Violent protests broke out in the streets of central Dublin on Thursday evening after knife attack in the city centre which left a 5-year-old girl needing emergency medical treatment, and a woman and two other children injured.
Agitators blamed Ireland’s immigration policies for the stabbing, and protesters fired flares and fireworks at the police cordon around the scene of the incident.
Ireland’s police commissioner Drew Harris told journalists that a “hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology” was behind the violence.
“Dublin is burning after people have had enough of unvetted migrants flooding this country and stabbing women and kids,” one online news outlet wrote, using the hashtag “Ireland belongs to the Irish”.
Police armed with shields fended off violent demonstrators attempting to kick and punch them. Many of those attacking the police had their faces covered.
A number of police vehicles and a tram were damaged during the disorder in the city centre. A bus and car were also on fire on the city’s O’Connell Bridge.
Videos posted on social media showed a man shoving a flaming box inside a police car and closing the door, and when the vehicle caught on fire the mob of more than 50 people cheered and roared their approval.
Other videos showed a tram with smashed windows set on fire while a crowd of more than a hundred people stood nearby. Meanwhile, racist comments on social media under video of a bus engulfed in flames included “immigrants are the problem”, and “there wouldn’t be any riots if there wasn’t any diversity.”
“The scenes we are witnessing this evening in our city centre cannot and will not be tolerated,” said Justice Minister Helen McEntee. “A thuggish and manipulative element must not be allowed to use an appalling tragedy to wreak havoc.”
In a statement, Ireland’s President Michael Higgins warned that the stabbing attack “would be used or abused by groups with an agenda that attacks the principle of social inclusion is reprehensible, and deserves condemnation by all those who believe in the rule of law and democracy.”
In a live news report by an RTE journalist on Thursday night, protesters could be heard chanting “close the borders” in the background.
Irish MMA star Conor McGregor wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter “There is grave danger among us in Ireland that should never be here in the first place.”
What happened earlier on Thursday in Dublin?
Early on Thursday afternoon police reported to the scene of a stabbing incident in Dublin’s Parnell Square East.
Five people were injured, including three young children, in the heart of Dublin in what they termed “a serious public order incident,” but police stressed they weren’t treating the case as terror-related.
A man in his 50s, who was hospitalised with serious injuries, is a “person of interest” in the case, authorities say.
Police said they have a “definite line of inquiry” and that they weren’t looking for anyone else in connection with the violence outside a school in the heart of Dublin soon after 1:30pm.
Police also confirmed that witnesses sought to disarm the man as soon as they saw what was going on.
