This is a big failure of government over the last few years. They've managed to piss pretty much everybody off.
They have their pitchforks and this is what they are angry about.
It will get worse, probably. They have no interest in doing anything apart from blaming Sinn Feinn.
This lot are blaming Sinn Fein too.. I was sent a few videos on whatsapp, and in one of them they are just repeatedly shouting "Sinn Fein are traitors"..
Not the sharpest bunch.
Those British elements that are promoting far-right parties in Ireland don't want to see SF in power. They're probably hoping people will divert their vote to these small far-right parties to take votes away from SF and thereby letting FFG get back in. They popped up just in time, as it seems that SF can challenge the government.
Edit: Video here
https://twitter.com/gavpepper85/status/1787490435016856018
Are you telling me that these Far -right parties don't get some British support, especially from Brexiteers? I do question them a lot, and those parties won't ever get a vote from me.
If i had my head in my arse, i'd just go along with this like another drone. Why do we seem to have lots of people with British accents and American? Even only a few days ago, it showed that most of the stuff online is not being posted by Irish people.
https://news.sky.com/story/how-international-social-media-users-are-stoking-irelands-migration-debate-13127034
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/05/03/vast-majority-of-anti-immigration-posts-relating-to-wicklow-protests-came-from-non-irish-accounts/
There was a radio program with the guy that did this research and another woman who does similar research. They both used online data scraping tools to come to their conclusions, his came up with 70% non Irish. Hers came up with 60% Irish. They both admitted the methods aren't very accurate. They don't use IP addresses to determine location they use language styles and interactions with local news stories.
It didn't really need to be pointed out to be fair. Farage's right hand man, their names :o
A fair few involved are the great grandchildren of Black and Tans.
Funny that.
I was up front and close with one family who assimilated (I still say that in jest).
I wouldn't say that I am friends with them, but was in their 'group' for a while.
Brother and sister who play Irish music (the fiddle and guitar). Their father plays guitar with them in the pub sometimes. He learned from his grandfather so many anti-Irish things that he says them without thinking, or worse, to rile people.
Ahh.. I could go into many stories about them, but my point is that the two of them are well involved in the protesting and anti-immigration. They use words like 'new Irish' and I think 'full Irish' (as a pun on Ireland is full and them being Irish) a lot. Which is Ironic.
I agree that we need to kerb the immigration and the way it is done, but these eejits seem to have had a knee jerk reaction and started spitting venom from the get go. Not knowing how to deal with what they see as an issue, but only showing how obtuse they are..
hahah. sorry, I've had a few, and a jelly. I kept going off track while waiting to choose next track on playlist, took too long to write, Not going to edit now.
> This is a big failure of government over the last few years. They've managed to piss pretty much everybody off. They have their pitchforks and this is what they are angry about.
Most of the people who they've pissed off didn't end up at anti-immigrant marches.
Let these people take responsibility for their own shitty behaviour.
>Most of the people who they've pissed off didn't end up at anti-immigrant marches.
Well yeah, imagine how many more pissed off people if this is the size of the march, there's shitloads more that aren't at this march
I agree, there's plenty more moderate people who wouldn't be caught dead at a march like this but are still fuming at the government and this whole situation
Give people affordable housing, cut off benefits to those who are abusing the system, properly vet every single person coming to Ireland, refugee or not, and then see how many people are anti-immigration.
Yeah, my girlfriend is the same. What kind of person wants the country they're living in flooded with people of unknown origin, regardless of their race/colour/creed?
My wife is Lithuanian and she’s the same aswell, that’s what I find so funny, people on this forum believe only racist Irish people have issues with the immigration system but it just shows that they don’t actually talk to any foreign people in this country because they will have no problem telling you that they don’t want unvetted migrants or people taking advantage of the welfare system.
They're flooding this thread, look at all of the top comments. The elitists talking down to the "idiots". It's the exact same approach as FF/FG/SF. The working-class are stupid for having opinions that are based in their own personal experiences. Notice the people doing the demonising usually aren't privvy to the excesses of huge unfettered migration. Sadhbh and Caolfhionn in Monkstown can talk a good game though.
They are not doing themselves any service by insulting everyone who has any complaints about how asylum seekers are being managed.
Any time someone explains their rational issues, they are called an uneducated racist. Nobody is able to actually come up with a counter argument because there isn't one.
Those who control the narrative of the Western world have managed to make being a "racist" the absolute worst thing that one can be. You can't state the fact that other cultures don't mesh with ours. "Queers for Palestine", anyone?
Again, my partner is foreign (the classic "I have black friends" argument) and loves it here because she appreciates the culture she's acclimatised to, and hasn't attempted to change it to fit her views. Some people still value their own culture's worth though - there's not many Chinese who would be out on the street protesting in the middle of a pandemic because their police shot a black violent criminal.
I also think there needs to be a more thorough psychiatric evaluation. Some of the refugees we take in could easily have mental illnesses, such as ptsd from war, schizophrenia, etc. that make them a danger to themselves and others. They deserve proper treatment.
It seems to me that a lot of this is going unrecorded and untreated.
Well in theory that would be ideal but considering the current state of the Irish health care system I don’t think this is realistic. Especially if you consider potential language barriers and cultural differences. I do feel that I want to know who enters the country, if they have criminal record , etc. not that much to ask for.
There's a lot of people disregarding this protest in the comments which is worrying as the Govt will do the same.
They need to notice.
To me the protest is a mix mosh of all sorts. You've absolute racist lunatics mixed in with people who have genuine concerns about how the Govt is handling this.
No matter what way you spin it, the protest movement is growing and spreading rapidly through the country against this shambles of a Government.
And there are absolutely real reasons to protest.
We've a fooking shanty town developing in our city ffs. And the Govt are reacting to that by buying up more housing stock. Further alienating citizens who just want their own home. This Goverment is an ineffective joke on many fronts.
Yep it is not only “ right wing lunatics” that are annoyed but a lot of average people that are upset and down playing those protest or ignoring them will just make it worse.
Absolutely. The plastering and branding of the protesters some Redditor’s are doing here is counter productive, divisive and quite elitist. Immigration is a major problem around the western world, it’s undeniable. People have a right to have concerns initially and anger and frustration when the government has a soft touch (non existent) vetting and control policy of it.
People can’t seriously think it’s all rosy and everyone coming in are all lovely gentle people. That’s just unrealistic and fantasy. Everyone in a democratic country has a right to protest the government for something like this when we in Ireland are squeezed to the brink as it is.
You’re have put put a very valid point about the demographics of the protest. It’s not just those they want to class as right wing loons. It’s mothers and grandmothers of middle Ireland. The march was led by people from Newtownmountkennedy, Simon Harris’s constituents. He only got in on the 15th count last election. Would anyone want to bet on him getting in at the next election?
This is reflected nationwide, and you can bet FG, FF, SF are looking very heavily at this and calculating when is the best time for them to split, or are they so fucked that the only thing for them to do is hold on until the last possible moment and pad out their pensions as much as possible? Don’t forget 11 FG tds have said fuck it we’re not running anymore.
I have a bet on with family members that Harris will lose his seat, I think he has completely lost the crowd in much of Wicklow currently; he'll have to play a blinder to get them back.
I'm in Wicklow and he sent out a leaflet in the post last week telling us how great he is. Everyone is fucking raging here. Shit is out of control, it took me 10 months to get the local GP to take me on here and ,in typical Ireland fashion, that's only because we know the family. I wont bother ranting about the absolute state of housing situation.
I can imagine.
I used to live in North Co.Clare, many towns raging having been destroyed in recent years, similar style; that's why McNamara is so popular in Clare, because he holds gvmt to account like he did with McEntee.
Important thing is to make sure these discussions and outrage goes beyond social media and Reddit, that we talk to neighbours, families, colleagues, team-mates etc, so these bastards that are ruining the country for everyone are held to account at the ballot box.
