Another attack on election candidates

DCAR’s latest statement yesterday evening outlines the escalation by the far-right of attacks on those candidates and political activists. It also notes that these attacks are, at least so far, on opposition parties and independent representatives – Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, PBP and so on.

It was put to me that the attack on two people putting posters up last week would have been headline news at one point. But no, apparently not in the current era. A further attack over the week on an independent candidate? Front page news? Not at all. The Irish Times had it in its ‘Politics’ section.

An Independent councillor has said she feared for her life after she and her husband were violently attacked while they were out erecting local election posters in west Dublin earlier this week.

Tania Doyle, who currently sits on Fingal County Council, said the incident happened on the Hartstown Road in Blanchardstown in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Ms Doyle had just finished erecting posters with her husband Derek, aged in his 50s, and one of her friends, when they were approached by two men, one of whom began asking her views on immigration and started to video her.

It developed further:

“He started screaming in my face and put the phone up to my face, and tried to video me … I had given him my answer on immigration and my husband asked him to put his phone away,” she said.

“Then it just went chaotic, he leaped at us, there were punches and kicks and complete violence. It went on for about 15 minutes and it just wouldn’t stop. I pleaded with him to stop, I told him my husband has health issues, problems with his heart, he is epileptic and takes seizures.

“I stood in front of him and he was swiping, kicking, attacking us. I took a blow to the side of the head. My husband did try and protect himself, any man would. I was so terrified. All I could think was that we’re never going to get out of this, we’re dead. At one point he punched my husband to the ground. I’d never come across such anger and such violence in all my life.”

This left her husband bloodied, really an appalling assault. She herself was badly bruised in the attack. Just as an aside it is the Journal that gives the fullest account of the attack. The IT piece (both are linked to in this post) gives a fairly cursory outline of events. That too is a downplaying of the seriousness of these activities and attacks. 

Here’s a further account of the incident from her:

“It was about 1:15 or 1:20 in the morning. We were packing up and ready to go,” she said.

“He was demanding my views on immigration. I won’t repeat other stuff that he said. He professed to be an Irish Catholic and said that we’re a Catholic country, and funnily enough he attacked a Catholic woman. The irony of it.”

The attacker told her he didn’t want Ireland to be a Muslim country and didn’t want other religions in Ireland, Doyle said. “It just went on and on.”

The man tried to film Doyle and her husband. Doyle said she politely asked him not to and said he didn’t have her permission. 

He persisted and said Doyle hadn’t answered his question about immigration. 

“I did answer his question,” she said. “He just didn’t like my answer.”

Doyle describes her position on immigration as “quite middle of the road”.

“I believe in lawful, measured and appropriate immigration, with the background infrastructure to cope,” she explained. 

This did not please the man accosting her though and he accused Doyle of being “part of the establishment” and threatened to “destroy” her and post the video on social media.

Doyle says she tried to explain to the man that she does not have power over immigration laws. 

“Some of these guys just don’t understand. I told him, I don’t write legislation. I’m not a legislator, I’m in local politics.”

We’ve seen violent ‘protests’, invasions of libraries and other spaces, attacks on people and chaos outside the Dáil. And here we have individuals with pretty mainstream (middle of the road is a good way of putting Doyle’s views) apparently being attacked by people espousing far-right views. Meanwhile the ‘paper of record’ thinks this is a good time to be putting articles like this out.