From top: The hotel in Moville, County Donegal earmarked for Direct Provision on Sunday morning; Bryan Wall
In the early hours of Sunday morning, a hotel that had been designated as the location for a direct provision centre was set on fire. The hotel, located in the small town of Moville in County Donegal, was in the process of being renovated in expectation of the arrival of roughly one hundred asylum seekers.
It appears that at around 4.30 am something was thrown through one of the windows of the hotel which started the fire. Two people were in the hotel at the time, the owner and his daughter it is believed, one of whom had to be taken to hospital for treatment. No further information was available at the time of writing regarding the cause of the fire.
Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan, and Minister of State for Equality and Integration, David Stanton, issued a joint statement in which they “condemned the arson attack on the Causal Mara Hotel”.
Minister Flanagan described the incident as “despicable” and which “could have led to a very serious tragedy.” For his part, Minister Stanton said he “deplore[d] this attack” given that the hotel was “being prepared for accommodation by persons seeking international protection in Ireland.” An arson attack on the hotel was therefore “deeply shameful.”
A representative of the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) told me they “condemn this action taken by these people who perpetrated racism and hatred.”
The attack comes on the heels of a tour of Ireland by Far Right activists Damhnait McKenna, Lauren Southern, and Caolan Robertson. All three are well-known for their anti-immigrant views and their peddling of the racist myth of a white genocide being perpetuated by Cultural Marxists.
Ms McKenna is the leader of Generation Identity UK and Ireland. Members of the group have been sent on military-style training in Norway, as was revealed late last year. She claims that the views of her and the groups she leads are not extreme.
On the other hand, the anti-racist organisation Hope not Hate has described Generation Identity as “racist and extreme.” They also point out that Generation Identity “calls for ‘ethnopluralism’, which in practice means separating and segregating people along racial lines.” The overriding principle of the group, according to Hope not Hate, is to defend their “biological heritage.”
Lauren Southern is a well-known provocateur with a sizeable online following and is essentially the voice of the Far Right. She recently made a documentary in which she claims that white genocide is taking place, most especially in South Africa.
She has also supported, and taken part in, the attempts of Far Right groups Generation Identity and Defend Europe to block humanitarian organisations from rescuing migrants from the Mediterranean. In recent weeks Ms. Southern and her film crew posed as journalists and obtained an interview with the Ariel Ricker, the Executive Director of Advocates Abroad.
The interview that was shared online was highly edited and portrayed Ricker and her organisation as coaching migrants to lie to border patrol agents in order to gain entry to Europe.
In response, Advocates Abroad wrote that they were “aware of a video that shows a heavily edited version of an informal conversation that was secretly filmed and without consent.”
Furthermore, they pointed out that the video was “being used for political right wing effect, and misconstrued” to shore up “an anti-refugee and anti-human rights political agenda.” “This”, they declared, “is a shameful act of cowardly abuse.”
For his part, Caolan Robertson works alongside Southern and holds the same views. He previously worked at Rebel Media, the same organisation that Southern worked for before both departed.
He portrays himself as a “film maker” and as a “social commentator”. What he actually does, however, is no different than Southern. That they work together is indicative of this. For Robertson and Southern, anything non-white and non-Christian is deemed a threat that must be stopped.
This means, in their eyes, “defending Europe” from the hordes trying to make it across the Mediterranean. Robertson’s beliefs extend to stating that the homophobic attack on The George in Dublin last year “Was most likely gays desperate to be victims.”
All three have been on a tour of Ireland for the last few days in order to film anti-immigrant sentiment and reinforce the belief that white culture is being slowly eroded and replaced by “outsiders”.
On the day before the attack, Robertson posted to his Twitter account that he was “Filming today in a small town in Ireland that is forcefully moving hundreds of migrants into the only hotel in town, a historic building.”
Their reporting consists of nothing more than poorly disguised racism and Islamophobia. When I spoke to the Garda Press Office they would neither confirm or deny that they were looking into the movements of McKenna, Robertson, and Southern, or that they were aware of their presence in the country.
In the aftermath of the attack, an emergency meeting took place in Moville yesterday afternoon. There the attendees made it clear that asylum seekers would be welcome to the town and no act of violence would discourage that sentiment.
When I spoke to MASI they told me “The new asylum seekers will be welcome by all”.
In spite of this, we must be wary that any welcoming gesture to asylum seekers and refugees will be seen as a betrayal by those on the Right and their mouthpieces online.
