Paper Short Abstract:

On 23 November 2023, Dublin appeared in the international press because of several hours of severe rioting. This unrest was reported on as a nativist uprising against “mass immigration” by the Far Right, whose membership, it was claimed, came from the most socially excluded part of Irish society.

Paper Abstract:

On 23 November 2023, Dublin came to the attention of the international press because of several hours of rioting. Sadly (and largely incorrectly) this unrest were reported on the 24-hr news cycle, and almost continuously on X (formerly Twitter) as a sort of nativist uprising against “mass immigration”. The proximate cause of this unrest was a horrific attack on schoolchildren by a man, originally from Algeria, but a resident of Ireland for some two decades. This attack crystallised what had hitherto been considered by most mainstream pundits to be a marginal anti-migrant protest movement, whose poorly attended “rallies” outside of various asylum-seeker accommodations and/or service providers around the country for the last year or so had been very lightly policed by the Gards [Irish Police], despite the presence of known agitators from English Fascist/Nationalist circles at many of these events. This paper examines some of the aftermath of riot, especially those offered by various Irish pundits, Far-Right messaging on X, and more than two decades of on-and-off research in the kinds of neighbourhoods seen as the source of many of the rioters by the author. The paper is a reflection on how the ways that various kinds of marginality, structural and culture, and "hate" intersect in social life and online.