As anti-immigration rallies erupt around Dublin, a recent survey reveals that half of the Irish people now want migrant roadblocks at the border with Northern Ireland to reduce the number of asylum seeker arrivals from Britain.
Eighty-two percent of respondents supported deportations back to the United Kingdom, while fifty percent of respondents told Ireland Thinks and the Sunday Independent that they would accept checkpoint measures to limit the number of asylum seekers entering from Britain.
With tented communities continuing to grow in Dublin, as many as 40 percent of poll respondents added that they would support Ireland having a policy similar to Britain’s Rwanda scheme, with 42 percent opposing the measures.
The rising immigration numbers have sparked significant reactions from the Irish population, as seen by the large-scale demonstration against sheltering asylum seekers that took place in Dublin.
Images from the scene show large crowds of people draped in the Irish flag and holding a variety of placards and banners that read ‘Irish Lives Matter’ and ‘We Want Our Country Back’ as they gathered at the Garden of Remembrance in the north inner city before marching down O’Connell Street and onto the Custom House, where speeches were made.
Footage and photographs from the mass demonstration show swathes of furious locals marching down the street chanting ‘Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole’, ‘out, out, out’, and ‘our streets’.
Other signs spotted amid the crowds were ‘Ireland belongs to the Irish’, ‘Irish Civil Rights’, ‘Stop the WHO pandemic treaty’, ‘Mass deportations’, and ‘Economic migrants are not refugees’, among others.
Local groups from Coolock and Newtownmountkennedy—where protests have been hosted recently against buildings used to house international protection applicants—were also represented.
Shocking photos from Monday’s protest showed some protesters wearing hoodies and balaclavas as they passed the GPO, where around 200 people staged a counter-protest ‘united against racism’.
Those attending the counter-protest waved Palestinian flags, which read, ‘No to far-right lies and racism’.
Others read: ‘Homes for people, homes for all,’ ‘War creates refugees,’ and ‘Welcome all refugees’.
A queue of gardai stood between them and those walking from the Garden of Remembrance.
In advance of the demonstration, there was a heavy presence of Gardaí, including members of the Public Order Unit.
The Irish Times said that it took the whole throng almost 45 minutes to get along O’Connell Street, severely disrupting traffic.
But as we all know, governments these days seldom listen to the opinions of the people who elected them, and I doubt that this is any different in Ireland.
We talk about it as if something can be done and that it’s not too late. I’m sorry, but the UK is finished unless we kick out all the scrounging chancers who broke into this country illegally, but no one has the backbone to do anything about it. Summer is on its way, so there will be loads more illegal immigrants trying to cross over by boat, and next year and the year after that—it’s never going to end.
There are also plenty of those who think that we should just accept change as it comes. Just because some individuals desire a free meal ticket at our expense doesn’t mean we have to accept change—come to where I live, it’s like the League of Nations.
Mass deportations are inevitable, and there will be those out there who will agree with it and some who will not, so expect massive civil unrest—prepare for it, because it will likely happen in the not-too-distant future.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 