Motions to help any group who are not Irish or white is seen as deep disloyalty towards Irish and European culture. Their unintelligible violence will likely erupt again as a result, as will their usual uneducated drivel about Cultural Marxism and white genocide.
For now, anyone concerned about the rise of Far Right movements must be vociferous in their denial of a stage or platform to anybody of the same ilk as McKenna, Robertson, and Southern. If this means denying them entry to the country then so be it.
Their hatred has no place in a multicultural Ireland in which we can all strive for a democratic and egalitarian future for ourselves and our children.
We, as Irish people, have a special obligation to those suffering the effects of natural disasters, famines, and wars, and who are forced to flee their homes. We collectively understand what it means to be under the yoke of an oppressor.
And we know what it means to have to leave our country, our families, and in many cases never return. When we turn away those who most need our help and understanding, we are betraying our history and ourselves.
The Far Right cares naught for this understanding. Their grasp of the world extends no further than someone’s religion or skin colour. Times such as this are dangerous for the potential violence that they hold. Regardless, the Far Right and their apologists must be contained and combated.
We know what the hatred of the Far Right results in. It makes no difference if their ideology comes in the form of well-spoken internet provocateurs. The final consequences will be the same.
As we welcome those in need we must protect them and ourselves from the bile and hatred of the Far Right, their mouthpieces, and the lies they spew.
Bryan Wall is an independent journalist based in Cork. His column appears here every Monday. Read more of his work here
Top pic via MASI
Your good mate Gemma O’Doherty has some interesting views on this.
What she do/say?
She’s basically been retweeting and endorsing the same things the people in question here do
Gemma O’Doherty has gone down the far-right rabbithole and doesn’t seem to want to come back. Idk if she just believes every conspiracy that pops up on her timeline or if she kept a deeper right-wing tendency hidden until recently. Hard to give her the benefit of the doubt when she’s a journalist, supposedly trained to be skeptical, and to fact-check.
These days, like a certain type of lonely undergrad, she parrots phrases she’s just learned like ‘Cultural Marxist’, ‘Snowflake’, ‘Soros’, ‘Globalist’, with no regard to whose agenda she’s serving, as long as it feels anti-establishment.
Once you pass the age of 40, or thereabouts, the plasticity of the brain (and everything else really, it’s why people over 40 need glasses) diminishes. For some people it is a far more pronounced affliction than in others. The symptoms are an inability to take on new ideas, a mindset whereby a kind of intellectual tunnel vision obscures new ways of seeing. It’s the reason why once liberal folks become ‘Daily Mail readers’ in later life. It’s why once brilliant investigative journalists get stuck in paranoid conspiracy loops, only able to take on new information that proves already held beliefs.
Trans people, asylum seekers etc. they are all seen as pawns of the ‘elite’, used to get ‘us’ to give up our own rights.
Pity those who become this way. Pity Gemma. They can’t help it, their brains have become rigid.
Oh please! That’s downright ageist. It depends on the individual. I know plenty of tunnel vision 23-year-olds.
I never said that some people aren’t just like that anyway, I’m talking about folks who once had a relatively creative ability to form new thoughts and incorporate new ‘others’ into their worldview. People who lose the ability to do that.
What a bunch of complete horsepoo
You cannot combine horsepoo into bunches, it just doesn’t work like that. You must be over 40.
She sniggered with the arrogance of one still in her thirties.*
*Early thirties.
Well, Bryan, I feel I’m oppressed by the malodorous owl pellets of jejune, Frantz Fanon tribute act agitprop you cough up each week. Could you arrange a Farraday cage in Moville for me? Kisses…
Yeah, she acknowledges that there is a media-supported global identitarian movement that selves to undermine men, family, sovereignty and national character/culture.
The tactic employed leftist types who support this movement is to make grand assumptions on the intentions underlying the act of questioning – which is an incredibly vindictive thing to do, and the only way they can dominate.
Yesterday’s “left of centre” is the new “far right”. The real far right is skin-heads with hatred in their hearts, not people asking frank questions.
Saw GO’D retweeting Southern this weekend and spreading the same anti-immigrant hate, she’s gone fully Far Right. Does Bodger still think she would have been a great President?
Can’t help but notice her youtube talk show doesn’t get many plugs here
Far right stuff alright that won’t be seeing her on Colm O’Gorman’s and many other’s Christmas Card list…
It has been noted:
https://twitter.com/DonaldClarke63/status/1065313942845706241
https://twitter.com/philipoconnor/status/1065540524520685568
https://twitter.com/MallowNews/status/1066831058430320640
“Aldi Jim Corr”
Pleased to read this. Was genuinely planning on contacting the Gardaí today to report that Grand Torino’s video.
