Residents of a small Irish town turned out for a peaceful protest on Sunday evening in response to the alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old boy in the early hours of Friday.
Locals walked through the high street of Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon holding candles to mark what the mainstream media has reported as a serious assault on the Irish teenager, but which citizen journalists have disclosed as an alleged gang rape.
The attack occurred just off Main Street at 12:10 a.m. on Friday with police cordoning off the area.
An investigation is ongoing into the attack, and no arrests are understood to have been made.
While no suspects have been named, local residents believe there is a link between the attack and the mass immigration the town has experienced.
On Sunday, angry locals told citizen journalists and local media how the town has become a dumping ground for migrants and has experienced skyrocketing crime rates and anti-social behavior in recent years.
Journalist Philip Dwyer, who attended the protest, spoke to several locals who expressed their deep concern about the state of the town following the heinous attack.
“We don’t hate anybody, but we had the deeds that have been inflicted upon us as a people, as an Irish nation. We’re here in Ballaghaderreen today to attend a public protest around an alleged incident that is meant to have occurred here in this town, where a 15-year-old boy was allegedly gang-raped down a lane in this town,” Dwyer said.
“It just beggars belief that a 15-year-old boy can be gang-raped here,” he added.
Speaking on camera, resident Margaret Garvey said, “We have a lot of young men who are not working, who have accommodation that my son couldn’t get when he returned from Australia. There hasn’t been one racist incident.”
“There are people fleeing from war, but the people here at the moment are using up all the housing. There’s no housing for the local people. They’re not contributing to the community in any way.
“People are reasonable and welcoming, and this is a wonderful community but it’s been fragmented,” she added.
The head of the Ballaghaderreen Concerned Citizens group said the protest was an act of solidarity with the family of the young victim.
“Regardless of who the perpetrators are, the fact is that a child has been raped in our town. Ball Concerned Citizens came here tonight to support a family whose child has been viciously sexually assaulted.
🚨BREAKING🚨
— MichaeloKeeffe (@Mick_O_Keeffe) November 3, 2024
There has been a lot of speculation regarding an incident in Ireland in the last few days.
Tonight at a vigil in the town, the head of the Ballaghaderreen Concerned Citizens group said this on live stream : pic.twitter.com/iGZYKClEm5
“This town is reeling and sore and angry and upset,” she added.
Local councilor Micheál Frain slammed the reduced police presence in the town in recent years and claimed to have knowledge of several serious crimes that have taken place in the town in the last few months.
He told Shannonside radio that the latest assault was another sign of the “breaking down of law and order” in the community, at a time when its population is rising sharply due to mass migration.
He added that the town “could have been a good news story” for integration if the Irish government had ensured sufficient resources and services, but despite the “huge increase” in its population, none had been forthcoming.
“Instead we’ve had diktat from a government department deciding what happens in regard to placing people in the town with no negotiations with locals,” he claimed.
In March this year, residents expressed their outrage at proposals to install 47 modular homes to cater to 206 Ukrainian refugees in the town of 2,000 people.
The move is similar to the same modus operandi used by the Irish government in other towns across the country in what nationalist parties like the Irish For Freedom group have called plantations of migrants into small communities.
In November last year, locals of Dromahair in County Leitrim took the drastic measure to cordon off the village amid rumors the Department of Integration was planning to bus in dozens of foreign nationals without prior agreement by community leaders.
Similarly in Rosslare Harbour, a derelict hotel that had been earmarked to be converted into a nursing home was fast-tracked to accommodate an initial 170 adult male asylum seekers — a figure that was expected to rise to 400, again with limited consultation.
The debate in Ireland over mass migration has erupted over the last year, ignited partly by the high-profile multiple stabbing of Irish children on the streets of Dublin last November by an Algerian migrant.