Breaking news! Protest against illegals in Ireland turns violent as Irish demand illegals be rounded up and burned

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"This is for our culture, our country. The only way to deal with [ refugees] is to burn them out. Go to where they live and burn them out."

The masked speaker outside Finglas Garda Station was the embodiment of the febrile atmosphere at anti-migrant protests in recent weeks.

That the man incited violence against migrants and was not immediately arrested garnered huge online comment.


Well-known far-right figures attended and streamed on social media from the rally. One person held a Nazi flag complete with swastika at the protest, which blocked main roads in the north Dublin suburb.


While Covid lockdowns had fed into an anti-Government, broad conspiracy theory coalition, the crisis surrounding international protection has taken the rhetoric and vitriol to another level and has led to questions over how to police protests.



With tensions ramping up, and the gardaí warning this week of a “significant volume of misinformation and disinformation” in just one case that had become a lightning rod for anti-migrant sentiment, activists fear a tipping point in the offing.

The Irish Examiner has learned of multiple instances where public representatives, community activists and volunteers have been targeted on social media for abuse or faced actual threats due to their comments or actions welcoming refugees.


another instance, a person who had posted on a notice board supporting Ukrainians had her private Facebook page identified and was sent a number of threatening private messages.



In Dublin this week alone, there have been a number of incidents, including one where a migrant man was almost struck by a car which mounted a footpath after the driver had threatened to "put him over the bonnet" of the car. This, and other incidents were filmed and uploaded to both mainstream and fringe social media, where conspiracies and misinformation have thrived.