One of the largest anti-mass migration protests to date took place in Dublin on Monday as protesters decried the open borders agenda of the neo-liberal Irish government.
Bearing signs reading “Ireland belongs to the Irish”, “Irish Civil Rights”, “Mass deportations”, “Economic Migrants are not refugees”, and “Irish Lives Matter”, among others were seen as thousands took to the streets of Dublin as anti-migration sentiment continues to grow across the Emerald Isle, The Journal reports.
The crowd hailed demonstrators from local protest movements such as in Newtownmountkennedy, Gript media reported, who gained national attention after Irish police used shields and pepper spray to break up a protest against reported plans to create a migrant camp in the small County Wicklow town.
The scale of alleged asylum seekers flooding into the country has forced the government to admit that it no longer has any room to house migrants while they apply for refugee status, forcing hundreds to sleep rough on the streets of Dublin in what Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris has described as “shanty towns”.
DUBLIN, IRELAND – MAY 6: Thousands of Irish protesters gathered in Dublin city center for an Anti-Mass Immigration protest, starting at the Gardens of Remembrance and proceeding through O’Connell Street, on May 6, 2024, in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Strikingly, the protests also saw demonstrators lash out against the IRA-linked Sinn Féin party, with chants of “Sinn Féin are traitors”. The pro-Irish unification party has increasingly come under criticism for broadly aligning itself with the government on migration, rather than backing stricter controls or opting out of the EU asylum policy.
Speaking from the protest, Irish Freedom Party leader Hermann Kelly told GB News: “I think Sinn Féin have been exposed as an open borders mass immigration party. And now that leaves room for a nationalist party like the Irish Freedom Party, which believes in democratic self-determination for the Irish people.
“They believe in the EU membership, subservience to the European Union. And we’re opposed to all that.
“Ireland has an opt-out on justice and home affairs so they can say no to the EU migration pact, for example, but because they want to be the best boys in the class and get a pat on the head from the real masters in Brussels, they would never say no to Brussels.”
While Ireland has long been one of the most pro-migration countries in Europe, massive demographic changes have seen the public turn against the open borders agenda favoured by liberal elites in Dublin. A survey conducted in April by Amárach Research found that eight in ten in Ireland believe that immigration is too high, with 20 per cent of the population of the country, or over one million people, being foreign-born, up from 420,000 in 2006.
Anger over the mass migration agenda boiled over in November as riots broke out in Dublin following a mass stabbing at a school teaching the Irish Gaelic language, in which an illegal migrant allegedly stabbed five people, including three young children.
Following the riots, Fianna Fáil councillor Azad Talukder, the chairman of the Metropolitan District of Limerick, sparked outrage by saying of the rioters: “I’d like to see them shot in the head or bring the public in and beat them until they die.”
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