The population of Moville is less than 1,500 people. Putting 100 refugees in a hotel there is just a disaster waiting to happen. 5 families is enough, and gives everyone a chance to come together without being overwhelmed.
Why is it a disaster waiting to happen?
Well that makes arson entirely acceptable.
I’m delighted to hear that.
+1 Cú
Although it may not be a ‘disaster’ it is definitely some really bad planning. As you say, Moville is a small town of 1500 on the very northern tip of the country. Who’s ‘idea’ was that?
Would the 10000+ strong population of Foxrock be expected to absorb 1000+ asylum seekers as easily?
Why do people always make these weird comparisons. Would the town of Foxrock have a large hotel which has being lying derelict for a few years which would be available for asylum seekers? There are direct provision centres all over Dublin which have been absorbed easily. Most people probably wouldn’t know they are DP centres.
If the state has obligations to house people it makes lots of sense to house people where shelter is relatively cheap.
Straight from the Josepha Madigan school of philosophy.
#NotInMyBackLawn
I would love to know why government is not placing migrants in the cities where the infrastructure is there
Many Muslims are halal and have dietary needs also the infrastructure for integration into our society and their needs
Or do they want isolated ghettos as not to upset the hard working city dwellers
I would say the governments plan is to hide the real problem ensuring these people are isolated
Sort of dumping a problem as far away as possible to limit friction with the natives
Where will these people work and have the dignity and the chance of being productive?
I suppose government thinks that we can create a sort of immigrants hub for the homeless where they continue to live in the failed direct provision system and after a few months of isolation will demand to be sent home rather than live in total limbo
“When we turn away those who most need our help and understanding, we are betraying our history and ourselves.”
Good oul Ireland, always ready to be seen to be the “do gooders”; but seldom seen to be assisting in local problems… affordable housing, filling the 50+ vacant psychiatric doctors posts, homelessness, rental crisis, education, transport, A&E….. we could go on.
As much as I have no time for these pond life types, I did laugh at this:
“He portrays himself as a “film maker” and as a “social commentator””
As opposed to portraying oneself as a “an independent journalist based in Cork”?
rotide, you scamp
Between Gemma and Sinead, Bono is getting a lashing lately. But with Sinead, it’s mostly mischief. (She tweeted that what keeps her from suicide is the thought of Bono ‘sh!teing on’ at her funeral.) Are Swedes boring? I’ve no idea, but MacPhisto himself is pretty tedious.
I just have to clarify that I am totally against the use of violence, harm or arson justified by one’s political ideals.
That being said I am not shocked. The way local views and opinions have been totally ignored in creating all these asylum centres is sickening. Whose bright idea was it to place asylum seekers all over various parts of the country…. Places that do not have the infrastructure, services and facilities to cope! When locals tried to raise valid concerns they are dismissed as racist or xenophobic.
What makes matters worse is that those blindly dismissing them tend to be upper middle-class, childless, Cosmopolitans will do not rely on the public health system and used to urban public services. When you marginalise and disenfranchise people like this from regular discourse they are going to shift politically to the far-right
. It’s almost as if those at the very top were looking for something like this to happen.
But here’s the thing, John, the same thing happened in Ballaghaderreen and there were no problems. I mean, the promised increased resources from govt didn’t materialise but the town, by and large, welcomed them.
Now Ballaghaderreen was the wrong place to put them, and Moville might well be as well, but the locals in Ballaghaderreen didn’t jump from ‘there’ll be no resources for them’ to ‘I know, let’s burn the place down’ in a couple of nanoseconds. “Concern” for the facilities available to asylum seekers in the shape of arson is rather a strange look.
the same thing happened in Ballaghaderreen and there were no problems.
rubbish, there have been may serious issues and these have been welll documented.
Any ‘locals’, anywhere, when asked: “would you like asylum seekers housed in your area”, will always respond “no; it’s not that I am against asylum seekers per se; just that it is not appropriate to have them here for x,y, or z reason”.
“Whose bright idea was it to place asylum seekers all over various parts of the country…. Places that do not have the infrastructure, services and facilities to cope!”
There is a housing crisis in Dublin, there is no housing crisis in Donegal; Donegal is therefore a lot more able to accept 100 asylum seekers than Dublin is at the moment.
