“All out against fascism!” Dublin mobilisation on the eve of Cable Street

Yesterday, Saturday the 3rd of October 2020, scores of anti-fascist activists made their way to Dublin’s GPO. Travelling from across the city, and indeed across the country, those activists in a huge show of anti-fascist unity, assembled over 100 strong to face down a growing fascist movement in the city; a fascist movement that, in the face of those masked women and men gathered there, failed to show.

Speaking from Dublin, a spokesperson for Lasair Dhearg said, “On the eve of a similar event, the historic ‘Battle of Cable Street’ where anti-fascists assembled in their thousands to prevent a gathering of the British Union of Fascists in London’s East End, Dublin’s GPO was no platform for fascists. Cable Street occurred on this day in 1936, in the capital of Britain’s Empire, where normal working people stood up in their thousands to run off Mosely’s black-shirts. ‘London Workers! Anti-Fascists! Peace-Lovers!’ said posters at the time, ‘All out against Fascism.’”

“With echo’s to that historic event 84 years ago, Gardaí, the footsoldiers of the Twenty Six county state, facilitated, like it does every other day, fascist gatherings of those hiding behind populist language.”

“Organised at short notice”, the spokesperson said, “the event at the GPO aimed to bring together as many strands of antifascism from across the city, supported by activists from Belfast, Galway, Derry, Cork and more, in advance of planned fascist pickets which have been taking place there each week. This historical monument, preserved even by a state that doesn’t value the nation’s revolutionary heritage, was besmirched by the weekly attendance of false ‘patriots’ who sought to claim its message as their own.”

“It could be said that the failure of the mainstream political parties, and indeed all of us on the Republican left, to provide a notable alternative to working class people across Ireland has allowed racist, xenophobic, sexist and ultra-religious organisations like the National Party and the Irish Freedom Party the space to organise on many fronts; to gather the voices of the disenfranchised and make them their own.”

“These organisations are using the Covid-19 crisis, and the subsequent discontent it has created with a small minority, as a pool within which they can recruit and grow their respective organisations. Many may be duped into giving their support to those that distribute a message of hate with smiles on their faces.”

The spokesperson said, “The only lasting solution to this is to gather our forces, to provide an alternative to those rejected by the state; to push forward our message of Socialism and Republicanism; and to face down fascism wherever it appears.”

“Yesterday at the GPO was just the beginning.”

ENDS