The visit by the far-right political activist Tommy Robinson has caused very mixed reactions in Ireland
THE Founder and former leader of the anti-Islam English Defence League (EDL) Tommy Robinson — real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — is reported to have been in Dublin last week to make a documentary about the surge of anti-immigration protests in Ireland.
The far-right activist, whose mother is from Dublin, is known to travel on an Irish passport. On the Telegram website to say he had been visiting Dublin as a journalist, and had been there for five days. Robinson (40) added: “Just a quick message to Irish politicians, left wing nutcase activists and ‘journalists’ in mainstream media. I invited myself to Ireland. I’m a journalist. I’ll go where I want. Just to set the record straight,” he wrote.
He also posted a video saying: “Just wait till they find out I flew in on my Irish passport.”
He added: “Ignore what they say. Irish people love me and want me here.”
“Ireland loves me and I love Ireland,” he posted later in the evening along with a video of a street busker in Killarney singing his name.
But there are fears that his presence in Ireland has further inflamed the anti-immigration movement in Ireland which has grown steadily in recent times.
There have been a number of violent incidents in the past few weeks, including the arson of a building in Dublin city centre that was wrongly believed to be intended to house asylum seekers. Attacks on hotels where refugees are being accommodated have been recorded, however.
But not everyone in the anti-immigration faction in Ireland was pleased to see Robinson in Ireland. Some saw him as likely to hijack their message that Ireland had taken in enough refugees, and that it could not accommodate further.
The wider community also remembered his anti-Irish statements of yore. A string of anti-Irish slurs and remarks over the years include one message where he claims his parents would be “in Ireland picking potatoes and eating cabbages”, if they hadn’t moved to England — his Irish mother and Scottish father relocated to Luton.
It was in Luton that Robinson founded the EDL with fellow second generation Irishman Kevin O’Carroll. Robinson subsequently expressed total support for British soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday massacre.
Robinson’s visit to Ireland underlined the fact that some far-right groups across Europe are increasingly working together. Evidence has emerged that, in particular, Irish and British extreme groups are co-operating together.
