Arson attacks: The work of organised extremists or local ‘lone wolves’?

Plainclothes gardaí watched discreetly from the sidelines on Monday as hundreds of anti-immigration protesters gathered outside the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin city centre and prepared to march to the Custom House.

These detectives were not looking out for public order breaches or potential clashes with the antiracism counter demonstrators further up O’Connell Street – that was the job of the hundreds of public order and uniformed gardaí deployed to the protest.

Instead, they were searching for far-right activists involved in recent criminality, including the Dublin riots of November 23rd last and attacks on asylum seeker accommodation centres in the capital.

In some cases, they knew the names of the people they were searching for. In others, they just had CCTV images which they hoped they might match to a face at the protest.

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It was a good idea. Sources say a flurry of arrests and search operations targeting far-right activists this week was in part enabled by Monday’s intelligence-gathering operation.

Over the course of the week, one man was arrested on suspicion of setting a Luas on fire during the riots. A short time later, another man was detained for allegedly causing criminal damage to a direct provision centre in Kerry last month.

On Thursday, two men and a woman were arrested for allegedly setting fire to a former pub in Ringsend, Dublin 4 that had been falsely rumoured to be earmarked for asylum seeker accommodation.

The attack gutted the old Shipwright pub on Thorncastle Street, preventing it from being used as intended: as temporary accommodation for homeless families.

It brings to 10 the number of people arrested for anti-immigration arson attacks in recent months. This figure does not include those arrested following the Dublin riots, during which several accommodation centres for asylum seekers were targeted.

After months of what appeared to the public to be Garda inaction, it appeared the force was finally cracking down on violent far-right extremists.

Still, the attacks continue. In the early hours of Wednesday this week, a seven-bed bungalow in Leixlip, Co Kildare was destroyed by arsonists after false rumours spread it was to be used as asylum seeker housing.

Three days previously, a disused nursing home in Crooksling, near Saggart in southwest Co Dublin, was set alight. It was one of a number of HSE locations being preliminarily assessed by the Department of Integration for possible use for refugees or asylum seekers.

The latest incidents bring the number of arson attacks with a suspected anti-immigration motivation to 23 since 2018. In the last year alone there have been 13 attacks, with most occurring in the last three months.

The question on the minds of politicians, gardaí and the public is, who is behind these attacks? Is it a centrally organised far-right group, a loose network of anti-immigrant activists or just individual local criminals incited by online misinformation and racist rhetoric?

Tánaiste Micheál Martin raised some eyebrows on Wednesday when, in response to the Leixlip incident, he said there was “clearly an organised campaign” of arson taking place.

Since then, gardaí have repeated their long-held opinion that most, if not all, of the arson attacks to date have been carried out by local people, without outside direction.

“I think people find it a bit comforting to think this is all being done by one overarching group who are travelling around the country. People don’t want to believe there are individuals in every community more than capable of doing this,” said one garda.

The results from the various Garda investigations to date tend to back up the “lone wolf” theory. There are no discernible patterns to the attacks, except that they have almost always occurred following rumours a location was to be used as accommodation for either asylum seekers or refugees from Ukraine.

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The attacks take place on different days of the week and at different times, although usually during the hours of darkness for obvious reasons.

There has been a wide variety in the methods used to set properties on fire. In some cases, windows have been broken and burning material dropped inside. In others, petrol bombs have been thrown at the property. The most recent blaze, in Leixlip, was caused by the arsonists bringing fire logs and coal into the building and setting them alight.

“Some attacks are quite professional, with the fire set in a way so as to cause as much damage as possible,” said a garda.

“Others are very amateur. That’s why there have been so many failed incidents.”

All those arrested so far are from the area local to where the attack was carried out, gardaí say, although some have connections to wider far-right groups.

The fact that the attacks seem to be the work of local, often bumbling, individuals is a source of further concern for gardaí – this factor makes it more likely an occupied premises will be targeted inadvertently, leading to serious injury or death.

No one has been seriously injured in the attacks so far but there have been several close calls. In November 2018, the owner of the Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville, Co Donegal was injured in an arson attack on the building, which had been earmarked to accommodate asylum seekers.

On the night of the Dublin riots last November, a warehouse in Finglas in northwest Dublin previously earmarked for asylum seekers was set ablaze. Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus had to rescue a security guard from the building.

In Buncrana, Co Donegal, arsonists tried to set the Sailor’s Rest accommodation centre on fire using a firework while it was occupied by about 50 people.

Gardaí fear these lone-wolf arsonists are becoming more brazen.

The former nursing home in Crooksling was burned down despite the presence of a security guard at the property. Gardaí were conducting regular patrols past the Leixlip property around the time it was set alight, and the owner had taken several security precautions after being warned it may be targeted.

In several cases, including at Leixlip and a hotel in Rooskey on the Leitrim-Roscommon border, arsonists returned a second time after failing to burn the property down at the first attempt.

Support for the lone-wolf theory can be found in other European countries. Irish arsonists are in fact repeating what has been going on in the rest of the EU since 2015, according to Claudia Wallner, a terrorism expert and research fellow with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

“In terms of the arson cases, we have seen many, many attacks like this in Germany, Austria, Sweden and in places in southern Europe, where a lot of the refugees initially arrived,” she said.

As in Ireland, there is a direct correlation in other EU countries with large numbers of asylum seekers or refugees arriving and an increase in far-right violence, she said.

Many of these attacks do not receive much international attention because they usually target unoccupied buildings and therefore fall below the definition of terrorism.

Burning buildings earmarked for migrant housing is a popular tactic among anti-immigration extremists as it is in line with the image they want to present as “defenders of Europe rather than aggressors”, said Wallner.

Crucially, she says, far-right violence is typically carried out by individuals rather than organised hierarchical groups. These individuals might be loosely networked through the internet. The more organised far-right groups are smart enough not to become directly involved in violence.

The nature of arson attacks, which usually occur in the middle of the night with no witnesses, makes it difficult to say with certainty who is behind them, says Prof Tore Bjorgo, an expert on the extreme right at the University of Oslo in Norway. However, in general, organised far-right groups have become less violent in recent years, with a greater proportion of attacks coming from lone actors, he says.

“Organisations know they are under quite strict surveillance and they know they will be arrested and banned. I have seen this very clearly with the Nordic Resistance movement, which is the main neo-Nazi group here.”

The “general European pattern” is that attacks are carried out by individuals acting alone, he says.

Bjorgo is the director of the Centre for Extremism Research: Right-Wing Extremism, Hate Crime and Political Violence (C-Rex) which publishes a yearly report on right-wing terrorism in Europe.

In most previous years, Ireland has barely featured in the report. Data from 2023 is still being collated, but at least six incidents which occurred in Ireland last year will likely meet the centre’s definition of far-right terrorism and be included in the next report.

Gardaí hope the latest round of arrests will deter other potential arsonists. They are also confident of more arrests. Officers have been scouring social media, particularly TikTok and Telegram, for posts documenting arson attacks which were uploaded suspiciously soon after the fires broke out.

They are analysing metadata from these posts to determine their times and locations.

Meanwhile, the cycle continues.

In Arklow, Co Wicklow, where the former Eir depot building in Croghan Industrial Estate is being assessed as a potential location to house Ukrainian refugees, protests have been ongoing throughout the week and multiple threats have appeared online.

“We will succeed. No building in Arklow will be filled with men,” wrote one person.

“Hopefully no building will have to be set on fire, but that’s what will happen if the Government doesn’t listen to us and stop bringing them in.”

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