FRIGHTENING HEAD ATTIRE

Revealed: Forty objections to €5m Kilkenny mosque site

THERE have been 40 objections to a €5m development that includes a mosque in Kilkenny city, and more than 1,000 have signed a petition, with some expressing fears of ‘a Muslim village’ and ‘frightening head attire’.

The development – funded by local donations and the Irish Islamic community – is planned for on a 1.85-acre site, next door to Nowlan Park GAA grounds, in an industrial estate on Hebron Road, outside the city centre.

Given the level of opposition it looks likely that the proposal will go to An Bord Pleanála, after local planners make their decision.

The site will include a ‘modest’ sized 2,291sq m mosque, which the local Imam says could accommodate between 250 to 300 worshippers, a halal shop, a café, classrooms as well as two semidetached houses, a community building and an 18.6m high turret. In comparison, Ireland’s largest mosque, at the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh, Dublin, is more than double the size, 5,000 sq m, and has a capacity for 1,700 people and a 20m high minaret.

While some objections related to matters such as traffic, noise, infrastructural issues or its proximity to the graveyard, a significant number

‘Seditious intent against Constitution of the Republic’

contained more colourful concerns. One resident of Cappawhite, Co. Tipperary, more than 80km away, complained about ‘the establishment of a compound including teaching facilities that functions as centres of seditious intent against the Constitution of this Republic’.

There were several complaints about noise that would be caused by the Muslim call to prayer, however, as is the case in all existing mosques in Ireland, there would be no call to prayer.

Ger Smith, who lives on the Hebron Road in Kilkenny, across the road from the site, fears the mosque will stop the sun shining into his garden. ‘I wouldn’t like a mosque looking in my window. The planning never went up at the entrance, so I didn’t know about it until the meeting last week,’ he said. ‘Traffic wise, on a match day I can’t get out my gate.’

He added: ‘There’s planning in for a 70m tower as well, which would block the sun coming into my garden in the mornings. There’s a site up there beside the car garage which is much better suited.’ Mr Smith, who has been living there for 24 years, said: ‘It’s not a racist thing. I wouldn’t have a Catholic church looking over their graveyard. A lot of the neighbours are upset about it. If it gets planning permission I’ll make an appeal.’

However, when the MoS viewed plans of the proposed development, it was not where Mr Smith and other locals believed it was planned for, but on an adjoining site, at the back of the Aldi supermarket.

Local Imam Ebrahima Ndure, who was educated by Irish priests in his native Gambia, said he attended a recent public meeting but was met with aggressive scenes. ‘There was misinformation that we are building the mosque 35ft away from the graveyard, which is in close proximity, but this is not the site,’ he said. ‘It was quite intimidating.’

He said: ‘People have every right to object on any planning application, but people need clarification on what are you building. They have right to talk about traffic, a right to talk about zoning, this is genuine. But when people start to say “Go back home, this is not Mecca, we don’t want a mosque” this is not an objection – it is something related to hate and Islamophobia.’

The Imam said children were brought to the meeting and a number were reduced to tears. ‘They were upset because they felt, even though people were reminded to watch their language, people were using abusive words there that I couldn’t repeat,’ he said.

It’s not the first time Imam Ndure has encountered intimidation in Kilkenny. Three years ago, an anti-Islamic group came into the Islamic centre and verbally abused and intimated him. Imam Ndure said he has no truck with radicals.

‘In this community there is no one who is radical and we have been here since 1998. I don’t subscribe to radicalisation. If there was anyone radical I would be the first to report them to the authorities because I believe that is wrong. I believe in Islam that says if you kill, you kill the whole humanity and if you save lives, you save all humanity. It is wrong to paint everyone with the same brush.,’ he said.

John McGuinness, the high-profile local Fianna Fáil TD and former chairman of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, organised the meeting to allow for a public dialogue. And he condemned the ugly scenes that took place.

‘The meeting was an information meeting, where the architects and the Islamic community would give their details and answer any questions. Unfortunately, it turned out that it didn’t serve that purpose at all, there were some ugly remarks made. It didn’t reflect the majority of people at all,’ he said.

‘Now there were the objections, legitimate objections, but then there were others there who didn’t want the mosque at all. I haven’t taken a side on it at all. I have assisted the people who wanted to see the plans.’

However, his brother Eugene, who lives near the proposed site, has taken the lead in opposing the plans. In his submission, he said: ‘There is little or no Muslim population in this area, so “population levels” do not warrant this particular service or size of development!

‘The facilities, as laid out, does not in any way “serve the local community” in “design of layout” as stipulated in the Development Plan and would seem geared more toward catering for the expected increase in the Muslim population encouraged by the size and scale of this development rather than enhancing or promoting any form of “community facilities.” I see no real accommodation in this application, this will only lead to further concerns and encourage the many false perceptions people may have concerning this development which will in turn, discourage integration.

‘We who live in close proximity to this development would consider this an intolerable intrusion into our daily lives and believe it contravenes the Environmental Protection Agency Act of 1992,’ he said.

Islam is the third largest religion in Ireland, with the population growing by 28,900 between 2011 and 2016, and 63,400 Muslims in Ireland during the 2016 census.

‘If anyone was radical I would be first to report it’