of the extremists had fuel to the fire (so to speak) by spewing lies, such as the children dying when not only did they not, but there were no reports at all on that - official ones, not the lies trolls and bots make up on social media. Some extremists lie through their teeth just to ignite full-blown rage among their audiences and followers, and demonstrate how they are the ones in control and they have the power. Look what they can do! They can tell lies and set a good part of a city on fire. What else can they do?!
Yes, I’ve mentioned how intense emotions can lead to people believing in dis- and misinformation, and that can lead to violence as well. That may be true here too. Ireland doesn’t have the same crime rate as the United States and other parts of the world, so news of children being stabbed, one critically, is highly uncommon. But it is still very upsetting to anyone and that would lead to outrage anyway.
Still, though, the signs are showing that the Irish far-right is on the rise. Although many would say it is a tiny percentage of the population, what happened in Dublin last week shows that only a small group of people can turn everything upside down. Look at the January 6th Insurrection here in the United States, just a small group of fanatics caused severe chaos, got people killed, and wanted to kill more, including Vice President Mike Pence. While many Americans believe that the 2000 election was stolen, not all of them supported the insurrection.
As I wrap up, I want to point out a somber fact: not only is the far-right rising in Ireland, it is rising worldwide. Think-tanks have been noting this for a few years, and the news media has been keeping an eye on this too. And it is not just the United States and Europe where this is happening; it is in a lot of countries. Argentina just elected a far-right - or anarcho-capitalist - president (though Argentina’s terrible economic woes influenced voters), and there are more far-right politicians popping up around Latin America, and not just Brazil. India and Israel are considered far-right. Who knows which country will be next? And which city be lit on fire by far-right leaders who know how to use social media, it’s hashtags and the right lies, to infuriate followers and audiences to the point they erupt like volcanoes?
Since the riots, Irish leaders plan to ramp up security by creating laws to make it easier for the gardai to use CCTV and maybe use face recognition. The owner of X/Twitter, Elon Musk, who’s received many complaints about hate speech and misinformation on his platform since he bought it (and even adds to it), is not pleased with this, but that’s not something I’m not looking to get into.
Anyway, no place is safe from the far-right. All you need is anger, fear, social media, the people who know what to say and how, and ka-boom!
But there’s fewer people willing to go down that road than most of us. Hopefully, we can all be the barriers somehow
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