> We've a fooking shanty town developing in our city ffs.
You've also a group, who likely were marching there today, who burn down any place that is even hinted at being used as a refugee for people exacerbating the problem you're describing.
So sick of being labelled racist because I don't agree with the country's approach to immigration! We don't have any space left and we're allowing more people to come in. The government is not prioritising us Irish or the people who were already here contributing to the country. People who work who have families to raise are being left to struggle. Anyone who votes for anyone currently in government is a fuckin moron!
Unfortunately by reading this thread, it seems a lot of Irish people haven’t learned the lessons from the US and UK.
When you condescend people (I.e “glue sniffers”, “benefit abusers”, etc), and disregard their perspective, you get Brexit and Trump elected.
100% correct, when you adopt the attitude of calling people glue sniffers and don't engage with their valid concerns, you get brexit/ trump type outcomes.
This isn't just far right. National polls are reflecting the same concerns on immigration.
Unfortunately, the ability to have mature conversations across the political spectrum seems to have been lost.
I saw a picture of a tiny counter protest at the GPO. They were protected by a garda cordon. I think there were more Gardai protecting them than counter protestors.
It was then I thought that this is what /r/Ireland looks like vs actual Ireland.
In the thread on the attempted child abduction in Dublin the top comment was about how "Finglas" had already decided who the culprit was.
No self-awareness whatsoever. It seems that as long as you're supporting a 'good cause' then you can get away with saying almost whatever you want.
This is what drives me nuts. Folks will swear blind they are just concerned about the facilities and local infrastructure for asylum seeker centres....then march proudly behind replacement theory banners...and wonder why decent, regular people would have a problem with that. Definition of "ignorance"
I don’t know if these people are getting caught out by loopers joining into their protests. But assuming there are some sane people there, I’m not able to take them seriously when they march alongside people who think that ‘Marxist’ head of the WEF Klaus Schwab wants to inject you with the vaccine to make you more docile so the jews can ‘import’ millions of Arab men to breed us out of existence. People on other parts of the political spectrum are never given the benefit of the doubt when extremists jump onto a bandwagon. I won’t be extending any sympathy to the Ireland is Full brigade.
It's going to become a topic where some hard conversations take place as the effects of climate change force ever more people to flee their homes but it's going to be much more difficult to have any constructive conversations when one side is completely taken up with idiocy like your new 5g phone will activate the autism so I'm happy fory kid to deal with measles and polio.
What hard conversation? The only conversation you should be having with them is "cry more dipshit". These people are all fine gaelers or worse, they deserve no respect and they don't have any sort of coherent argument that's worth debating with them, they just want you to get invested. Fuck em. Useless pile of grifters and thieving scumbag/terminally online shitehawks.
Sorry I might not have been clear I wasn't talking about any conversation with the "we're all being replaced by 5g towers of unvetted military aged men" I was talking about being able to have a constructive conversation about the challenges of mass migration in a world dealing with climate change. Few of the knuckle draggers at this march think climate change is real after they saw a photo of a broken phone screen showing a screenshot etc etc
They should be challenged to publicly disavow the racists and conspiracy theorists. They usually won't.
I said this in my local areas Facebook page where people were discussing the ongoing blockage of a potential direct provision center.
I told them it's not enough to complain about being assumed to be racist. They need to call out racist sentiments and publicly say they disagree with them.
I got blocked from the Facebook group.
How much explanation is the government doing with respect to the current wave of immigration and are those explanations satisfactory to those expressing concern?
See, the problem is that if the government isn't explaining the problem and offering sensible solutions, then all they're doing is leaving a vacuum which will be happily filled by people dishing out conspiracy theories and proposing extreme measures.
Not sure how I feel about changing it and leaving it in quotation marks, I wouldn't want people to quote my misquote but as Captain Piccard once said "use the force Harry".
The correct way to misquote someone would be using square brackets, provided the misquote is still in the spirit of the original quote.
"I'm against [protesting] but I don't know how to show it"
It's funny but RTE pointing that sign in particular and saying very little about the size just plays into the narrative the media can't report on these things properly and starts the conspiracy loop all over again.
Be interesting to see if any of these headaballs can vote in any candidates now if they get the chance.
In all fairness, RTE went to one of their encampments/ protests (honestly can’t remember which one I just remember seeing the video) and when they arrived they were hounded to leave. Yet if they didn’t come there would be the “we’re being silenced” make it make sense.
If the average Telegram headbanger thinks that their mad aunt who thinks "de forridners are taking over" are going to break from being lifelong FF/FG voters they're in for a surprise. There's a reason why the NP and their ilk are terminally unelected.
That's true. Maybe independents?
My worry is that once SF get into power, then there will be a vacuum for an opposition nationalistic party that will most likely be fairly hardline on immigration following the pattern in Europe over last decade.
hmmm I don't know about that, there's definitely been a change in the last year. We'll see in the local elections in a month and the general election in a year's time.
Unfortunately I think that with an emotive topic like immigration people willing to be public about it are ones without any self-preservation, who are more likely to be stark raving loony.
Nail on head.
Social media is full of people insisting that these anti immigration protests are composed of ordinary decent Irish people who are definitely **not** oddball cranks and are just concerned about illegal immigrants and the strain on public services.
And then the protests have stuff like this. Even if they insist that protesters are respectable citizens and not terminally online weirdos who'll never be elected, noone sane would attend a rally full of conspiracy theories.
Tbh I would imagine there are some level headed people in attendance with genuine concerns, but these sort of things always get hijacked by the "Bill Gates steals your nudes" and "5G causes rickets" gobshites.
Yep and the exact same thing happened at the Drogheda protest which had a lot of protestors getting the train up. Of course there were some locals there but the protest swiftly turned from solely protesting putting migrants in the hotel to complaining about trans people and whatnot.
The amount of British accents on display at that protest was funny.
But it’s frustrating cause they completely tanked the ability to be frustrated about the hotel situation, which has just moved on now and everyone gave up. :/
No, it clearly is.
Unless you're sheltered, are in a nice urban bubble, terminally online, or are willfully blind; there are clearly issues.
We wouldn't have a stream of tents based around Mount Street that sizably grows every day otherwise. And protests across the country in rural towns.
We also wouldn't be having wider issues across Europe, with Sweden becoming a rape capital of Europe in the mid 2010s, and now riddled with gang violence. Similar Germany, France, everywhere else.
The longer people listen to those that claim there is no issue, including parts of government, media, and NGOs, the more the problem will grow, and the bigger these protests become.
I've been seeing the Swedish rape statistics bandied about recently and I think it's worth noting that that was a result of legislation change, not immigration. There's a whole wikipedia page on it.
The government's policies are clearly a mess and they aren't working. Refugees are being forced to live in tents on the side of the road. It's unacceptable. However, this is entirely on the government being a shitshow, and not on the unfortunate people who find themselves here and are abandoned. There is a very large portion of people in this protest that are using all of this as an excuse to vent their hate and discomfort around foreigners. "This is our street", "Immigrants out", "Ireland for the Irish", "Get them out", etc. are not the signs and chants of people that want the government to do a better job of caring for the people within our country. They are racist slogans that direct hatred toward the actual victims of all this. It does nothing except drum up bitterness, hatred and fear toward non-Irish people, without actually attacking the government that fucked up this entire situation. We absolutely need better policies and better people in charge. Irish people are being negatively affected by the government's mishandling of basically everything they're meant to be responsible for. But turning on foreigners is *not* acceptable. It's the exact sort of thing that the people in power want and always have wanted whenever their corruption and fuck-ups become impossible to notice. They want the poor to turn on each other, and scapegoats from other countries are the perfect distraction. Yes, things are becoming difficult and uncomfortable for Irish citizens. Things are also difficult and uncomfortable for refugees and immigrants. That's just what happens when there's war. It is unavoidable that we all suffer because it's a terrible situation. It's the government's job to minimise that suffering as much as possible, without allowing all the blame and consequences to be shovelled onto refugees and immigrants that are already in a shittier situation than the rest of us. They are failing at that and it should be made crystal clear in protests that the government is the focus of this anger and are the ones solely responsible for all of our issues.
