Ireland has long prided itself on greeting visitors with warmth, styling itself the land of “a hundred thousand welcomes”, but now there is a new slogan: #IrelandIsFull.
It appears on placards and on social media and is chanted at rallies alongside other exhortations such as #IrelandForTheIrish and #IrishLivesMatter.
They are the cry of an anti-immigrant backlash that has spread across Dublin and other towns in recent weeks, earning praise from far-right allies abroad.
“Unlike the English, who say very little, the Irish are speaking out – and protesting on the streets – about the huge number of young, male ‘asylum seekers’,” tweeted Nigel Farage.
Pickets and blockades of roads are often held outside refugee centres in working-class neighbourhoods but on Saturday activists marched in the heart of the capital.
“It’s not about racism. There is no room for them,” said Gavin Pepper, 37, as he and about 350 others denounced the increasing number of asylum seekers. “Why should migrants skip Irish people on the housing list? I won’t accept it.”
An acute housing and homelessness crisis has collided with the state’s struggle to accommodate Ukrainians and asylum seekers, fuelling accusations that foreigners receive preferential treatment.
Protesters also say centres with “unvetted” young male refugees make them feel unsafe. “I have five girls and two boys and the girls are afraid to go out at night,” said one man, who declined to give his name.
Holding Irish tricolours and banners, the rally marched from Stephens Green through the Grafton Street shopping district to the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, a landmark in the Easter 1916 rebellion.
Malachy Steenson, an organiser, told the crowd such protests had shattered a taboo about questioning the welcome for migrants and refugees. “We have moved the political ground in this country. This was the great unspoken.”