Dublin’s riot was not a surprise to those watching far right
Highlighted growing divide over immigration
DUBLIN — On a bright, cold afternoon on O’Connell Street in central Dublin, Memet Uludag, a business owner and activist, was rolling up an antiracism banner.
It had been four days since the worst riot Ireland had seen in decades, and Uludag and hundreds of others had gathered to denounce the anti-immigrant sentiment that had fueled the violence.
“I am out here to say that whatever problems people experience in this country, and there are plenty — housing, health care — it’s nothing to do with people of color, migrant workers, or indeed refugees or asylumseekers,” said Uludag, 51, who is originally from Turkey and has lived in Ireland for years.
As he spoke, another Dubliner, Joe McGoldrick, stopped in the street to disagree.
Every house given to an asylum-seeker was one “taken away” from an Irish person, argued McGoldrick, 60. “I didn’t agree with the rioting, of course, but this has been building up — and it will start again, too,” he warned.
The exchange highlighted a growing fault line in Irish society over immigration that experts say has been weaponized by the far right to drive discontent, and that spilled into the light last month when disorder and looting gripped the capital.
Ireland is only beginning to reckon with how extremist politics gained a toe hold here, erupting into violence that shattered images of the country’s welcoming spirit and spotlighted underlying grievances that experts say have been building for some time.
“This was not a surprise,” said Niamh McDonald, a coordinator for the Hope and Courage Collective, a group focused on countering far-right extremism. “The depth of the rioting and the violence and destruction, yes — but it’s no surprise that it happened.”
The Nov. 23 riot followed a stabbing attack outside a school that left three young children and two adults injured. Xenophobic rumors immediately swirled online about the nationality of the suspect, who was taken into custody after being tackled by bystanders.
Later that afternoon, a mob gathered at the scene and broke the police cordon. About 500 people took part in the ensuing disorder. Shops were looted, buses burned, and police attacked.
While the violence flared up within hours, it reflected longrunning social pressures, McDonald said. Ireland’s economy boomed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but the 2008 financial crash hit the country hard. The austerity that followed included steep cuts to social support.
“That devastated so many ordinary, working communities and beyond,” McDonald said. “It devastated youth work, it devastated community work, that kind of on-the-ground work in communities that supports people.”
In recent years, tech giants have flocked to the Irish capital thanks to attractive tax breaks, but the economic growth they brought has had uneven benefits.
At the same time, immigration has risen sharply, according to a recent analysis by the Economic and Social Research Institute, an independent Irish research institute.