Thousands have marched in protests across Ireland to push back against the massive 300% rise in asylum seekers in the country, as counter-protesters hit back.
Over 1,000 are believed to have joined a march in County Donegal’s Letterkenny over the weekend, with several hundred having organised a counter-protest.
The ‘Letterkenny Peaceful Assembly/Protest Against Illegal Immigration’ started at the lower end of Port Road, in the town’s eastern side, and and concluded at Market Square.
Over in Carrickmacross, a similar protest, this one attended by around 800, was launched on Friday, where speakers criticised the Irish government and landlords profiting from housing asylum seekers.
Local independent councillor Seamus Treanor said people living in his ward did not feel safe in his own home, given heightened levels of anti-social behaviour.
‘I want to get one thing straight – the reason we have a housing problem in this county is because our government opened our borders, and invited the whole third world to come in.
‘They came in their tens of thousands, and communities like Carrickmacross are suffering the consequences.
‘The so-called opposition are in step with the government, and agree with their policy.’
Many were seen waving Irish and Donegal flags in protest against what they believed was a surge of illegal migration to the country.
One little girl was seen holding a large sign that read: ‘TRAITORS ARE LIVING AMONGST US.’
But hundreds of counter-protesters were also present at the Letterkenny march, railing against the anti-migrant sentiment seen across the nation in recent months.
The United Against Racism Donegal Group invited speakers, who spoke in favour of inclusion, respect and equality for all, and rejected the incitement to hatred.
Cops reportedly managed to watch over the incident without any confrontations, having erected a physical barrier between the two groups.
In February, Ireland has exploded into a wave of violence with anti-migrant anger at an all time high – after the number of people applying to come into the country rocketed by nearly 300 per cent in five years.
Shocking videos showed Dublin descending into chaos – with fighting thugs throwing themselves into busses, knife fights on their streets and mass brawls sparking in residential roads.
In others, men patrol the capital to keep the city ‘safe’ while police can be seen using riot shields and pepper spray as they crack down on protests.
As many as 150,000 people moved to Ireland in 2023-24, Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures revealed, the highest number in 17 years.
Many of them are being accommodated in poor areas of central Dublin or small provincial towns. Only 30,000 of these were returning Irish citizens.
There are now nearly 33,000 international protection applicants being housed across the nation, up from 7,244 in 2017. Alongside arrivals from Africa and the Middle East, 100,000 refugees flocked to the country following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Each costs the nation nearly £70 a day, a figure that has increased by a third in two years. At the end of last year the Irish Refugee Council revealed there were a record 3,001 asylum seekers homeless in Ireland.
The budget for housing Ukranian refugees has been slashed from £910million in 2023 to less than £340million this year, with officials saying the reduction is expected to continue.
Once sleepy towns are now homes to hundreds of asylum seekers while tent cities have been set up along Dublin’s Grand Canal.
And with far-right sentiment at fever pitch the country is on a knife edge – with even Ireland’s left-wing politicians admitting that the influx of migrants was driving a spike in homelessness.
Aoife Gallagher, from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, who monitors far right activity, has previously said that there has been an escalation in migrants being targeted in Ireland.
‘We see consistently, a couple of times every week, horrific attacks on migrants,’ she told the BBC.
‘We see people standing outside IPAS centres waiting for asylum seekers in order to confront them and intimidate them.
‘There’s a level of political violence that we haven’t seen before.’