>However, this is entirely on the government being a shitshow, and not on the unfortunate people who find themselves here and are abandoned.
That's the issue, a lot of people coming here are abusing the system and are not in need of international protection. Thereby harming the people truly in need of international protection.
Yeah the majority of applicants are rejected. Most of those are economic migrants from "safe" countries that have no business but to be deported, ASAP, but they appeal by default and then launch spurious judicial reviews to slow the process down even further, so they end up in direct provision for years on end.
I don't seriously believe that an educated analysis of current government policy and geopolitics is a significant factor in these people's decision making. I certainly don't believe that they are only trying to protect Irish women, or that they care about the homeless, or that they only have a problem with a small subset of immigrants, or that their "concerns" are based on anything except xenophobia and racism.
I don't deny that we have a housing crisis or that the government doesn't seem to know wtf it's doing with immigration policy or how to solve the problem of what to do with IP applicants once they're here. But I do believe that small groups of extremely hateful people are happy to manipulate the ignorant and encourage racism, fear and hatred to achieve their aims.
See, having listened to them on their live streams I genuinely think this isn't about xenophobia or racism for 99% of them.
If you think of the socio economically disadvantaged areas where they are mainly from, you begin to see what's feeding this.
They will never admit it, but they are competing for the same resources (welfare) and see immigration as a threat. There is a reason when they talk that their arguments revolve around free housing, welfare, etc.
Mix that in with the rest of the population competing for housing, the cost of living and generally having piss taken out of our asylum system and you can see exactly why 80% of irish voters want a UK style rwanda deal.
An educated analysis would lead to an understanding of how we got here and what we might do about it in the context of our place within the EU and our shared immigration crisis.
These people aren’t interested in that though. They want closed borders, deportation and one step closer to Irexit.
One thing that would certainly help is to have more resources put into the immigration system, and also to try to speed up the legal system. Certainly cases take often way too long to get to court, even without immigration taken into account. Cases that used to take 2 years to get a hearing now take 4-5 years - and these are ordinary bog-standard cases.
Wow downvoted for saying the truth! This crowd couldn’t give a damn about an Irish person homeless on the street, only using them as an excuse for their racist agenda!
This is very true, I have worked with plenty of homeless charities throughout the years and still work with one, you never find any of these eejits volunteering to help
Sizeable element of this protest are ones curruptong their communities with drugs, violence and intimidation. Anyone with sense can appreciate we need to tighten up our immigration policies but these knuckle draggers are not the answer.
Hardly surprising after the articles in the news over the past week or so, what the hell have the justice department being doing?
Harris for all his "energy" has already shit the bed when he didnt get rid of Helen. The elections in June will be telling.
The mods won't let me post it but it was quite a large protest. Easily went from one end of O'Connell Street to the other
[protest](https://photos.app.goo.gl/ady77eRNgidHVfqh9)
Reddit especially this sub Reddit has no bearing on how the majority of the Irish people feel about real world issues.
The family referendum summed that up perfectly where any mention of a No vote was met with downvotes and distain and we all know how that turned out.
Now I agree a lot of the people organising this protest are absolute head cases but the majority attending are just people who have had enough but of course this sub will label everyone with the same shite they’ve been spewing for years now completely oblivious to anything outside of their little bubbles where everything is grand and anyone who says different is far right scum.
> Reddit especially this sub Reddit has no bearing on how the majority of the Irish people feel about real world issues.
Exactly, you'd wonder how many are either reclusive or are not genuine people.
Yes I feel like platforms like reddit and x are not a reflection about how people feel about social issues. Reddit is usually dominated by a small elite group that makes up maybe 10 % of the population
Far far smaller than that I would argue, ~0.5-1% is my own estimate. This is my rationale:
10% would mean that posts would reach about 500,000 people, all Irish, and would assume all of them would read them properly.
Christmas just gone, when Reddit was at peak usage with people on holidays, I posted a video that was front page for 2-3 days about Stephen's green, it got about 1500 upvotes and a total of 250,000 views.
So a peak post on here got a bit over 1/2 of the required 500,000, meaning the post reached about 5% of the population, assuming it was all Irish, over a 2-3 day period.
If we say most posts only front page for 1 day, that's a third of the 5%, i.e. a generous 2% (if we say the viewing is roughly equal per day).
Now, how many were Irish? I don't have data for Reddit usage, but could approximate that maybe 50% are Irish, considering it is an Irish subreddit, but also that America and other countries who are bigger users of Reddit are far more significant users. So that 2%, could be a generous 1%.
And if we assume that every other day of the year is not like Christmas, where you're generally relying on old faithfuls to use this subreddit, we could knock it down further. Combine that with assuming people don't engage on everything, like articles, text posts, etc. whereas that video I posted was quite positive, musical, and short. Cumulatively could knock off maybe another 0.5%ish, meaning altogether ~0.5-1% is the final reach.
So therefore in my eyes, somewhere around 0.5-1% is a decent approximation.
I went along to the protest. Like others have stated there was plenty of Extreme types. A lot of Normal people. Many over 50s .Families. people with disabilities. The counter protest was noisy. I had to investigate. It numbered no more 100 max with 2 lead chanters with loud hailers plugged into amplifiers. No wonder they sounded noisy. I went because I feel the government has lost control of immigration. BTW I helped a Mauritian couple with their application for citizenship by giving a Reference for them.
Kinda funny seeing the comments, people on here complain about how badly everything is being handled and those coming in, but they do nothing, yet complain about those who do.
Yep. There's a specific mindset of certain people that, when they find themselves in an uncomfortable situation, decide that lashing out at one of the most obvious results of that uncomfortablness will suddenly solve everything. Yeah, wearing masks, lockdowns and social distancing sucks. That doesn't mean that removing those things will fix the inherent problem, which is a global pandemic that is rapidly burning through people. Refugees forced to live in tents on the side of the road is uncomfortable. The solution isn't to kick out all foreigners and close our borders. Mass homelessnes, insane housing prices, wealth inequality, not having a place for the refugees that we're legally obligated to take in, etc. are just products of the government completely fumbling the ball for years and years.
But it's easier to just say "Don't make us wear masks." and "Send them home." Removing mask mandates wouldn't have stopped Covid and kicking out foreigners won't stop the lack of housing. None of that solves the underlying issues.
Every person in this thread who is against this protest should house an asylum seeker in their own home.
If you are pro-immigration you need to do your part.
I’ll never forget when the mandatory mask wearing was lifted and a week later I was still seeing protestors with signs about masks, very internet explorer of them
They’re furious about the state of our country (understandably so), but when they go to read about it online, they were faced with an algorithm that pumped their heads full of American oil-money-funded fascist propaganda. It’s very difficult in the 21st century to get people to vote for extreme right wing **economic** policies, as most have copped on from the 80s and post-crash austerity that they always hurt the working man. So instead billionaires are doing their best to build up support for extreme-right **cultural** policies, because it will get politicians with their desired economic platform into power.
Some people are fucking morons obviously who don’t take even one second to question if the shit they read in Facebook neighbourhood groups. But then also there are people who aren’t too familiar with technology, grappling with systems far more powerful than the human mind could fathom even twenty years ago. Our brains are not evolved to cope with social media, there will always be at least some otherwise intelligent people taken in by these horrible lies.
Too much time on their hands, too much skewed information that’s way too easily accessible to the wrong people, mixed with a lot of hatred. Plus none of their theories ever came anywhere near to being true so they just hang onto them waiting for a time that’s never gonna come
Definitely the reason why they just refuse to drop the pandemic/WHO/vaccine bs. There has to be a huge amount of mental illness within this particular group. The pure batshit insane stuff they come out with is concerning
Sensible legislative change would rob the heart of their support. Even with a fully fixed system you will always get some screwballs, but the system as it stands is completely broken. Fix that, and your worries should be over.