“What makes matters worse is that those blindly dismissing them tend to be upper middle-class, childless, Cosmopolitans…”
Middle-class, childless, cosmopolitans subsidise everyone else. People living in Donegal are subsided, through income transfers from the exchequer (e.g. Dublin), and CAP payments (urban dwellers all over the EU), to an enormous degree. Which is fine, but part of this give-and-take means accepting a few asylum-seekers the odd time. It is a big county with plenty of space; I am sure it will be fine.
You’re missing my point, the single biggest issue is the total lack of respect or consultation for local representation groups. In my opinion that most deeds done totally in secret and to be bad ones. You are right the anger did not build in a couple of nanoseconds, the locals had seen what happened in Ballaghaderreen and the locals in the area of the next centre will have seen even more.
For better or worse we have real-time access to national data and stories, 20 years ago there would not have been the case. I listened to a couple of podcasts on the issues, and whilst without doubt there was some see no phobic views for the most part people had valid concerns. No one from the world of officialdom would answer or address any of their concerns ahead of time. Even there local councillors and TDs were stonewalled (given basic info but nothing detailed).
That kind of environment breeds extreme political parties. When people feel they are not been listened to by the established ones they look elsewhere.
I am not saying I fully agree with all this but I understand why it is happening. The fix for this is very simple, bring the locals on board, be straight with them. Listen and address their concerns. .
Fair enough John but that figleaf isn’t covering you as much as you might think.
You can indeed consult with locals but no matter *where* you consult, d’you want to take a wild guess at what the answer will be to ‘fancy some asylum seekers’?
It applies in Moville, Ballaghaderreen, Foxrock and anywhere else you’d care to mention.
The same craw-thumpers who go to Mass on Sundays and send Trocaire boxes of loose change to de black babies in Africa. They should all be required to read Moshin Hamid’s Exit West.
Simple
Its just like the way they deal with travellers unmarried mothers the poor etc
Out of sight
Heavens forbid the hard working people of Dublin four have to be confronted with it
Out of sight and yes we meet our quotas
I agree when a community has something forced on them they do not like it
Its not informing people because of nimbyism that causes these things
And this is where hatred comes from an ignorance of peoples cultures
We have a massive shortage of labour and if these centres were located where there is jobs these migrants could contribute to our society and they would have the badly needed infrastructure they need and the dignity through work they desperately need
“anti Immigrant hate”?
Don’t you mean illiegal immigrants?
If they are in DP, they are not illegal.
no humans are illegal, buddy
What a silly, trite statement.
So’s your mam.
I’m sure the yoga trauma classes will be a huge boon to locals and migrants alike.
Nice to see you being positive about something for a change.
More of a boon than arson.
Nothing like some good yoga to put arson seats
You are both stretching and on fiire with that one.
‘the locals had seen what happened in Ballaghaderreen’
What are you talking about? By all accounts, the refugees settling in Ballaghaderreen has been positive for all concerned.
“…..When I spoke to MASI they told me “The new asylum seekers will be welcome by all…..”.
Apparently not.
It’s great not to have an organized far right-wing political grouping in Ireland.
On the other hand we do have to put up with a lot of blather on BS from the likes of this guy Wall.
‘It’s great not to have an organized far right-wing political grouping’ – it’s just wonderful, and I’m sure it’ll stay that way if you just ignore it whenever it pops up its head.
Of course if ignoring the far right isn’t your thing, you could try criticising other people for highlighting it. That’ll show them fascist-wanabees.
48 bedroomed hotel & see it was on market for 450,000. Wonder did it sell?
If the government and a local hotelier down the end of the town decide to place some people in a hotel where ever they are from , I dont see what business it is of the other people living in the town , granted if there is some criminality happening somewhere in your area and you are aware of it, you might consider that its your civic duty to report the crime and assist the Gardai with their investigations.
So up in Moville on Sunday there was a dangerous criminal act carried out , some might consider that it was a crime against the community , we don’t know who carried that out yet , may have been a stranger, but more likely to be a local, and not likely to be an asylum seeker, as they haven’t arrived yet ….
So l would imagine that the local Garda stations phone is ringing off the hook , with so many upstanding locals determined to root out the evil in their own community before guests arrive in the town …
How embarrassing for them , to express fears of strangers arriving in their community , only to show the rest of the country that’s its not the asylum seekers they should be afraid of its a dark element in their own community that they should be really afraid of ….
