https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/26/remember-who-we-are-riots-race-and-the-end-of-the-irish-welcome
“It’s sad it’s come to this,” said one man, a soft-spoken spectator in his 20s, not a rioter. “But the situation has got out of control.”
He was referring not to the riot consuming central Dublin on Thursday night but to immigration, and a perception that foreigners – and especially asylum seekers – were driving a crime wave and worsening a housing crisis.
“Their religion has no respect for women’s rights,” he added. “The men are dominant.”
The police charged and the spectator fled, unable to elaborate about any affinity with Dutch voters who last week backed Geert Wilders’s anti-Islamic Freedom party, or with other election results across Europe, but there was little need.
Amid the fumes and shouts and sirens blazed an uncomfortable truth. The Ireland that for so long had seemed to buck Europe’s anti-immigrant trend and offer a “thousand welcomes” to the foreigners who reshaped its economy, society and demography – the Ireland that seemed immune to xenophobia and demagoguery and backlash – was not so different after all.