'Coolock Says No'
Why One North Dublin Neighborhood Has Become a Flashpoint in Europe's Migrant Crisis
In recent days, the Irish government’s decision to open a large new migrant center in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Dublin area has been met with fierce resistance from locals. The government plans to open a facility for asylum seekers and refugees in a industrial complex formerly known as Crown Paints. This would be different than other more temporary housing in hotels and makeshift encampments, it would house hundreds of people on a permanent basis. The area of Coolock, which lies on the capital’s outskirts, was once a small farming village with a rich history stretching back more than a thousand years.
In more recent times it has become more associated with the neighboring community of Darndale which had one of the most infamous blocks of social housing in Europe. The area was once plagued by drugs and crime and was a symbol of blight and neglect of the least fortunate. Irish Travellers have also long made these communities their homes, using ‘halting sites’ to set up camp and slowly convert to a more sedentary lifestyle. The left-leaning progressive government in power in Ireland have accepted large amounts of refugees from all over the world including tens of thousands of people from Ukraine.
Because of Ireland’s place in the EU, they have quotas for how many refugees they must accept. The Irish government often exceeds their quotas because of the financial incentives in the form of EU funds and NGO money. Whatever your position on the issues, the recent protests in Coolock and the organized campaign of arson against other migrant centers shows a deep divide between how the Irish people feel and how the government acts. One can’t help but feel that part of the anger felt by people in a place like Coolock is connected to the class struggle.
This video shows youths on scooters and horses marching through the streets past the proposed site. The Irish tri-colour is ever present. People have shown up with their families some even pushing strollers. The Garda (Police) have met protestors with riot shields, beatings and pepper spray. In the first days of the protest the excavator that was going to be used to develop the site into a refugee center was burned by a petrol bomb attack, now the building itself has caught fire for the second day in a row.
Why put this type of place in one of Dublin’s most disadvantaged districts? Why not put it in posh South Dublin, home to some of Ireland’s richest people and many politicians? It’s the same reason they don’t put homeless shelters on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and instead try and quietly open them in parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Money talks and bullshit walks. People are then left with only one option to get their voices heard and that’s to protest. When you don’t pal around with the rich and powerful and you don’t have lobbyists working on your behalf, you are back is kind of against the wal .
Over the past two years, several migrant centers that were being set up or earmarked to receive refugees have been set alight in what has been described by authorities as deliberate attacks. A video from this Irish Times article shows a fire engulfing a disused hotel in Galway far from Dublin. Galway is known for its culture and laid back vibe, it’s not exactly a den of hate. About seventy asylum seekers, mostly from Ukraine were meant to be housed there. In a odd twist, the hotel was actually owned by an American couple who originally planned to restore the property before realising it was more profitable to lease it to the Irish government for refugee accommodation.
The Irish Times describes a spate of arson attacks on potential sites for refugees:
“In August, Ridge Hall, a property in Ballybrack, south Dublin, was set on fire after it was rumoured in the area it was to be used to accommodate asylum seekers. In July, another arson attack took place in Co Cork, at the former Gaelscoil Uí Ríordáin school as plans were under way to house Ukrainians seeking refuge from Russia’s invasion of their country.
In May, a centre for refugees in Buncrana, Co Donegal, was targeted by arsonists. In the same month a makeshift camp on Sandwith Street in Dublin’s south inner city was destroyed, with tents set on fire after a small number of people living there had fled.
In January, a fire was set at Rawlton House, a former boys’ school on Sherrard Street, in Dublin’s inner city, after it was rumoured refugees were to be housed there.
In November 2022, Kill Equestrian Centre, just outside Kill, Co Kildare, was set alight after it was earmarked for about 350 people from Ukraine.”
Over a hundred thousand people have arrived in Ireland over the last several years seeking asylum, the Republic of Ireland has about five million people so it’s no drop in the bucket. The Journal recorded over a dozen arson attacks on both active and proposed migrant centers since 2018. Most attacks followed protests at the site during the day, some came by surprise. This helpful interactive map from RTE shows where refugee centers have been targeted. It’s not secret that despite the official end of the conflict in Northern Ireland in 1998, there remains a large element in Irish society that is a blend of former paramilitaries and criminal gangs. They still hold a lot of sway, especially among the youth and the images of masked men throwing petrol bombs invokes Belfast in 1972. There is a long history of resistance in Ireland and that spirit certainly hasn’t faded.
