Months before riots erupted in the UK, Dublin was rocked by its worst street violence in decades. On 23 November 2023, more than 60 officers were assaulted, buses and a tram were destroyed, and over a dozen shops were looted or vandalised when an anti-immigration protest turned into a riot. Earlier that day, a man stabbed three children and a care assistant at a Dublin primary school. He was rumoured to be an illegal migrant. Since then, anger over Ireland’s migration crisis has only grown. Asylum applications rose fivefold between 2019 and 2023, with tens of thousands of newcomers now arriving each year, placing pressure on already strained services and adding to an already chronic housing shortage. Asylum hotels in deprived and rural areas have become targets of both peaceful protests and, despicably, arson attacks.
