The most riot police in Irish history were deployed to deal with Thursday’s street violence in Dublin, the country’s justice minister has said.
Helen McEntee praised the police response to a riot which began following a knife attack in the city.
Three children and a school care assistant were stabbed outside a primary school several hours earlier.
Sinn Féin – the largest opposition party – criticised the police response to the riot.
While its leader Mary Lou McDonald backed individual gardaí (police), she called for the commissioner of the force to resign.
Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar said about 500 people were involved in the disorder, adding that they had “brought shame” on Ireland and promising new laws within weeks to bring those involved to justice.
Officers arrested 34 people after vehicles were set on fire and shops looted.
A large police presence remains in Dublin’s city centre on Friday night and a number of arrests have been made following sporadic altercations on O’Connell Street.
J6, Irish style?
The police don’t seem to be saying anything official about the perp’s identity. Who was it? People don’t like being “protected” from the truth, whatever it may be.
Ireland’s police chief Drew Harris blamed the rioting on a “lunatic, hooligan faction driven by a far-right ideology”.
Two of the five people injured in the stabbings outside a primary school, Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuir, on Parnell Square are critically ill.
They include a five-year-old girl and a school care assistant who “used her body as a shield” in an attempt to protect children from the attacker.
By the way, for what it’s worth, I read somewhere recently – don’t know where – that Ireland has more Hamas sympathizers than any other part of the UK.
More:
The “extraordinary outbreak of violence” had come after “hateful assumptions” were made based on material circulating online in the wake of the stabbings, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said.
It is understood that included false claims that the attacker was a foreign national.
Sources have indicated to the BBC that the man suspected of carrying out the attack is an Irish citizen who has lived in the country for 20 years.
So why not announce that fact officially? And note the words “Irish citizen” – does that mean a person of Irish ethnicity and typical Irish religious beliefs, who merely flipped his lid? Or does it mean an immigrant who came 20 years ago to Ireland? No way to know right now, so no wonder people fill in the gaps, because the m.o. is reminiscent of jihadis.
This is what I mean about J6:
Police in Ireland are trawling through 6,000 hours of CCTV footage as a major investigation into riots in Dublin’s city centre continues.
The violence in the Irish capital on Thursday – which involved far-right elements and saw Garda cars, buses and trams set alight and shops looted and damaged – flared after a knife attack on three children and their care assistant outside a school in the north inner city.
Justice minister Helen McEntee also told colleagues that officers are trawling 6,000 hours of CCTV footage and vowed that further arrests would follow the 34 already made.

