200 gather in Ballyfermot for demonstration in support of asylum seekers

About 200 people gathered at Ballyfermot People’s Park on Tuesday evening for a counterprotest against recent demonstrations opposing the arrival of asylum seekers to the area.

The stage was surrounded by small international flags protruding from the grass and overhead bunting, representing the inclusive focus of the counterdemonstration. It was a community event aimed at underscoring a message of welcome.

Ballyfermot, a west Dublin suburb, is one of numerous areas to experience the spread of right-wing demonstrations opposing the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers. As with other places, the opposition to the new arrivals is partly fuelled by rumours and social media speculation.

Martin O’Reilly was among the local community leaders to address the recent “ugly incident” in the Dublin suburb.

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“We don’t need our young people getting into bother with the guards because of misinformation,” Mr O’Reilly said. “We don’t need that.”

Ballyfermot Youth Services, one of a number of organisations behind the rally, spends its time engaging with young people in the area.

“Some weeks ago there was a very ugly incident in this community,” its manager, Gerry McCarthy, told the assembled crowd, attended by a noticeable Garda presence, although there was never any sign of conflict.

“There were lies and misinformation spread in relation to refugees living in our sports centres and our schools. We know that these rumours were downright lies.”

A number of community organisations have since come together and formed the Ballyfermot Cherry Orchard For All Campaign.

“We were concerned about the language used and the level of hate, and the hysteria that was being generated in this community,” Mr McCarthy said.

In early January, the local protest erupted over claims refugees were staying in local schools at night, despite information being circulated to the contrary.

Mr McCarthy made a point of highlighting Ireland’s own history of emigration – his son has made his home in the US; his brother went to Australia in the 1970s. His four sisters left in the 1960s to the UK when there was not much work at home. His grandparents, from the west of Ireland, went to New York.

“There’s always a scapegoat, there’s always someone else to blame, it’s always someone else who causes your problem. It’s never within ourselves that we look,” he said.

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Caroline Conroy, whose home suburb of Ballymun has seen similar anti-asylum-seeker rallies, told Tuesday’s solidarity gathering that people’s frustrations were taking the wrong form.

“If you have an issue with housing, the health service, go outside the Dáil, contact your TD, your councillor,” she said.

“But to stand outside somebody’s temporary home and shout ‘get out, we’ll burn you out’, that is not about housing, that is not about social services, that’s not about the health service. That is pure and utter ugly hate. And that is not what we’re about.”

Independent Cllr Vincent Jackson, whose home was targeted by protesters in January, said one of his children had been particularly affected by the incident in which he was branded “a traitor”.

“There’s a nastiness in the social media content. It’s like, I don’t have to look you in the face so I can say anything about you,” he said.