The damage

On Sunday afternoon I went out walking in city centre looking for damage/signs of the riots. It was actually fairly difficult to find them. People had their bikes chained to the posts down O'Connell Street. About an hour after the civil unrest ended, people were able to drive down the street again. All in all, life went back to normal very quickly. The Footlocker was closed on Sunday but re-opened on Monday. The still don't seem to have shutters on their windows, though. I wonder if they will get any.

On Monday, people were talking a lot about the incident. I don't like to call it a riot because it didn't seem big enough to me. From some of the pictures I have seen, I missed the more violent part of it. Also, given the amount of tension in Ireland between the people who think the North should stay separate and those who think the whole island should be one country and the history of violence between these groups, it is impressive that there wasn't more damage done. From talking to people, it sounded like the counter demonstrators (ones who didn't want the original march/parade to happen) had gathered bottles the night before. They apparently planned to throw them at police and the marchers.

Some people were also saying that marches like a Love Ulster (Northern Ireland) shouldn't be allowed in Dublin. I understand their sentiments to some extent. It does seem like when there are supposed to be peaceful marches about an issue dealing with North/South, there is some sort of civil disobedience. Maybe people just aren't ready to put some of the issues behind them. I don't pretend to understand the situation as I have only been in the country less than a year. However, given the long history of conflict, it seems that the issues may need to be handled in a more delicate manner.

Another thing that I found interesting from this civil unrest was the comments about "thugs" and organized crime. Numerous taxi drivers have told me that there is a strong organized crime network in city centre. It seems that some believe that when the civil unrest started, the organized crime groups and "thugs" then took advantage of the situation to break in to places and loot them. The people doing the looting definitely seemed to be young, in their teens perhaps.