Satirical magazine had urged 'a good riot' on Monday

A Dublin-based satirical magazine last week ran a number of articles apparently exhorting people to riot, loot and cause "chaos…

A Dublin-based satirical magazine last week ran a number of articles apparently exhorting people to riot, loot and cause "chaos" in the city centre at Monday's "Reclaim the Streets" demonstration.

Fourteen people were injured and 24 arrests made when gardaí, using batons, broke up the demonstration on Monday evening.

The Slate magazine ran a number of articles under the index heading: "Mayday Mayhem: Johnny Foreigner has been rioting his hole off for the last few years. May 6th could give Ireland the chance to do likewise."

On the following page an article entitled: "The Joy of Rioting - Reclaim the Streets this Mayday by smashing them up" says: "Most European cities have plenty of nice pedestrianised streets and squares where people can congregate to talk shit, trade homemade jewellery and block their ears to the sound of whingeing buskers. Dublin, however, is a badly designed, traffic-ridden place where you can't step on to a road without being obnoxiously honked at by some truck driver or a flash bitch in her new Toyota.

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"This is the kind of situation that can only be sorted out by having a good riot, and with any luck, that's exactly what will happen on Bank Holiday Monday. A group of people called Reclaim the Streets are planning to take over part of the city centre for the purposes of having a party involving "free music, food, repetitive beats" and street football.

"With any luck the Garda response to this alien behaviour will be violent enough to provoke a riot. When English football hooligans started acting up in Lansdowne Road, the Garda method for dealing with it seemed to involve charging wildly in with batons swinging around in a highly inaccurate fashion.

"Throw in a few rabid Alsatians who have been instructed to bite anyone under the age of 30 and (in spite of Irish people being notoriously shit at rioting) there is definitely chaos on the cards this May Day.

"A rather pompous Reclaim the Street statement announces that they are going to 'open a new era of urban design' but this shouldn't deter anyone from taking a rare opportunity to go looting and smashing shit up in Dublin's city centre.

"If you want to have a riot, turn up outside the GPO on 6 May at 2.30 p.m."

Further inside the magazine devotes two pages, again, exhorting people to riot on May 6th. Further articles run under headlines including: "How to smash capitalism", "This Mayday we should follow the example of the rest of the civilised world and go on a destructive rioting spree", "Wreck the gaff" and "Who you'll meet at a riot and what they're like".

One piece criticises groups including the Socialist Workers' Party and says: "In this essential guide, we'll provide Dublin's concerned rioters with all they need to know about the Mayday weekend - how to cause maximum damage, what to wear and who you're likely to run into."

Asked about the articles yesterday, one of The Slate journalists, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "We weren't seriously inciting people to cause harm or damage property but we would be keen to see protests."

Saying the articles were "tongue in cheek", he added: "We did accurately predict" that gardaí would use batons.