rioting in Dublin

[waider]

RTÉ, BBC. Mildly disappointed to note that the BBC reports it as a "Republican riot"; it's no more a Republican riot than the annual May Day fracas is a socialist riot. Per the Irish Times coverage, which I'm not linking because they're a registration-requiring shower of suckweasels:

The violence that swept O'Connell St in Dublin is spreading to Kildare St as a protest against the Love Ulster Parade appears to have been hijacked by rioting youths and a lesser number of republican demonstrators.

(my emphasis).

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Obviously the Irish times can mindread now.

[waider.livejournal.com]

This scintillating commentary brought to you by Smart Telecom. Geez. Bloody anonymous posters. I really should filter them.

Weird

[mopti.livejournal.com]

I cannot figure who gains from the riot. Sinn Fein can expect to lose some of the soft-"we've-officially-given-up-violence-haven't-we-Mary-Lou-McDonald" vote, but I doubt the PDs engineered the lads to throw the bricks to get that outcome.

Re: Weird

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

The Beeb article linked it to "Republican Sinn Fein", as opposed to Sinn Fein proper. You and waider are probably better-placed than I to judge the likelihood of that.

Re: Weird

[waider.livejournal.com]

Sure, but linked to them as organisers of the counter-protest. Doesn't make them organisers of the riot (although granted it's entirely possible).

Re: Weird

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Fair point. There's a large part of me that thinks that organising a counter-protest is always likely to result in trouble, because the planet has no shortage of assholes (I'm tempted to compare to the small number of idiots it takes to start a soccer riot, but that's perhaps a little tastelss, given the subject matter surrounding the events in Dublin) . . .

Re: Weird

[waider.livejournal.com]

Ack, it's the same principle, and taste doesn't come into it. Small numbers of idiots fuck things up for everyone else on a regular basis.

Re: Weird

[mopti.livejournal.com]

My taxi driver home from work said there were petrol bombs involved. I can see nowt about that on the web news sites. If it is true (big "if"), then that's more than a few idiots: that's planned.

Re: Weird

[waider.livejournal.com]

Seems unlikely; that's precisely the sort of detail you'd expect any news programme to latch onto, and I've not seen a single mention of it in TV or web coverage.

Re: Weird

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Latest version of the Beeb report mentions "fireworks", but nothing from Molotov's happy hour. Still the former might explain stories of the latter (and might indicate a degree of planing, at least by a small number of eejits).

[mopti.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlNoEqO2mUY

http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=pgIlZgt4XV8&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//static12.youtube.com/get_still.php%3Fvideo_id%3DpgIlZgt4XV8

[waider.livejournal.com]

Yup, card-carrying republicans every one of 'em, eh?