Dublin riots: flames of rage

The riots in Dublin were an expression of the anger of the most marginalised of Dublin's urban poor – the first time in living memory that these, the poorest in Irish society, have expressed themselves politically. By Chekov Feeney

In the aftermath of the riot in Dublin on Saturday 25 February, there was a frenetic scramble by the media to identify the organisers and, inevitably, republican organisations were blamed. The reality is however, the riots were not orchestrated by any political organisation and were completely unexpected.

The Garda have experience in policing contentious and potentially volatile protests. When 3,000 anti-capitalist protestors made the march to Farmleigh on May day 2004, thousands of police were deployed, backed up by water cannon and a huge deployment of surveillance technology. They were never in any danger of losing control. The under-preparedness of the Garda last weekend was not a result of incompetence in terms of their ability to police events or generally to anticipate organised protest and disruption – they have proved very successful at containing much bigger protests in the past. The Garda unpreparadeness was rather in a general failure to anticipate that disaffected Dublin youths spontaneously would avail of a loyalist march to express rage at their general circumstances and, specifically, at what many of them perceive as subjugation by our police force. And that such mobilisation would be almost entirely unorganised.

The Garda intelligence reports in advance of the march would have told them that (Provisional) Sinn Féin were trying as hard as they could to keep their members away from the protests. They were not interested in being involved, knowing that any embroilment would do them damage. They would also have known that the other “usual suspects”, anarchists and socialists were not interested in being involved either.

They were fully aware that Republican Sinn Féin wanted to protest but they would have known that its capacity to organise anything substantial or menacing was negligible – they have little organisational capacity and almost no membership, especially in the Dublin area. Certainly no capacity to mobilise Dublin youths in any number on any issue. In any event, Garda infiltration of Republican Sinn Féin and its sister organisation, the Continuity IRA is pervasive.

There was no reason for the Garda to suspect or anticipate there would be anything other than a token protest and the preparations they undertook, as revealed in the summary briefing given by the Garda Commissioner to Michael McDowell on Tuesday, 28 February, seems reasonable, almost fastidious.

‘Scumbags'

The people who took part in the rioting were largely drawn from the urban poor, mostly disenfranchised young men from impoverished estates around Dublin, people who normally have no political voice whatsoever, people who rarely vote, who live in communities that have been ravaged by poverty and drug and alcohol abuse, people generally labeled “scumbags” by those who live lives of relative privilege and comfort.

Although these people are generally seen as apolitical and disinterested in politics, this misses an important point. The identity of many of them is caught up with nationalist symbols and “causes”: IRA/nationalist songs, the tricolour, IRA tattoos, enthusiastic support for the Irish football team, and often passionate support for Glasgow Celtic. The idea of a loyalist Orange parade marching through their city, passing by the GPO, ground zero of Irish republicanism, was sufficiently provocative to enrage these people on a much deeper level than any of the habitual attacks on their living conditions or economic lives could possibly do. These youths have not absorbed the middle class mantras of pluralism and multi-culturalism.

Therefore, despite the lack of mobilisation by any of the political groups and in some cases (as with Sinn Féin) the active efforts to stop their supporters attending, groups of youth from all over the city headed into the centre of Dublin to oppose the loyalist march. Many of them obviously came prepared to throw projectiles at the loyalist march and they found a ready arsenal on O Connell Street itself, with piles of paving stones on the centre aisle of O Connell St. Many of them also found billiard balls in nearby pubs, a few had golf balls and there were two petrol bombs.

It didn't take much coordination for disaffected youths to be attracted by the prospect of confronting Orange loyalists on what they would have viewed as their “home ground” and in the process engaging in confrontation with gardaí, in itself an enticing prospect. Confrontation with loyalism was probably the one political issue in Dublin which was certain to lead to such a general unorganised mobilisation.

Anybody familiar with the patterns of sectarian rioting in the North knows that, although the rioting is normally controlled to some extent by paramilitary groups, the vast majority of the participants are local youths who are not members of any political organisation – exactly the same section of society as those who rioted in Dublin and indeed the same section of society who are almost always the ones to riot. From Paris to Argentina, it is the impoverished young men on the margins of society who riot, having nothing to lose and little fear of authority.

The young working class men who made up the bulk of the crowd who assembled on Saturday 25 February do not enjoy a positive relationship with gardaí. Beatings in custody have become common for young men in deprived areas. Only a few hundred yards from the flashpoint in O'Connell St, a local man, Terence Wheelock, died in dubious circumstances while in Garda custody at Store Street Garda Station. While it would be wrong to claim this had any direct connection to the riot, the fact that many locals do not believe the police claims that he committed suicide exemplifies the suspicion in which gardaí are held. (See comments of Fr Peter McVerry mentioned in an accompanying article on page 20/21.)

In general, people who attend political demonstrations are people who have a defined political objective and, invariably, they have something to lose. But many of those who took part in the riot have little or nothing to lose and take pride in having no fear. They are accustomed to being powerless and trodden upon by the State and have a deep rage, a rage which is generally expressed in a self-destructive way through drug and alcohol abuse, random violence and anti-social crime.

How did the situation escalate?

The Republican Sinn Féin (RSF) counter demonstration provided a rallying point for all of these disenfranchised young men who made their way into Dublin early on Saturday morning. By the time the march was due to begin, the few dozen RSF supporters had been joined by a few hundred of these unaffiliated anti-loyalist youth, many dressed in Celtic jerseys, or draped in Irish flags. Large numbers of working class youth amassing at the junction of Parnell Street and O'Connell Street.

For once they found a large number of people with a similar experience gathered together in the location and for once they massively outnumbered the gardaí.

O'Connell St was a building site: bricks, paving stones, barricades and oil cans were neatly arranged all along it – an ammunition dump for rioters. There were probably no more than 200 people who were involved in the initial onslaught on the gardaí, but hundreds more joined in as the fighting made its way down O'Connell Street. Groups of youths could be seen coming out of side streets, some of them phoning their friends and as the fighting progressed more and more people joined in.

The balance of forces and the fearlessness of the rioters left the gardaí in the impossible position of being unable to control the area. They only had a few dozen riot police and they were basically limited to keeping the rioters at bay as wave after wave of projectiles rained down upon them. Quickly the loyalist march was no longer the issue. The riot turned into an anti-Garda protest and from there into a rampage of destruction and looting through the city centre.

Collective power

These angry, directionless young men will have experienced this as a great victory – they stopped the “Orange bastards” from marching, they took on the gardaí en masse and won – they controlled the city centre for several hours on a Saturday afternoon and many of them will have experienced this as an intensely empowering demonstration of their worth. In future, the State may have to reckon with this sector as a political force – rioting is often empowering for the marginalised.

There is a French anarchist saying that goes, “Qui sème la misère récolte la colère" – “He who sows misery, harvests anger”. On Saturday 25 February 2006, we saw the first harvest of our Celtic Tiger and chances are that it won't be the last.
This is a distilled version of a longer article originally published on Indymedia Ireland

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