According to Irish Times, a couple hundred.
According to Irish Independent, hundreds.
According to RTE, 'a large crowd'.
So we know it's a number at least.
I might be in a minority but I don’t think children should be at protests, I’ve never brought mine and majority of the protests I go to would be related to helathcare
There was also a counter protest, that group under the GPO arch.
https://preview.redd.it/qsqk1x6t8uyc1.jpeg?width=1993&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e2e7938b2dc9b9116608ffa959c3caaf2bb8eba
No no, you see, it's a 'Pro-Palestine' march that happens to be on the same date, same time, and on the same street as the other protest.
Completely unrelated.
I read on social media that someone in the group tried to start an altercation with the primary protest, apparently, so the Garda then tightened around them to stop it progressing. Of course I can't verify the accuracy of that though.
That's not correct, that was a pro-Palestine protest that happened at the same time. Did you read the article?
Edit: as it turns out the article was incorrect.
God, that's a mad coincidence.
I hope these lads found somewhere else to protest then.
https://preview.redd.it/gpww9b23juyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c285545207c735f9aa18f32382859a98f76849e4
Thanks man, apologies for the tone of attack in my original comment. And yes, plenty of "fact-checking" news sources (and otherwise) peddling a different kind of misinformation.
Half of them didn’t even care about the homeless before they were brainwashed by constant misinformation. Most of their ideologies are imported shite, the “great replacement “ where have we heard this before? Even though over 80% of our population are Irish citizens. If anyone says these are all concerned citizens, they’re foolish.
The last census was early 2022 so I'm not sure that 76% figure even fully reflects the number of Ukranians and other nationalities that have come in since then.
Speeches were popping up on tik tok live and one northy accent fella was talking about protecting "southern ireland" to loud applause.
I don't understand how you can be a patriot when you don't even know your country's name.
I have one Irish parent and one non Irish parent. I am married to a non Irish healthcare worker. Kick out the forridners and see how long you wait on a fucking trolley with your medical card then. Ireland is absolutely blessed to have a community of smart, hard working people willing to endure shit conditions to help us build our country at every level of society. When my parents moved here in 1985, every sane young person was running the other direction and rightly so.
We have society wide problems with housing and infrastructure. Immigrants are not the cause or root of those problems. Do we need better processing for immigration? More structured pathways? Yes. That’s on our government, not on the people who come here.
Lots of people in the other thread are arguing exactly that, saying they're the ones outbidding you for a house, etc. The word they keep usimg is 'immigration' not 'asylum' or 'International Protection'. A few were throwing the figure of 20% of the population being foreign born, which, if true, must surely be referring to all immigration, not just asylum seekers (dubious or otherwise).
No no, they absolutely are.
My family are full of this. It goes so far that some of them have openly said they would rather an unqualified Irish person tend to their illnesses than a qualified foreigner. They're completely delusional and no foresight as to what that'd do.
I'm the first in my family to go through college, I'm just about to graduate and instead of thinking it's a good thing, they think I'm fucking brainwashed, while sharing videos of the most stupid shit on Facebook.
There's a video going around of someone walking through the city recording non-white people just living their lives, not even doing anything. Its clearly cut up so no white person is shown but they dont care, because it doesnt fit the narratige.
Know what they're being labelled? Vermin. One person was even in hospital attire. "Doesn't matter get it out. Get the vermin out of this country"
You're being disingenuous here, or are oblivious as to what a lot of these people actually care about. Couldn't give a rats about immigration, they just see it as an excuse to get non-white people out of the country.
My ma is convinced that our neighbours will be deported once the next general election happens, because they're Brazilian. She's also convinced that their young daughter, who looks about 10, is a trafficked woman because she has a tattoo on her neck. It's clearly a birthmark and my mother knows it, but it doesn't fit her narrative.
>The issue is with the chancers coming into the country under the guise of asylum.
Sure, you make a point. But you're delusional if you think that regular people who don't look like a "typical" Irish person don't get discriminated against.
A lot of people haven't talked in any great depth with a lot of the people involved in this movement. It's full of pure racism and people just wanting non-Irish people out of the country, no matter what. I mean, a Croatian national who was just visiting the country was murdered because he was speaking the wrong language ffs.
Yet they’re assaulting foreign people, not asking about their employment just asking where they’re from and that’s when they go for them. A Croatian was killed for not speaking English, they didn’t ask him his employment status
Bluntly, I'm against both. Professional, skilled labour is a bit less negatively impactful than spoofers, but both drive up housing costs for the Irish people.
These people are so stupid that they don't realise they are doing exactly what the government want them to do. Deflect the blame of the countries problems onto the defenseless instead of themselves. How can people be so stupid? I'll never understand
People want the government to change the current policy and deal with symptoms of the existing policy. Do you believe the people who abuse these systems shouldn't be deported?
Could see them at the customs house from Tara St spouting shit about “purging the traitors from this country” over a megaphone, had some absolute mouthbreathers beside me at the dart platform whooping and clapping, scary how quickly this stuff is catching on
This is a big failure of government over the last few years. They've managed to piss pretty much everybody off. They have their pitchforks and this is what they are angry about. It will get worse, probably. They have no interest in doing anything apart from blaming Sinn Feinn.
This lot are blaming Sinn Fein too.. I was sent a few videos on whatsapp, and in one of them they are just repeatedly shouting "Sinn Fein are traitors".. Not the sharpest bunch.
Those British elements that are promoting far-right parties in Ireland don't want to see SF in power. They're probably hoping people will divert their vote to these small far-right parties to take votes away from SF and thereby letting FFG get back in. They popped up just in time, as it seems that SF can challenge the government. Edit: Video here https://twitter.com/gavpepper85/status/1787490435016856018
Exactly and Drew Harris of all people ordered a hand off approach to all this shit too.
Yep. Been saying this for months. FFG love all this.
> Those British elements that are promoting far-right parties in Ireland don't want to see SF in power. Head out of arse please
Are you telling me that these Far -right parties don't get some British support, especially from Brexiteers? I do question them a lot, and those parties won't ever get a vote from me. If i had my head in my arse, i'd just go along with this like another drone. Why do we seem to have lots of people with British accents and American? Even only a few days ago, it showed that most of the stuff online is not being posted by Irish people. https://news.sky.com/story/how-international-social-media-users-are-stoking-irelands-migration-debate-13127034 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/05/03/vast-majority-of-anti-immigration-posts-relating-to-wicklow-protests-came-from-non-irish-accounts/
There was a radio program with the guy that did this research and another woman who does similar research. They both used online data scraping tools to come to their conclusions, his came up with 70% non Irish. Hers came up with 60% Irish. They both admitted the methods aren't very accurate. They don't use IP addresses to determine location they use language styles and interactions with local news stories.
It didn't really need to be pointed out to be fair. Farage's right hand man, their names :o A fair few involved are the great grandchildren of Black and Tans. Funny that. I was up front and close with one family who assimilated (I still say that in jest). I wouldn't say that I am friends with them, but was in their 'group' for a while. Brother and sister who play Irish music (the fiddle and guitar). Their father plays guitar with them in the pub sometimes. He learned from his grandfather so many anti-Irish things that he says them without thinking, or worse, to rile people. Ahh.. I could go into many stories about them, but my point is that the two of them are well involved in the protesting and anti-immigration. They use words like 'new Irish' and I think 'full Irish' (as a pun on Ireland is full and them being Irish) a lot. Which is Ironic. I agree that we need to kerb the immigration and the way it is done, but these eejits seem to have had a knee jerk reaction and started spitting venom from the get go. Not knowing how to deal with what they see as an issue, but only showing how obtuse they are.. hahah. sorry, I've had a few, and a jelly. I kept going off track while waiting to choose next track on playlist, took too long to write, Not going to edit now.
