The University Observer interviews individuals present at a forced eviction in Ormond Quay on August 30 and 31, and community organisers of the protest which followed on September 6.
In the wake of the 2015 ‘migration crisis’, Europe has seen the rapid growth of far-right parties across the continent. This growing trend across Europe has spread to Ireland. The National Party led by Justin Barret and the Irish Freedom Party both winning their first seats in local elections in 2024. In recent years, Dublin has seen a flurry of violence against homeless people, people of colour, immigrants, and refugees.
On August 30 and 31, a group of men stormed into 11 Ormond Quay, a property known to host squatting Palestinian and Jordanian immigrants and refugees. The group of men broke into the property, breaking down doors and smashing the glass windows in an attempt to evict the residents. In video footage seen by The University Observer, the men can be seen beating the Palestinian and Jordanian occupants with fire extinguishers and wooden sticks, and one man was kicked while he was on the ground. The video footage shows a man lying on the street covered in his own blood, after being beaten by the men.
Social media sites and messaging apps, especially X, have been used to spearhead the rise of the far-right in Ireland. Accounts who target immigrants, refugees, people of colour, and anyone who is not “ethnically Irish” form an interconnected social media network of far-right accounts. Examples of messages shared from these accounts include calls for “housing for native Irish first” and “#IrelandBelongsToTheIrish”.
On occasion, these accounts have shared targeted messages akin to ‘doxxing’, where information about migrant residents of a particular building are shared publicly online. The eviction at 11 Ormond Quay on August 30 and 31 had been mentioned online three weeks earlier, in a since-deleted post on X on August 8, which read “Confirmed that there’s illegal migrants squatting in 11 Ormond Quay. That building is now marked to be 8 new flats. The landlord needs help getting rid of the squatters that broke the window this weekend. The Garda know about this. #irelandisfull #housetheirishfirst.” The account which posted it @liberitystrikes2 has over 1,500 followers.
On September 6, a protest was held outside of 11 Ormond Quay in reaction to the violent eviction on August 30. United Against Racism, Fronta Fua, Dublin Anti-Fascist Assembly, UCD BDS, and Queer Intifida assembled to protest “the failure of the Gardaí to prevent racist motivated attacks on homeless refugees, and the facilitation of illegal eviction in Dublin city centre.” Protesters marched from the Ormond Quay building where the attacks took place, to the Store Street Garda station.
A representative from Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) spoke to The University Observer regarding the events that took place on August 30 and 31. They stated that the eviction was illegal, even if the residents were squatting: “Squatting is a civil, not a criminal matter. Unless there's been a court order received, and to my knowledge, none of that was ever presented at the eviction attempts. There was just physical force to take people out... in terms of the legal status. It's worth pointing out that what happened in terms of the evictions was illegal.”
According to protest organisers, the landlord of the building had sent men with far-right ties to forcibly evict Palestinian and Jordanian tenants of the building in an illegal and violent eviction. A CATU representative at the protest said that this is not the first time this landlord has sent men to physically evict tenants.
After the protest, The University Observer interviewed community organisers and heads of the protest, who both chose to remain anonymous.
Content Warning: This interview contains descriptions of violence and racism, which some readers may find upsetting.
When asked what the motivation behind the September 6 protest, the first organiser responded:
“I am one of three activists who have been closely working with the guys in Ormond Quay. We've been there for a number of weeks. In terms of the protest today, we reached out in our time of need for support with anti-fascist groups, with anti-racist groups, and today's manifestation was a loose coalition between these groups directly and in support of the guys, the refugees. I'd like to think, and I'm sure a lot of other people that were involved today, that maybe this can be the beginning of some people putting their differences to the side and working together to actually build an anti-fascist movement. Now that we can see that the collaboration with the fascists and the ruthless landlords is in our faces.
I was present on Thursday. I received a call from the house around 9:15pm on Thursday. The police were in the house. I was asked to come to the house. When I arrived there, there were five fascists, well, five guys dressed in black with no masks. There were a number of threats that were made that night. I was attacked, physically, and I got away before they could get the keys of the house to get an entry to the house.”
