DUBLIN – Right-wing rioters turned a normally busy district of central Dublin into a war zone on Thursday evening after unconfirmed speculation emerged that a foreigner was responsible for a horrific stabbing outside a school that sent three children under seven and a woman to hospital Her 30s, who protected her, were brought in.
One of the city’s main shopping streets, O’Connell Street, which should have been packed with Christmas shoppers late into the night, became the scene of terror after anti-immigration protesters set fire to buses and police cars, smashed windows of shops and allegedly did not loot -hit white people.
Portal reported that police declined to comment on the suspect’s nationality. A man in his late 40s who was disarmed and restrained by passers-by was also taken for treatment for serious self-inflicted injuries. The Irish Times reported that the main suspect was a naturalized Irish citizen who had lived in Ireland for 20 years.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris blamed the unrest on a “crazy hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology”. Ireland’s Justice Minister Helen McEntee called for calm, saying a “criminal and manipulative element” was using the earlier incident to “wreak havoc.” Speaking to RTE’s Primetime, she said she described the stabbing incident as “devastating”.
She added: “What we are witnessing tonight is a small group of people who do not represent me or the vast majority of people in this country.”
Irish President Michael D. Higgins condemned “groups with an agenda” that had “used” the “terrible attack” to inflame social division.
People stand in front of riot police near the scene of a suspected knife attack that left few children injured, in Dublin, Ireland, on November 23, 2023.
Clodagh Kilcoyne/Portal
A witness, Euan Flanagan, 16, told The Daily Beast that he and his brother were at McDonald’s around 6 p.m. before cluelessly walking onto O’Connell Street to catch a bus.
He said: “We saw a huge group [of rioters] We were heading towards each other, so we turned around and went the other way. There was a Lake Garda [police] The car was parked between O’Connell Street and O’Connell Bridge and they went there, surrounded it and started punching and kicking it. I saw smoke coming from the car. I don’t know if it was a smoke bomb or the car itself that caught fire. Everyone screamed and shouted. There was chaos and pandemonium. As we crossed O’Connell Bridge [away from the riot] We met a woman crying. We asked her if she was OK and she said, ‘Not really, these people beat up anyone with darker skin.’ That’s what she told us.”
The violence erupted after an afternoon of simmering tension caused by a knife attack outside a school in which three young children, aged 6, 6 and 5, and a woman in her 30s were stabbed in the seemingly unprovoked attack.
Speculation quickly spread about the suspect’s nationality, and there was further speculation that the suspect’s actions were related to revenge against children as victims of Israeli actions against Palestine. Although the rumors were unfounded, they served to inflame sentiment and attract violent protesters to the site.
Although police initially ruled out a terrorist motive for the incident, which occurred shortly after 1:30 p.m. local time, saying it was an “isolated attack,” they later said they were keeping an open mind.
Two of the children are said to have suffered minor injuries, but the five-year-old girl, a girl, was still being treated in hospital on Thursday evening. The woman is also seriously injured and is still in hospital. She was employed either at the school or at a crèche where the children went after they left the Gaelscoil Coláiste Mhuire in Parnell Square East, the Irish Times reported.
A seriously injured five-year-old girl was still being treated on Thursday afternoon, while another five-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl, along with the 30-year-old woman, were taken to hospital with less serious injuries.
As of 11 p.m. local time on Thursday evening, the unrest appeared to be under control. Police said 400 officers were “deployed on foot in Dublin city center this evening to restore public order”.