I mentioned before that this area is home to a large number of Travellers who still raise horses and have been known to race their down local highways in ‘sulkies’ or small chariots. They have shown up in force at a lot of these protests and you can usually tell because they’re mounted like the fella in the picture at the top of this article. Travellers are about as indigenous as you can get in Ireland and there have been DNA tests on them that have revealed that they have a separate unique gene that regular Irish folk don’t. They even have their own hidden language, known as Shelta.
It’s not necessarily fair to blame this element or even the far-right for the protests in Coolock. There is a housing and cost of living crisis in Ireland, Dublin is consistently ranked as one of the least affordable cities in the world. This is partially because of a large amount of American companies that call it their home, mostly because of low corporate taxes but also because of a mass exodus of companies from London caused by Brexit. Despite all this, the government is bringing in thousands of people from other countries with essentially nowhere to put them.
In November of 2023 there was days of sustained rioting in Dublin’s City Centre after rumors spread on social media that a migrant was responsible for stabbing three people outside of a elementary school. A five year old girl was nearly killed in the attack. While it turned out that the attacker was a naturalised Irish citizen, he was an immigrant from Algeria who had previously been arrested for menacing and possession of a deadly weapon. The attacker was actually disarmed by a Brazilian delivery driver whose heroism helped stem the anti-migrant hatred in the aftermath of the attack, at least temporarily.
Irish politicians including Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Simon Harris and Justice Minister Helen McEntee have dismissed the Coolock protestors as “thugs” and the “far-right”. That is surely part of it, right wing pundits like Tucker Carlson and others have used the protests to further their racist ‘Great Replacement’ theory but they lack any real understanding of what’s happening on the ground. However, Harris and McEntee have only fanned the flames by refusing to acknowledge the legitimate concerns of the people. As I write this, RTE reports, over a thousand people are once again marching in protest.
The government has sworn that they will forge ahead because, according to them, they have no choice. It’s hard to see how they can, at least in the case of Coolock because of the persistent attacks on the site and the construction equipment there. According to Minister McEntee they want to “move away from smaller providers, B&B’s, hotels…” they do have to have these “larger types of sites.” In the interview these quotes are from, the host callously asks McEntee how long it would take to deploy a water cannon from the North to be used on the protestors. The comments under the video are satisfyingly unified in their condemnation of this type of talk, no one should be gleefully asking how to best oppress these undesirables and poors. Not to mention the cannon would come from the PSNI (Police Service Northern Ireland) the descendant of the hated RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) that was the bane of nationalists in Northern Ireland throughout the troubles.
It’s not just Ireland either, protests against mass migration and refugee accommodation have broken out across Europe. One of the main reasons the Tories ruled in Britain for the last decade was their promise to get immigration under control including a particularly hair-brained scheme to deport people to Rwanda. While Brexit was an abject failure, it is a fact that by leaving the EU, the UK gained direct control of who was entering their country. Millions have been displaced by the Ukraine War, most settled in nearby Poland and Germany which have much larger populations and economies to absorb the impact.
The smaller countries like Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland have been very accommodating but everyone has a breaking point. After the lull from COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, Mediterranean crossing are once again ticking up. Over three thousand people died attempting the perilous journey in 2023. The EU on the whole has become much less friendly towards immigration. They now pay billions to the countries the migrants originate from to prevent them from reaching Europe. In 2024 the EU’s governing body swung rightward and passed far stricter regulations on migration including increasing mass deportations.
In general, the Irish people aren’t against legal immigration and have taken more refugees per capita than many larger nations. At first it was families from war-torn places like Sudan and Syria, now, many people claim asylum from a place like Nigeria that has no active conflicts. How can the Irish be against immigration when they have immigrated to nearly every corner of the globe in large numbers and have had a outsized cultural impact for their size? People get pissed when the government sticks accommodation right in their working class neighborhood without doing their due diligence.
How do you think Bono would feel if they opened a center for asylum seekers near his estate in upscale Killiney? His wife was up in arms over the construction of a simple fence. These protests have been about more than just immigration, it has expanded to class, government accountability and the future of Ireland. It would behoove people like Taoiseach Harris to actually listen to people or this thing could quickly get out of control. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a thug.