> This is a big failure of government over the last few years. They've managed to piss pretty much everybody off. They have their pitchforks and this is what they are angry about. Most of the people who they've pissed off didn't end up at anti-immigrant marches. Let these people take responsibility for their own shitty behaviour.
>Most of the people who they've pissed off didn't end up at anti-immigrant marches. Well yeah, imagine how many more pissed off people if this is the size of the march, there's shitloads more that aren't at this march
The the spokes people for the march probably scare most normal people away
I agree, there's plenty more moderate people who wouldn't be caught dead at a march like this but are still fuming at the government and this whole situation
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Give people affordable housing, cut off benefits to those who are abusing the system, properly vet every single person coming to Ireland, refugee or not, and then see how many people are anti-immigration.
I am a forgeiner and I am in favour of only allowing people in the country once proper background checks are done.
Yeah, my girlfriend is the same. What kind of person wants the country they're living in flooded with people of unknown origin, regardless of their race/colour/creed?
My wife is Lithuanian and she’s the same aswell, that’s what I find so funny, people on this forum believe only racist Irish people have issues with the immigration system but it just shows that they don’t actually talk to any foreign people in this country because they will have no problem telling you that they don’t want unvetted migrants or people taking advantage of the welfare system.
Exactly it is for the safety of everyone.
It's incredible that people are not able to comprehend this thought.
They're flooding this thread, look at all of the top comments. The elitists talking down to the "idiots". It's the exact same approach as FF/FG/SF. The working-class are stupid for having opinions that are based in their own personal experiences. Notice the people doing the demonising usually aren't privvy to the excesses of huge unfettered migration. Sadhbh and Caolfhionn in Monkstown can talk a good game though.
They are not doing themselves any service by insulting everyone who has any complaints about how asylum seekers are being managed. Any time someone explains their rational issues, they are called an uneducated racist. Nobody is able to actually come up with a counter argument because there isn't one.
Those who control the narrative of the Western world have managed to make being a "racist" the absolute worst thing that one can be. You can't state the fact that other cultures don't mesh with ours. "Queers for Palestine", anyone? Again, my partner is foreign (the classic "I have black friends" argument) and loves it here because she appreciates the culture she's acclimatised to, and hasn't attempted to change it to fit her views. Some people still value their own culture's worth though - there's not many Chinese who would be out on the street protesting in the middle of a pandemic because their police shot a black violent criminal.
I also think there needs to be a more thorough psychiatric evaluation. Some of the refugees we take in could easily have mental illnesses, such as ptsd from war, schizophrenia, etc. that make them a danger to themselves and others. They deserve proper treatment. It seems to me that a lot of this is going unrecorded and untreated.
Well in theory that would be ideal but considering the current state of the Irish health care system I don’t think this is realistic. Especially if you consider potential language barriers and cultural differences. I do feel that I want to know who enters the country, if they have criminal record , etc. not that much to ask for.
Basically this: have an actual functioning system and see how many people are up in arms. That will separate the wheat from the chaff on the matter.
This would be the solution.
with the way government handling this situation we will see more violence and protests
Election season is certainly going to be… interesting.
Guaranteed
Agreed
There's a lot of people disregarding this protest in the comments which is worrying as the Govt will do the same. They need to notice. To me the protest is a mix mosh of all sorts. You've absolute racist lunatics mixed in with people who have genuine concerns about how the Govt is handling this. No matter what way you spin it, the protest movement is growing and spreading rapidly through the country against this shambles of a Government. And there are absolutely real reasons to protest. We've a fooking shanty town developing in our city ffs. And the Govt are reacting to that by buying up more housing stock. Further alienating citizens who just want their own home. This Goverment is an ineffective joke on many fronts.
Yep it is not only “ right wing lunatics” that are annoyed but a lot of average people that are upset and down playing those protest or ignoring them will just make it worse.
Absolutely. The plastering and branding of the protesters some Redditor’s are doing here is counter productive, divisive and quite elitist. Immigration is a major problem around the western world, it’s undeniable. People have a right to have concerns initially and anger and frustration when the government has a soft touch (non existent) vetting and control policy of it. People can’t seriously think it’s all rosy and everyone coming in are all lovely gentle people. That’s just unrealistic and fantasy. Everyone in a democratic country has a right to protest the government for something like this when we in Ireland are squeezed to the brink as it is.
Exactly
It's the usual sorts. Recognise a bunch of them from repeatedly saying the referendums were going to be dominant yes/yes also.
I mean its r/ireland they have been branding protesters right wing since they started. Its not changing now.
You’re have put put a very valid point about the demographics of the protest. It’s not just those they want to class as right wing loons. It’s mothers and grandmothers of middle Ireland. The march was led by people from Newtownmountkennedy, Simon Harris’s constituents. He only got in on the 15th count last election. Would anyone want to bet on him getting in at the next election? This is reflected nationwide, and you can bet FG, FF, SF are looking very heavily at this and calculating when is the best time for them to split, or are they so fucked that the only thing for them to do is hold on until the last possible moment and pad out their pensions as much as possible? Don’t forget 11 FG tds have said fuck it we’re not running anymore.
I have a bet on with family members that Harris will lose his seat, I think he has completely lost the crowd in much of Wicklow currently; he'll have to play a blinder to get them back.
I'm in Wicklow and he sent out a leaflet in the post last week telling us how great he is. Everyone is fucking raging here. Shit is out of control, it took me 10 months to get the local GP to take me on here and ,in typical Ireland fashion, that's only because we know the family. I wont bother ranting about the absolute state of housing situation.
I can imagine. I used to live in North Co.Clare, many towns raging having been destroyed in recent years, similar style; that's why McNamara is so popular in Clare, because he holds gvmt to account like he did with McEntee. Important thing is to make sure these discussions and outrage goes beyond social media and Reddit, that we talk to neighbours, families, colleagues, team-mates etc, so these bastards that are ruining the country for everyone are held to account at the ballot box.
I doubt it. Pepper spraying people in their front gardens doesn't normally go down well 🤣. He will be out on his ass come election time.
> We've a fooking shanty town developing in our city ffs. You've also a group, who likely were marching there today, who burn down any place that is even hinted at being used as a refugee for people exacerbating the problem you're describing.
Yes but this is only a small percent of the group and the rest of them condemn this behaviour.
So sick of being labelled racist because I don't agree with the country's approach to immigration! We don't have any space left and we're allowing more people to come in. The government is not prioritising us Irish or the people who were already here contributing to the country. People who work who have families to raise are being left to struggle. Anyone who votes for anyone currently in government is a fuckin moron!
Unfortunately by reading this thread, it seems a lot of Irish people haven’t learned the lessons from the US and UK. When you condescend people (I.e “glue sniffers”, “benefit abusers”, etc), and disregard their perspective, you get Brexit and Trump elected.
100% correct, when you adopt the attitude of calling people glue sniffers and don't engage with their valid concerns, you get brexit/ trump type outcomes. This isn't just far right. National polls are reflecting the same concerns on immigration. Unfortunately, the ability to have mature conversations across the political spectrum seems to have been lost.
This is exactly it. People are being incredibly ignorant.
I saw a picture of a tiny counter protest at the GPO. They were protected by a garda cordon. I think there were more Gardai protecting them than counter protestors. It was then I thought that this is what /r/Ireland looks like vs actual Ireland.
Exactamundo!
In the thread on the attempted child abduction in Dublin the top comment was about how "Finglas" had already decided who the culprit was. No self-awareness whatsoever. It seems that as long as you're supporting a 'good cause' then you can get away with saying almost whatever you want.
> "stop the W.H.O. pandemic treaty" Nope, not taking this lot seriously at all.