I’m disturbed by Gemma O’Doherty and the degree in which she jumped into bed with the far right, linking to their videos (Stefan Molyneux), retweeting (Lauren Southern, Grand Torino, Caolan Robertson), repeat referencing their keywords (#Soros, #Europe, #Migration, #multicultural #snowflake #borders #sovereignty)
It’s like she’s just graduated from “How hit far right talking points” training.
I hope @broadsheet.ie distance themselves from her rants, she’s jumped the shark
She’s given retweeting Paddy Manning!
It was always there. Kevin Sharkey had it in him also. Write it off as populism if you like but this is what happens when you suppress and under-value the national character that preceded us all. Not everyone thinks mosques are a good fit for Ireland – esp given our own history and also the kind of clustering that invariably follows (denominational schools etc)…in the end the people who lived their there entire lives feel like strangers. That our media don’t have it in them to have a national conversation on our evolving identity is stunning – so the only people talking about it are the likes of Dave Cullen, Grand Torino
“this is what happens when you suppress and under-value the national character that preceded us all.”
WTF? who is suppressing anything? It’s racism and xenophobia and needs to called as such.
Dave Cullen etc are sad bastards looking to exploit sadder bastards for patreon donations
Come on, there is another ongoing racist movement that would have you believe that Phil Lynnot is more representative of how Irish people look. It appears well intended but slightly worrying on closer inspection. I myself can no longer give the benefit of the doubt when on the fence with the likes of Fintan O’Toole. They claim to worry about fascism yet out of the other side of their mouth their environmental position appears to weigh up sterilisation as a policy solution – and they think some people are more equal than others. I am not sure which is worse but we are caught between two highly undesirable identitarian movements. There has been a slide and it’s best acknowledged.
Bottom line: people like John Waters have been forced out of the media as they do not have the right views, or views that are deemed desirable of a social influencer at this point – despite their views being representative of 37% of Irish people, if recent referendums are anything to go by. With Waters, people normally go to personal attack mode to discredit him but fail to see it’s not about Water’s himself, and even at that, his ideas are hardly dangerous.
If you suppress a voice, it comes back to bite. You might think Dave Cullen is sad but man, his platform is growing faster than others because of this and that should be a matter of concern. More concerning is that when he attacks people, it is on the basis of their actions, not convenient presumptions of their intentions – that’s the difference between the new left and those like Cullen that oppose new leftist tactics. Opposing the positions and ideas of the left does not make you right wing.
In a country where you can be refused planning permission to build a house
in some cases on your own land….is it any wonder that the silent majority
are waking up, we can only accommodate so may and shifting 100
people out of the way where they would make up 10 10% of the population
is looking for trouble…..the policy is shift the problem out of the leafy
suburbs of the main cities in particular Dublin lest there is a reaction
Incidentally what about the empty premises owned by the Bourke
Family in Ballina a.k.a as the birthplace of one Mary Robinson, its
an ideal place a lot closer to Dublin than Moville.
Many reckon Direct Provision will play out to be the Magdelene Laundry scale institutional failure of our times (and there is evidence already) and it’s happening under the watch of our current governing bodies and advocacy groups like Nasc Ireland…all of whom have good intentions but know nothing about sustainability or long term impact assessment.
If we’re being charitible,why not send funded Irish charities to the places refugees originate from? There is a lot of evidence that the money goes further there. Teach a man to fish and all that…bottom line is we can’t create an underclass that live in a derelict building in a small town, living on EUR20 per week pocket money. It’s just wrong and refuge is supposed to be temporary.
I suppose you’ll be first up to volunteer to sort things out in eastern Ghouta and risk having your head blown off.
You’ve made a lot of assumptions about my character with that comment – thanks!
You know setting up a refugee camp in a neighboring province or country that isn’t war-torn is considered to be a superior way to help without displacing a nation. Had the relationship between the EU and Turkey been in better shape, this would have been the better way to support Syrian refugees. Or we could adopt orphans like we did with Romania in the early 90’s – but hey, don’t let me stand in the way of your virtual outrage!
I’m not outraged in the least, I just felt your comment was simplistic.
Things are not too hot in France either:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/24/paris-fuel-tax-protest-macron-france-poverty
I think you might have read a simplistic intention behind it. Really, direct provision looks to be run like an out-patient prison service, if so, that is a policy mistake – pure and simple. After much can-kicking, the govt of the day will have no choice but to compensate with citizenship, which (regardless of political lean) isn’t really what refugee programs are intended for – and does not get ordinary people behind them.