GWYNNE DYER: Should we worry about more violence in Ireland?

The violence is being seized by the British and international hard right as evidence of ‘out-of-control immigration’

Copy Link Email X Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr GWYNNE DYER: Should we worry about more violence in Ireland? The violence is being seized by the British and international hard right as evidence of ‘out-of-control immigration’ Gwynne Dyer Handout Article content Last week’s violence in Northern Ireland, not really a ‘protest’ but an organized pogrom, is being seized on by the British and international hard right as further evidence that ‘out-of-control immigration’ is fueling the justifiable anger of the beleaguered (and soon to be replaced) white majority. Subscribe now to access this story and more: Subscribe or sign in to your account to continue your reading experience. Create an account or sign in to continue your reading experience. This is a steaming heap of horsefeathers. It is true that almost all the families who were burned out of their houses in Belfast were non-white immigrants who were legally in the United Kingdom. It was also obviously a pogrom, not a spontaneous outbreak, because the paramilitary members leading the attacks had lists of addresses of the houses to be burned. Advertisement 1 Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content But if it was really fears about immigration and the ‘Great Replacement’ that drove the violence, as Fox News, Elon Musk and all the gang claimed, then why did only Protestants (‘Loyalists’, in the local parlance) join the pogrom? And why in Northern Ireland, which has the lowest rate of immigrants (three in 100) in the UK? Winston Churchill summed up the general despair about any permanent solution to the ‘Irish Question’ when the partition of Ireland was being debated in the British House of Commons in 1922. The First World War had just obliterated almost all the familiar landmarks of Europe, but one remained unchanged. “As the deluge subsides and the waters fall short,” he said, “we see the dreary steeples of (the Catholic-majority counties of) Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again. The integrity of their quarrel is one of the few institutions that has been unaltered in the cataclysm which has swept the world.” In other words, ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!’