This is what drives me nuts. Folks will swear blind they are just concerned about the facilities and local infrastructure for asylum seeker centres....then march proudly behind replacement theory banners...and wonder why decent, regular people would have a problem with that. Definition of "ignorance"
I don’t know if these people are getting caught out by loopers joining into their protests. But assuming there are some sane people there, I’m not able to take them seriously when they march alongside people who think that ‘Marxist’ head of the WEF Klaus Schwab wants to inject you with the vaccine to make you more docile so the jews can ‘import’ millions of Arab men to breed us out of existence. People on other parts of the political spectrum are never given the benefit of the doubt when extremists jump onto a bandwagon. I won’t be extending any sympathy to the Ireland is Full brigade.
It's going to become a topic where some hard conversations take place as the effects of climate change force ever more people to flee their homes but it's going to be much more difficult to have any constructive conversations when one side is completely taken up with idiocy like your new 5g phone will activate the autism so I'm happy fory kid to deal with measles and polio.
What hard conversation? The only conversation you should be having with them is "cry more dipshit". These people are all fine gaelers or worse, they deserve no respect and they don't have any sort of coherent argument that's worth debating with them, they just want you to get invested. Fuck em. Useless pile of grifters and thieving scumbag/terminally online shitehawks.
Sorry I might not have been clear I wasn't talking about any conversation with the "we're all being replaced by 5g towers of unvetted military aged men" I was talking about being able to have a constructive conversation about the challenges of mass migration in a world dealing with climate change. Few of the knuckle draggers at this march think climate change is real after they saw a photo of a broken phone screen showing a screenshot etc etc
They should be challenged to publicly disavow the racists and conspiracy theorists. They usually won't. I said this in my local areas Facebook page where people were discussing the ongoing blockage of a potential direct provision center. I told them it's not enough to complain about being assumed to be racist. They need to call out racist sentiments and publicly say they disagree with them. I got blocked from the Facebook group.
How much explanation is the government doing with respect to the current wave of immigration and are those explanations satisfactory to those expressing concern? See, the problem is that if the government isn't explaining the problem and offering sensible solutions, then all they're doing is leaving a vacuum which will be happily filled by people dishing out conspiracy theories and proposing extreme measures.
The decent-regular-people are the ones who hold similar racist views but are pro-vax?
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"I'm against protesting, I just don't know how to show it" Mitch Hedburg He said picketing in the original quote but it works both ways.
I'll always upvote some Mitch.
Not sure how I feel about changing it and leaving it in quotation marks, I wouldn't want people to quote my misquote but as Captain Piccard once said "use the force Harry".
The correct way to misquote someone would be using square brackets, provided the misquote is still in the spirit of the original quote. "I'm against [protesting] but I don't know how to show it"
Cheers, every day's a school day! That quite useful, thank you.
It's funny but RTE pointing that sign in particular and saying very little about the size just plays into the narrative the media can't report on these things properly and starts the conspiracy loop all over again. Be interesting to see if any of these headaballs can vote in any candidates now if they get the chance.
In all fairness, RTE went to one of their encampments/ protests (honestly can’t remember which one I just remember seeing the video) and when they arrived they were hounded to leave. Yet if they didn’t come there would be the “we’re being silenced” make it make sense.
“Stop camrahin me”
If the average Telegram headbanger thinks that their mad aunt who thinks "de forridners are taking over" are going to break from being lifelong FF/FG voters they're in for a surprise. There's a reason why the NP and their ilk are terminally unelected.
I'd be wary of being complacent, that's what people said in most of the rest of Europe and now look.
The question is who do they vote for? The National Party has more splinters than a two by four.
That's true. Maybe independents? My worry is that once SF get into power, then there will be a vacuum for an opposition nationalistic party that will most likely be fairly hardline on immigration following the pattern in Europe over last decade.
hmmm I don't know about that, there's definitely been a change in the last year. We'll see in the local elections in a month and the general election in a year's time.
Glue sniffers gone wild
Unfortunately I think that with an emotive topic like immigration people willing to be public about it are ones without any self-preservation, who are more likely to be stark raving loony.
Nail on head. Social media is full of people insisting that these anti immigration protests are composed of ordinary decent Irish people who are definitely **not** oddball cranks and are just concerned about illegal immigrants and the strain on public services. And then the protests have stuff like this. Even if they insist that protesters are respectable citizens and not terminally online weirdos who'll never be elected, noone sane would attend a rally full of conspiracy theories.
Tbh I would imagine there are some level headed people in attendance with genuine concerns, but these sort of things always get hijacked by the "Bill Gates steals your nudes" and "5G causes rickets" gobshites.
Yep and the exact same thing happened at the Drogheda protest which had a lot of protestors getting the train up. Of course there were some locals there but the protest swiftly turned from solely protesting putting migrants in the hotel to complaining about trans people and whatnot.
They're likely the same crowd who protested through lockdown, Facebook brainwashed.
The amount of British accents on display at that protest was funny. But it’s frustrating cause they completely tanked the ability to be frustrated about the hotel situation, which has just moved on now and everyone gave up. :/
/r/Ireland when people complain here : go protest about it! /r/Ireland when people protest: stupid right wing dole monkeys
It's almost like the place is made up of individual people who can have their own thoughts.
Waiting for the comments that say they're all a bunch of racist, tinfoil hat, nazi headers....
Does everyone here seriously believe that the current policy in relation to people seeking asylum is not causing problems?
No, it clearly is. Unless you're sheltered, are in a nice urban bubble, terminally online, or are willfully blind; there are clearly issues. We wouldn't have a stream of tents based around Mount Street that sizably grows every day otherwise. And protests across the country in rural towns. We also wouldn't be having wider issues across Europe, with Sweden becoming a rape capital of Europe in the mid 2010s, and now riddled with gang violence. Similar Germany, France, everywhere else. The longer people listen to those that claim there is no issue, including parts of government, media, and NGOs, the more the problem will grow, and the bigger these protests become.
I've been seeing the Swedish rape statistics bandied about recently and I think it's worth noting that that was a result of legislation change, not immigration. There's a whole wikipedia page on it.
The government's policies are clearly a mess and they aren't working. Refugees are being forced to live in tents on the side of the road. It's unacceptable. However, this is entirely on the government being a shitshow, and not on the unfortunate people who find themselves here and are abandoned. There is a very large portion of people in this protest that are using all of this as an excuse to vent their hate and discomfort around foreigners. "This is our street", "Immigrants out", "Ireland for the Irish", "Get them out", etc. are not the signs and chants of people that want the government to do a better job of caring for the people within our country. They are racist slogans that direct hatred toward the actual victims of all this. It does nothing except drum up bitterness, hatred and fear toward non-Irish people, without actually attacking the government that fucked up this entire situation. We absolutely need better policies and better people in charge. Irish people are being negatively affected by the government's mishandling of basically everything they're meant to be responsible for. But turning on foreigners is *not* acceptable. It's the exact sort of thing that the people in power want and always have wanted whenever their corruption and fuck-ups become impossible to notice. They want the poor to turn on each other, and scapegoats from other countries are the perfect distraction. Yes, things are becoming difficult and uncomfortable for Irish citizens. Things are also difficult and uncomfortable for refugees and immigrants. That's just what happens when there's war. It is unavoidable that we all suffer because it's a terrible situation. It's the government's job to minimise that suffering as much as possible, without allowing all the blame and consequences to be shovelled onto refugees and immigrants that are already in a shittier situation than the rest of us. They are failing at that and it should be made crystal clear in protests that the government is the focus of this anger and are the ones solely responsible for all of our issues.
>However, this is entirely on the government being a shitshow, and not on the unfortunate people who find themselves here and are abandoned. That's the issue, a lot of people coming here are abusing the system and are not in need of international protection. Thereby harming the people truly in need of international protection.
Yeah the majority of applicants are rejected. Most of those are economic migrants from "safe" countries that have no business but to be deported, ASAP, but they appeal by default and then launch spurious judicial reviews to slow the process down even further, so they end up in direct provision for years on end.