They continued:
“The stitches on my hand came from the following night, when they came back. First of all, they were giving us 12 hours' notice to leave the house. I was negotiating for more time. Apparently, they agreed to the more time. We thought the time had passed the next night, and we had been expecting a Molotov cocktail rather than an assault team. We were thinking the time limit had passed, and that maybe we were okay, before we could hear the smashing of the windows, and that's where I received many of the injuries. [...] I went straight away to confront the guys, getting an entry to the buildings. I was beaten down at that point. I managed to get away. I was nearly captured again, and only the refugees managed to pull me back.”
Do you think this event should be a wake-up call for the average Irish person?
“Yeah, I mean, people really need to think about this. If you're at all different, you're going to be targeted. This is what we're seeing now. These people are dangerous. For the liberal people, surely they can see with the attacks that have been continuous, [...] it's a sustained effort by the far-right to create another riotous situation. These people are looking to create absolute chaos. We're all in danger. We all need to come together now.”
The University Observer asked this organiser about their thoughts on the growing far-right and fascism in Ireland. They replied:
“Maybe the first place I want to start is that when we reached out that we needed help, it was perfectly obvious to me that most of the people that came to help us were people from the LGBTQ community, who perhaps feel under threat the most, maybe, at the moment. I could see that, and I was really happy with the support that we got. Many of the younger activists, who I think have a certain perspective that they feel under attack."
What do you think can be done to solve the issue of the rising far right in Ireland?
"I'm an anti-fascist. I have a certain perspective of how I would look at it. I'd say that people should be coming together and forming affinity groups or forming groups, that groups should be coming together and working with other groups. We've two different sides to how we go about this. There's the mass movement building, which we have to fully engage with the unions and the political parties of the left.
There was a whole load of coordination, especially the queer and trans community, and also the DACA, Frontmira, and people that really immediately got out and supported us on the ground, as well as helped coordinate the safety. They helped us in the most powerful ways."
Are you worried about the path Ireland is heading down, that it may be going down a similar path of other European countries?
“I've seen all of that sh*t going on. I've seen the rise of that sh*t. And I also saw when anti-fascists got together, and they crushed them back down. I think that what we're seeing in Ireland now, the concerted efforts of the far-right to stoke discontent in working-class communities, communities that I have lived in and I've grown up in as well. I can see how this is affecting people. I can see, you know, there's a lot of fascist types coming back from England over here as well, who are stoking these flames.
For me, I'm seeing almost the same sh*t that I saw when I was growing up in England. I'm seeing, in working-class areas, growing racism, fascism, hatred of anyone who's different. I think that we're at that point. Often people say Ireland is 10 years behind England, or something like that. This was a common thing that you hear. OK, we're behind it in racism and fascism, but it's happening now. It’s no different than the rapid growth that happened in the UK.”
Also responding to this question, the other organiser whom The University Observer spoke with offered their perspective:
“We see videos across Ireland of refugees, and there's now groups that are protesting and get chased on the street and chased to their homes. We see this happening, we see the attacks, we see the deaths on the canals and waterways, you know, shutting them off and out of our city.
We see the camps being monitored by the far right with the phones, and coming down with weapons to scare, weapons as in like batons or crowbars. Volunteers being attacked. They're coordinated. And with the attack on the building that night, when we were inside the building on a Friday night, all we could say and know for a fact is that they were very, very coordinated.”
Since the Dublin riots in November 2023, the Irish government has been pushing for laws to further restrict the rapid growth of the far-right in Ireland. However, these laws, such as the ‘Criminal Justice Bill 2022’, more commonly referred to as the ‘Hate Speech Bill’, have often been stuck in the Oireachtas. Justice Minister Helen McEntee announced on September 21 that the hate speech elements of the Criminal Justice Bill would be removed in order for it to pass through its third stage in the Seanad.