I was briefly contemplating a new series for An Sionnach Fionn, a name and shame game for the many Anglophone trolls in Ireland who publicly express their hatred or contempt for the nation’s Irish-speaking citizens and communities. The fleeting idea was sparked by an article over on thejournal.ie highlighting the lack of accommodation for 200 pupils in Gaelcholaiste an Phiarsaigh, an Irish-medium school in south Dublin, where one person contributed this nicely prejudicial insight:
“One sure way of sending your kids to an all white school.”
The individual is an Irish man who judging by his online profile is apparently in a relationship or friends with several non-Irish nationals. So one would reasonably expect such a person to be acutely aware of the pernicious nature of discrimination and racist propaganda. But no, this is Ireland, and spreading insidious lies about Irish-speaking parents, Irish-speaking children, is seen as so acceptable that even those who should know better think it to be the norm.
One despairs…
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
life’s too short, sionnach: all you have to do is pick any article at random and cross check social media profiles, which could be bogus
in fact – no joke – if you’ve 90ECBs to spare you could pay someone who’s short of funds to create sql database tables (access) and upload latest trolls in online articles and publish details (a hansard of ‘frith-ghaelachas’) – irrefutable proof of the woefully ill informed debate surrounding Irish history/culture generally and hatred towards Irish speakers specifically @
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Ah yeah, a good few of the profiles used for Commenting on thejournal.ie are fake or one-day affairs. It suffers some pretty horrendous trolling and from what one sees there is little effort to stamp it out. However in this case the person seemed to actually exist. If not the sentiments were real enough from someone.
Talking of alleged online misbehaviour the Consumers’ Association of Ireland is in the spotlight here.
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You may already be aware of this, but the twitter account @apuntem “Despertem el poble” (Wake up people) keeps an ongoing reposting/name and shame of anti-catalan tweets it deems fit the category of racist or hate crime. It suffers from no lack of material.
It’s depressing material, especially so as among some young Spaniards (teenage/twenties) of a monocultural nationalist bent, it seems to be a thing to try to imaginatively outdo one another in the violence they wish upon catalan separatists/independentists. The wish to see people gassed, hung, or bombed is shockingly common.
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I wasn’t aware of the Twitter account but had a read through it now with my limited Spanish and help of Google Translate. Extraordinary stuff. What we get in Ireland is bad in terms of Anglophone intolerance but nothing like what those young Spanish people are saying about Catalonians and Basques. It is genuinely shocking.
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I think this needs to be done. but long term, the only thing that is going to tame and control Ireland’s racist Anglophone establoishment is aa massive class action lawsuit in the Courts, with eventual complaint to The ECHR.
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I have argued for a “Fighting Fund for Irish” to take the battle to the courts. It has worked elsewhere. Shame and litigate opponents into submission. Block up the courts with hundreds of law suits. Bring government to a halt for the fear of legal challenges.
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