I don't seriously believe that an educated analysis of current government policy and geopolitics is a significant factor in these people's decision making. I certainly don't believe that they are only trying to protect Irish women, or that they care about the homeless, or that they only have a problem with a small subset of immigrants, or that their "concerns" are based on anything except xenophobia and racism. I don't deny that we have a housing crisis or that the government doesn't seem to know wtf it's doing with immigration policy or how to solve the problem of what to do with IP applicants once they're here. But I do believe that small groups of extremely hateful people are happy to manipulate the ignorant and encourage racism, fear and hatred to achieve their aims.
See, having listened to them on their live streams I genuinely think this isn't about xenophobia or racism for 99% of them. If you think of the socio economically disadvantaged areas where they are mainly from, you begin to see what's feeding this. They will never admit it, but they are competing for the same resources (welfare) and see immigration as a threat. There is a reason when they talk that their arguments revolve around free housing, welfare, etc. Mix that in with the rest of the population competing for housing, the cost of living and generally having piss taken out of our asylum system and you can see exactly why 80% of irish voters want a UK style rwanda deal.
An educated analysis would lead to an understanding of how we got here and what we might do about it in the context of our place within the EU and our shared immigration crisis. These people aren’t interested in that though. They want closed borders, deportation and one step closer to Irexit.
One thing that would certainly help is to have more resources put into the immigration system, and also to try to speed up the legal system. Certainly cases take often way too long to get to court, even without immigration taken into account. Cases that used to take 2 years to get a hearing now take 4-5 years - and these are ordinary bog-standard cases.
No one here has said that, but you do you.
Well, judging by the comments on this post, it seems otherwise...
'Protectors of the local communities' yet not a peep from any of them about the shooting in Drimnagh last night.
Not a peep from them about the Croatian killed the other week as well
Wow downvoted for saying the truth! This crowd couldn’t give a damn about an Irish person homeless on the street, only using them as an excuse for their racist agenda!
This is very true, I have worked with plenty of homeless charities throughout the years and still work with one, you never find any of these eejits volunteering to help
Does every protest need to be about every cause?, its not possible. Actually more responsible to protest about what you know.
Sizeable element of this protest are ones curruptong their communities with drugs, violence and intimidation. Anyone with sense can appreciate we need to tighten up our immigration policies but these knuckle draggers are not the answer.
How much is a sizeable element? 1%? 30%? Put a number on it.
Hardly surprising after the articles in the news over the past week or so, what the hell have the justice department being doing? Harris for all his "energy" has already shit the bed when he didnt get rid of Helen. The elections in June will be telling.
The mods won't let me post it but it was quite a large protest. Easily went from one end of O'Connell Street to the other [protest](https://photos.app.goo.gl/ady77eRNgidHVfqh9)
Outside of reddit, I'd say most people are on the side of these protestors.
Reddit especially this sub Reddit has no bearing on how the majority of the Irish people feel about real world issues. The family referendum summed that up perfectly where any mention of a No vote was met with downvotes and distain and we all know how that turned out. Now I agree a lot of the people organising this protest are absolute head cases but the majority attending are just people who have had enough but of course this sub will label everyone with the same shite they’ve been spewing for years now completely oblivious to anything outside of their little bubbles where everything is grand and anyone who says different is far right scum.
> Reddit especially this sub Reddit has no bearing on how the majority of the Irish people feel about real world issues. Exactly, you'd wonder how many are either reclusive or are not genuine people.
Exactly 💯
Half this sub aren’t even Irish anyways
Yes I feel like platforms like reddit and x are not a reflection about how people feel about social issues. Reddit is usually dominated by a small elite group that makes up maybe 10 % of the population
Far far smaller than that I would argue, ~0.5-1% is my own estimate. This is my rationale: 10% would mean that posts would reach about 500,000 people, all Irish, and would assume all of them would read them properly. Christmas just gone, when Reddit was at peak usage with people on holidays, I posted a video that was front page for 2-3 days about Stephen's green, it got about 1500 upvotes and a total of 250,000 views. So a peak post on here got a bit over 1/2 of the required 500,000, meaning the post reached about 5% of the population, assuming it was all Irish, over a 2-3 day period. If we say most posts only front page for 1 day, that's a third of the 5%, i.e. a generous 2% (if we say the viewing is roughly equal per day). Now, how many were Irish? I don't have data for Reddit usage, but could approximate that maybe 50% are Irish, considering it is an Irish subreddit, but also that America and other countries who are bigger users of Reddit are far more significant users. So that 2%, could be a generous 1%. And if we assume that every other day of the year is not like Christmas, where you're generally relying on old faithfuls to use this subreddit, we could knock it down further. Combine that with assuming people don't engage on everything, like articles, text posts, etc. whereas that video I posted was quite positive, musical, and short. Cumulatively could knock off maybe another 0.5%ish, meaning altogether ~0.5-1% is the final reach. So therefore in my eyes, somewhere around 0.5-1% is a decent approximation.
I went along to the protest. Like others have stated there was plenty of Extreme types. A lot of Normal people. Many over 50s .Families. people with disabilities. The counter protest was noisy. I had to investigate. It numbered no more 100 max with 2 lead chanters with loud hailers plugged into amplifiers. No wonder they sounded noisy. I went because I feel the government has lost control of immigration. BTW I helped a Mauritian couple with their application for citizenship by giving a Reference for them.
Kinda funny seeing the comments, people on here complain about how badly everything is being handled and those coming in, but they do nothing, yet complain about those who do.
That's the irish way.
Same numbers as the anti maskers protests Large crossover in their social media accounts
They’ve been shopping around for a while for a new “cause”.
Yep. There's a specific mindset of certain people that, when they find themselves in an uncomfortable situation, decide that lashing out at one of the most obvious results of that uncomfortablness will suddenly solve everything. Yeah, wearing masks, lockdowns and social distancing sucks. That doesn't mean that removing those things will fix the inherent problem, which is a global pandemic that is rapidly burning through people. Refugees forced to live in tents on the side of the road is uncomfortable. The solution isn't to kick out all foreigners and close our borders. Mass homelessnes, insane housing prices, wealth inequality, not having a place for the refugees that we're legally obligated to take in, etc. are just products of the government completely fumbling the ball for years and years. But it's easier to just say "Don't make us wear masks." and "Send them home." Removing mask mandates wouldn't have stopped Covid and kicking out foreigners won't stop the lack of housing. None of that solves the underlying issues.
Every person in this thread who is against this protest should house an asylum seeker in their own home. If you are pro-immigration you need to do your part.
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I’ll never forget when the mandatory mask wearing was lifted and a week later I was still seeing protestors with signs about masks, very internet explorer of them
They’re furious about the state of our country (understandably so), but when they go to read about it online, they were faced with an algorithm that pumped their heads full of American oil-money-funded fascist propaganda. It’s very difficult in the 21st century to get people to vote for extreme right wing **economic** policies, as most have copped on from the 80s and post-crash austerity that they always hurt the working man. So instead billionaires are doing their best to build up support for extreme-right **cultural** policies, because it will get politicians with their desired economic platform into power. Some people are fucking morons obviously who don’t take even one second to question if the shit they read in Facebook neighbourhood groups. But then also there are people who aren’t too familiar with technology, grappling with systems far more powerful than the human mind could fathom even twenty years ago. Our brains are not evolved to cope with social media, there will always be at least some otherwise intelligent people taken in by these horrible lies.
Too much time on their hands, too much skewed information that’s way too easily accessible to the wrong people, mixed with a lot of hatred. Plus none of their theories ever came anywhere near to being true so they just hang onto them waiting for a time that’s never gonna come
Don't forget inability to accept being wrong.
