Rioting in the streets of Dublin

[fionaskywalker]

This weekend was especially exciting in Dublin. In case any of you have heard about the events of Saturday in Dublin on the news or anything, I was there! Let me elaborate. On Saturday, as I was innocently shopping with my flatmate, we came out of a store and starting walking down O'Connell street (one of the main streets of Dublin, that includes the famous Spire and the O'Connell Bridge). Suddenly, we start noticing that we are walking on mass amounts of glass, and everyone around us has their phones out, taking photographs. We start looking around, revealing what looked like a tame battle zone, if you will, with glass, rocks, bricks, and garbage everywhere and various small fires blazing. Metal barriers were bent and thrown in the middle of the street, amidst motorcycles and garbage bins that were burnt to a crisp. I then noticed that almost all of the store fronts had their windows smashed in and they were all hurriedly putting down their barriers and closing up. We finally got up to the O'Connell Bridge where there was a mass of people standing watching the Garda (Irish police) in full riot gear standing in a line advancing (slowly, and sometimes in quick bursts of running) on a large group of rioters who were throwing bottles, garbage, and metal gates and barriers, most clad in bandanas covering their faces and wrapped in Irish flags. My flatmate Sarah and I then rushed to the Ha'Penny Bridge (the closest bridge that we could cross) and after nearly ten minutes of pushing our way across this jam-packed pedestrian bridge, we started to edge closer to the source of excitement. While trying to be cautious, we were still burning with curiosity, so while pausing a couple of times as masses of people periodically flat-out ran toward us (we did not know why at the time), we made it closer, then eventually tried to make our way back to our flat. As we were walking back to our flat (after taking several alternate routes as many of the main streets were closed by the Garda) we saw a couple of cars that were completely burned-one was upturned on the sidewalk and still smouldering. We also saw more store fronts smashed, as well as many parked cars with windows smashed in and more random fires in the street. After a couple of discussions with some Irish people and trying to check online and TV to see what was going on, we found out it was a somewhat complicated situation of events that sparked other events. A group of Northerners was holding a rally and planning to march through the streets to commemorate those who had died as a result of IRA violence. However, the new Sinn Fein-type legalized group of Irish Republicans launched a counter rally/protest against the original rally and things turned violent, into a riot. I believe the presence of thousands of Welsh rugby fans (in town for the Ireland v Wales match today) somehow exacerbated the situation, as I would imagine any large group of really drunk, enthusiastic rugby fans would. The Irish responded very quickly and professionally, as today, and even yesterday evening, I saw very few signs of the major events of the afternoon, mainly just many boarded-up windows. Hopefully "the Troubles" are not back.

I also got to spend the weekend in a four-star hotel paid for by my landlady as our flat was being repainted. Fun fun fun!