"A day I’ll never forget"

Newtown’s Jason Quigley, who is studying journalism in Dublin, writes in the following article of his eyewitness account of the terrifying riot in Dublin on Thursday week last....

I FIRST heard about a serious incident involving a stabbing on Parnell Street at around 2.20pm. As a student journalist my curiosity arose about the circumstances surrounding this incident. I left my college campus and got the first Luas down to Parnell Street.

As I approached the crime scene there was an eerie silence, one of confusion and panic. People gathered behind the white tape and were puzzled.

Multiple rumours had circulated about the incident but nothing was confirmed at that time. I remember seeing a father run up to the tape and frantically yelling, “Where’s my daughter, I need to find her”.

My heart sank. A parents worst nightmare, a reminder that this stabbing was going to lead to painful wounds. After a short while, something became clear.

A poignant silence in the air was soon to turn into a hateful chant of division and anger.

At first I counted a maximum of 10 individuals causing commotion with the gardaí. One person said, “You let this happen, this is all because of you”.

Thereafter, a small pocket of controversial social media commentators sprung around the corner, live streaming and making suggestions that immigration was the cause of this stabbing.

RAGE WAS EVIDENT

I said to myself, “do these people have any empathy or moral respect for the victims of this brutal attack?”

I was expecting prayers, candles and flowers – however, all I saw around me was a raging fuel of fire from this ever-increasing crowd of intimidating men and women. Media crews and photographers were subject to verbal abuse from a number of individuals.

I was standing near the entrance gate of the Garden of Remembrance when two young men briskly approached me shouting who I was working for. The rage in their eyes was unbelievable.

When I refused to give them an answer one of the young men gave me a slight jostle and while walking away shouted, “fake news”.

At 5pm, traffic in the city centre increased. People were heading home and rush hour had commenced. The angry crowd grew in numbers by the minute. The shouting and chanting became louder and louder.

In one instant, two men wearing their Dublin bus uniform were verbally under attack by three men. “Get out of my country, go home and take your friends with you,” one man said.

HOMOPHOBIC SLURS

The racial abuse and homophobic slurs that I heard that evening were beyond repulsive.

I witnessed further racism and protest that evening as Dublin became a hijacked inferno city.

There was so much agonising pain and suffering from people witnessing this thuggish, manic behaviour.

One particular incident, which made my blood boil, was when a young child and her mother approached the sealed-off area and gently laid down a bouquet of flowers.

A man approached her, snatched the flowers from the ground and ran away with it. No respect, nor civility.

‘OUR REVOLUTION’

Shortly before 6pm, a large group of people jumped in front of the green line Luas track. Some shouted, “this is our revolution”, while others chanted for the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to resign: “Leo, Leo, Leo - Out, Out, Out”.

FIGHTING WITH GARDAÍ

Protesters started fighting with the guards and more and more of them became violent. Things were going to get out of control, so I rang the RTÉ News Desk to alert them of the standoff.

I felt I had to leave the area when a man approached me to encourage everyone to destroy and attack anyone that was of colour.

Those disgusting remarks broke me, and I managed to hop on the last bus home before the city descended into a rampage arena.

The events that unfolded thereafter will forever be in my memory.

A dark day for Ireland.

A day I'll never forget.