Locals and anti-racism activists clash at rally
Protest held in village where asylum seeker hotel was attacked
ANTI-RACISM protesters and residents have clashed in a Roscommon village where a hotel earmarked for housing asylum seekers was attacked.
The No To Racism: Asylum Seekers Welcome rally took place in Rooskey yesterday afternoon.
It follows two arson attacks on the Shannon Key West Hotel in the village in the space of a month.
As the rally started yesterday afternoon, there were verbal confrontations between some residents and those attending the rally.
One resident, identified on RTÉ News as Niamh Kiernan, said she was upset at the anti-racism protest taking place in the town. She told media there are no services in the town to support asylum seekers. ‘Since the factory burned down there is nothing in Rooskey, there is no bus service, no GP, they are ran off their feet, there are no services for asylum seekers to be put here in Rooskey,’ she said.
‘We are not racist, absolutely not. We have welcomed everyone, we have been doing it all my life. I am really upset about this.’
Around 40 people were at the rally – which was organised by Leitrim and Roscommon United Against Racism – and no local councillors attended.
Members of the Syrian community in Roscommon travelled to Rooskey to show their support for the rally.
Local MEP Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan addressed the crowd and called on the Government to place asylum seekers in houses and not institutions.
‘They [the Government] believe it when they think that people like to live in institutions and centres. Have we learned nothing from the Magdalene laundries?’ he said.
‘And nothing from the cesspits that we put human beings in and didn’t treat them like human beings? I don’t know why we have a policy of having direct provision centres… There are houses around rural Ireland and there are plenty of empty ones along the towns I go to every week and I think that’s where these people should be living.’
Mr Flanagan added: ‘I think it’s quite clear: people in this area have no truck with racism.’
There were heated exchanges between some of the pro-immigrant protesters and right-wing anti-immigrant ‘citizen journalist’ Rowan Croft. Mr Croft, who broadcasts videos on YouTube under the name Grand Torino, was filming the event when several members of the crowd repeatedly asked him to leave – and there were verbal altercations throughout the event.
Spokesperson for the event Eamonn Crudden said the protesters want asylum seekers to know they have support. He remarked: ‘We know that the direct provision system is not a good system, but we will do our best to support them.
‘Because it’s been in the news now for the past couple of months, people are going to have an association in their mind, Rooskey and arson attacks on direct provision centre; we don’t want that to be the thing that stays in people’s minds about this area.
‘There is an enormous amount of very, very decent people who are absolutely horrified by these attacks,’ he added.
There are currently 6,162 people living in 38 direct provision centres around the county.
It is anticipated a number of asylum seekers will move into the premises in Rooskey in the coming weeks. A number of other politicians offered their support for the rally, including Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan, who said there ‘was no place for racism in Ireland’.
‘As a nation we are so much better than that and we cannot allow a small minority of people to whip up fear, hatred and division,’ she said.
The hotel is not the only site earmarked to house asylum seekers to be attacked. In November last year, the Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville, Co. Donegal – which was intended to house 100 asylum seekers – was badly damaged in an arson attack.
‘There’s no bus service, no GP’ ‘Horrified by these attacks’