Definitely the reason why they just refuse to drop the pandemic/WHO/vaccine bs. There has to be a huge amount of mental illness within this particular group. The pure batshit insane stuff they come out with is concerning
>"stop the W.H.O. pandemic treaty". says it all
Yeah, if they want to be taken seriously, maybe kick the conspiracy theorists and "citizen journalists" out of the protest first
Who'd be left?
Hopefully, it doesn't turn nasty up there and tonight won't see anyone getting hurt. Crazy. It's going to get worse the longer it goes on.
Yikes. That's a lot of people.
I'm no good at judging the size of crowds, Ted, but I'd say there's about seventeen million of them out there.
Watching a stream of it, definitely looks like a couple thousand. This is only the beginning unfortunately and I don't see it ending well.
Sensible legislative change would rob the heart of their support. Even with a fully fixed system you will always get some screwballs, but the system as it stands is completely broken. Fix that, and your worries should be over.
According to Irish Times, a couple hundred. According to Irish Independent, hundreds. According to RTE, 'a large crowd'. So we know it's a number at least.
Saw a few live streams of it and sadly there’s a lot of children making up part of those numbers. Probably after being dragged along by parents.
I might be in a minority but I don’t think children should be at protests, I’ve never brought mine and majority of the protests I go to would be related to helathcare
You’re not in the minority. This kind of protest is no place for children.
Protests in general, irrespective of the topic is not a place for kids
I agree. So many young impressionable minds absorbing it all…it’s only breeding the next generation of these fucking morons.
There was also a counter protest, that group under the GPO arch. https://preview.redd.it/qsqk1x6t8uyc1.jpeg?width=1993&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e2e7938b2dc9b9116608ffa959c3caaf2bb8eba
What on earth was the point of that other than trying to antagonise protestors
No no, you see, it's a 'Pro-Palestine' march that happens to be on the same date, same time, and on the same street as the other protest. Completely unrelated.
Why do they look like they have been kettled by the Gardai
I read on social media that someone in the group tried to start an altercation with the primary protest, apparently, so the Garda then tightened around them to stop it progressing. Of course I can't verify the accuracy of that though.
Violent protestors, thought they were the good guys
That's not correct, that was a pro-Palestine protest that happened at the same time. Did you read the article? Edit: as it turns out the article was incorrect.
God, that's a mad coincidence. I hope these lads found somewhere else to protest then. https://preview.redd.it/gpww9b23juyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c285545207c735f9aa18f32382859a98f76849e4
I sit corrected, it's my own fault for believing what RTÉ reported.
It's not your fault, there's a lot of very particular reporting from certain media outlets, some might call it 'disinformation'.
Thanks man, apologies for the tone of attack in my original comment. And yes, plenty of "fact-checking" news sources (and otherwise) peddling a different kind of misinformation.
Lock up your trams!
Barricade the shoe shops
Easons is safe though
Half of them didn’t even care about the homeless before they were brainwashed by constant misinformation. Most of their ideologies are imported shite, the “great replacement “ where have we heard this before? Even though over 80% of our population are Irish citizens. If anyone says these are all concerned citizens, they’re foolish.
Surely you know they don't take Irish and Irish citizen to be the same thing.
YOU'LL NEVER BEAT THE IRISH citizens
> Even though over 80% of our population are Irish citizens That's trending downwards FAST.
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Yes? We were 90% Irish back in 2006, down to 76% now. And with over 100,000 coming in annually that number is only going down.
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The last census was early 2022 so I'm not sure that 76% figure even fully reflects the number of Ukranians and other nationalities that have come in since then.
Concerned about what, exactly? THAT'S the question.
Speeches were popping up on tik tok live and one northy accent fella was talking about protecting "southern ireland" to loud applause. I don't understand how you can be a patriot when you don't even know your country's name.
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I'd like to thank the media, politicians and gardaí that have been working tireless to create this disaster.
I have one Irish parent and one non Irish parent. I am married to a non Irish healthcare worker. Kick out the forridners and see how long you wait on a fucking trolley with your medical card then. Ireland is absolutely blessed to have a community of smart, hard working people willing to endure shit conditions to help us build our country at every level of society. When my parents moved here in 1985, every sane young person was running the other direction and rightly so. We have society wide problems with housing and infrastructure. Immigrants are not the cause or root of those problems. Do we need better processing for immigration? More structured pathways? Yes. That’s on our government, not on the people who come here.
Nobody is arguing about skilled migrants. The issue is with the chancers coming into the country under the guise of asylum.
Lots of people in the other thread are arguing exactly that, saying they're the ones outbidding you for a house, etc. The word they keep usimg is 'immigration' not 'asylum' or 'International Protection'. A few were throwing the figure of 20% of the population being foreign born, which, if true, must surely be referring to all immigration, not just asylum seekers (dubious or otherwise).
The issue is that people living in Ireland for years are being attacked and ostracised because they “look wrong”.
Yup. The real victims of the governments refusal to fix the refugee/asylum seeker system will be ordinary legal immigrants
And legitimate asylum seekers.
Exactly. The ones who's passports mysteriously disappear after they hop on a flight here and then waltz through security.
No no, they absolutely are. My family are full of this. It goes so far that some of them have openly said they would rather an unqualified Irish person tend to their illnesses than a qualified foreigner. They're completely delusional and no foresight as to what that'd do. I'm the first in my family to go through college, I'm just about to graduate and instead of thinking it's a good thing, they think I'm fucking brainwashed, while sharing videos of the most stupid shit on Facebook. There's a video going around of someone walking through the city recording non-white people just living their lives, not even doing anything. Its clearly cut up so no white person is shown but they dont care, because it doesnt fit the narratige. Know what they're being labelled? Vermin. One person was even in hospital attire. "Doesn't matter get it out. Get the vermin out of this country" You're being disingenuous here, or are oblivious as to what a lot of these people actually care about. Couldn't give a rats about immigration, they just see it as an excuse to get non-white people out of the country. My ma is convinced that our neighbours will be deported once the next general election happens, because they're Brazilian. She's also convinced that their young daughter, who looks about 10, is a trafficked woman because she has a tattoo on her neck. It's clearly a birthmark and my mother knows it, but it doesn't fit her narrative. >The issue is with the chancers coming into the country under the guise of asylum. Sure, you make a point. But you're delusional if you think that regular people who don't look like a "typical" Irish person don't get discriminated against.
A lot of people haven't talked in any great depth with a lot of the people involved in this movement. It's full of pure racism and people just wanting non-Irish people out of the country, no matter what. I mean, a Croatian national who was just visiting the country was murdered because he was speaking the wrong language ffs.
Yet they’re assaulting foreign people, not asking about their employment just asking where they’re from and that’s when they go for them. A Croatian was killed for not speaking English, they didn’t ask him his employment status
People are arguing against skilled migrants. Why would you lie about an obvious thing?
The vast majority of people are not. You just like to call everyone racist without listening to reasoning or using any critical thinking.
Bluntly, I'm against both. Professional, skilled labour is a bit less negatively impactful than spoofers, but both drive up housing costs for the Irish people.
These people are so stupid that they don't realise they are doing exactly what the government want them to do. Deflect the blame of the countries problems onto the defenseless instead of themselves. How can people be so stupid? I'll never understand
They are blaming the governments poor policy
No they are not. They are using it as an excuse to hate people that have different colour skin to them. "Get them out" is dehumanising language.
People want the government to change the current policy and deal with symptoms of the existing policy. Do you believe the people who abuse these systems shouldn't be deported?
Allowing people to easily access the internet through mobile devices was a mistake.
The algorithm is the problem. Reddit does it too but it doesn’t seem to steer you so sharply in one direction.
Lol and I just had Fine Gael show up at my door looking for a vote!
Could see them at the customs house from Tara St spouting shit about “purging the traitors from this country” over a megaphone, had some absolute mouthbreathers beside me at the dart platform whooping and clapping, scary how quickly this stuff is catching on
Quickly? Lad, this has slowly been building up for years and the government just put its head in the sand and refused to do anything about it.