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The violence and looting through some of Dublin’s most famous streets began after a stabbing attack outside a school that left five people hospitalized. They included three young children and a woman. Police detained a man who also is being treated for injuries.
Rumors spread online that the perpetrator of the attack was an immigrant or had an immigrant background. The BBC, citing unnamed sources, said the man was an Irish citizen who had lived in the country for 20 years.
People the police later described as far-right protesters disrupted the crime scene, chanting anti-immigrant slogans and took to the streets of Dublin, setting vehicles ablaze and clashing with police.
A Brazilian Deliveroo driver has spoken about intervening in the knife attack. Ciao Benicio told the Irish Times that the subsequent anti-immigration protests “[do not] make sense at all. … I’m an immigrant myself and I was the one who helped out.”
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that the unrest was “not who we are” and that those involved in the riots had “brought shame on Ireland.”
The rioters did not do what they did “out of any sense of patriotism, however warped; they did so because they are filled with hate,” he said.
The Irish government said in response that it would modernize its laws against hatred “for the social media age,” and it would also introduce legislation related to CCTV access for police.
“What we saw last night was an extraordinary outbreak of violence,” Police Commissioner Drew Harris told reporters Friday. “These are scenes that we have not seen in decades.”
He said 34 people had been arrested.
Police blamed a “lunatic, hooligan faction driven by a far-right ideology” for the violence that broke out after a small group of anti-immigrant protesters arrived at the scene of the knife attack.
The “riotous mob” caused “huge destruction” in Dublin, police said. The rioters, some wielding metal bars, smashed windows and looted shops in the city center.
The Dublin Fire Brigade on Friday morning said firefighters were continuing to wet down smoldering vehicles.
Police said they were not looking for anyone else involved in the knife attack and were “keeping an open mind” about any motive for the assault.
Ireland has a deep housing crisis, and dissatisfaction has fueled a backlash against refugees and asylum seekers, with critics saying that foreigners are receiving preferential treatment. Protesters have held rallies chanting “Ireland is full.”
Gail McElroy, a politics professor at Trinity College Dublin, noted that Irish society has changed rapidly in recent years. A few decades ago, Ireland was predominantly White and Roman Catholic. Today, around 20 percent of those living in Ireland were born in another country.
“It’s very rapid change and some people at the margins of society and underprivileged are feeling aggrieved,” McElroy said. “And people who are dissatisfied are seeking someone to blame.”
The housing crisis has exacerbated tensions. The shortage of accommodation is such that Ukrainian refugees have been housed in tents. Rents have shot up along with a booming economy — many social media giants have their European headquarters in Dublin.
“Apartments are going for 3,000 to 4,000 euros a month, that’s if you can find an apartment. People feel like they are being pushed out of the neighborhoods,” McElroy said.
Still, she said, the outbreak of violence has “shocked everyone. You saw riots in London a few years ago or cars burnt in France. But to see the main thoroughfares in Dublin with buses on fire? It shocked people to the core.”
During the riot, one police officer was seriously hurt and others were injured.
Varadkar sought to reassure Ireland’s immigrant community, saying the country would be “vastly inferior” without immigration.
He told a news conference that “being Irish is more than saluting the tricolor [the Irish flag] and beating your chest and pointing to where you were born,” he said. It means “living up to ideals represented by our flag” and “acting with compassion.”
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