AT THE START of this year, Roscrea in Tipperary hit the headlines for what was to become an all-too-common reason for an Irish town in 2024: plans to house people seeking international protection in the area resulted in a political storm.
As the first clash between gardaí and protesters following the Dublin riots, it set the template for what would come later in Newtownmountkennedy in Wicklow, Coolock in Dublin and nearby Dundrum.
The Journal visited the town in recent days to take the temperature ahead of the impending general election.
Have the protests impacted how people will decide? Will providing housing for people who have come to Ireland be a dealbreaker for voters? And how do people feel about the government’s handling of it all?
In interviews with many people living in the town, conversations frequently turned to Racket Hall, the former hotel located on the town’s outskirts, which has been housing families since the start of the year.
Many quickly noted that the change of use has left Roscrea without a hotel – a sore point for any market town.
Grainne Mulvey, working in a dry cleaners off a square in Roscrea, said it’s the “one thing” that people want to see resolved.
“Oh lord, there were events happening in Roscrea during the summer and people looking to stay had to go somewhere else. Some would stay in Birr,” she told The Journal.
When asked about the protests last January – where people formed a blockade to try to prevent gardaí from bringing children and their parents into the hotel – a number of interviewees express unhappiness at the “direction” the demonstrations took. Nobody claims to have attended the protest during the weeks that it took place.
One manager of a hardware store said the handling of the overall issue left a “bitterness” in the area. He said that there was a feeling that “government parties turned their backs” on Roscrea.
“There was a feeling more could be done to try and solve the lack of a hotel. It means there’s nowhere to go, either for a family function gathering or even for some business,” the man said.
You have travelling salesmen who can’t get somewhere to stay when they’re in visiting, but there are no taxis anymore so people can’t get somewhere if there’s a wedding or something else on. It put a bad feeling about for a lot of people.”
Despite the struggles, it’s still a busy town with plenty of people going in and out of the shops in the town centre.
A building supplier pointed to two new housing estates and a series of one-off rural housing in the wider area, which has helped his business to thrive, particularly compared to a few years ago. Building is a big deal in Tipperary: a report by the planning regulator found that Tipperary had a 97% rate – the highest in the country – for approving planning permission.
As a way to fill the void left by the loss of the hotel, government TDs put forward a plan for a ‘community owned hotel’.
The plan involved purchasing a now-vacant hotel once called Grants. Sitting on a main thoroughfare opposite the 13th century Roscrea Castle, it’s believed it would work ideally if reopened.
The county council is currently finalising a feasibility study to examine the use of the site as a community hotel and for other activities. The report is due back in the new year.
But few people in the area expressed confidence in any plan to buy the hotel and reopen it under a community owned model.
“I don’t know what that means,” Mulvey said of the ‘community hotel’ term. “Who is it for? I don’t know if anyone knows if it’ll ever happen.”
Sabrina Byrne, a community activist who voiced support for welcoming in people seeking international protection during the protests, said there has been a dearth of information around any new hotel. If it does get off the ground, she believes, it needs people with experience of the hospitality industry involved.
“It also can’t have people involved in the protests from either side involved in it,” she said, before adding: “That also means me.”
She supported the setting up one Facebook page – ‘Room at the Table for All’ – which is devoted to “pushing the positive” of migration into the area, such as celebrating people getting their citizenship papers.
Byrne quickly pulled away from the Racket Hall protest, she explained, after it “focused on far-right and anti-migrant stuff trying to whip people into a frenzy”.
Another who expressed concern at the harder stance towards the protest was Mulvey, in the dry cleaners, who said she believed people had to looked after if arriving to the town.
A number of locals referenced a small group who are “hardcore” in their opposition to migrants and who have formed a so-called community patrol group. One man rolled his eyes at his friend’s mention of them, with both agreeing the actions were “not necessary”.
Byrne, 43, said she finds there are people in the area “looking for a cause” and wound up turning to the anti-migrant movement. “I’m a mother of six who used to spend a lot of my days waiting for my husband to come home, so I do get what it’s like. But you get people doing really dangerous stuff and then you get Facebook groups trying to post everything bad they can about refugees here.
“I’ve seen posts lambasting refugee fellas for taking a pee against the wall of a shop, or because they’re waiting at the end of a lane to collect a bag of weed. They’re not doing those posts when white Irish men are doing it, it’s honestly just because they’re black.”
A “lifelong Fianna Fáil voter” who also expresses admiration for People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy, Byrne is down a choice in this election. In 2016 and in 2020, North Tipperary was joined with South Tipperary into one constituency, meaning she could cast a second preference for the Clonmel-based Seamus Healy of the centre-left Workers and Unemployed Action Group, after Thurles-based Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill. It’s now returned to a north-south division.
Byrne claimed that one of the only things the protest succeeded in was “splitting support” for Sinn Féin in the area – though she herself may still give them a preference.
Fianna Fáil topped the poll in the local elections here, while a number of residents say they wish for a local TD to help with local concerns – from figuring out the hotel issue and ensuring a local nursing home stays open.
Fine Gael have been without a seat in Tipperary since 2016 but, while many who we spoke to were favourable towards party leader Simon Harris, the same people still expressed support for Fianna Fáil or Independent TD Michael Lowry.
Cahill suddenly announced his intention to step down following medical advice last month.
Byrne said there were reasons to be unhappy with Fianna Fáil but, as a self-described pro-life voter, pointed to its stance on allowing a free vote in the Eighth Amendment referendum as important to her continuing support. She hoped that Roscrea councillor Michael Smith – whose office is situated visibly in the middle of the town – would get the nod as Cahill’s successor, citing a strong “pro-integration” stance from Smith during the protests.
The party has since selected Smith as part of a two-man ticket alongside the young and newly-elected councillor Ryan O’Meara, from the Nenagh area.
Noel Treacy, who spoke to The Journal while pucking a sliotar off his house, simply laughed and said “not a chance” to Fianna Fáil – before admitting that he might give a local rep like Smith a vote.
Expressing doubt about the community hotel plan, he said “people are wondering if they’ll just be putting foreigners in there as soon as it’s bought, that it won’t come back to the town at all”.
Elsewhere, one man working in a shop off the town square bemoaned a lack of “strategy and leadership” by the government on migration, adding that modular housing and other accommodation haven’t been set up quick enough “to take pressure off” services in areas.
“Unsolvable” is how the 38-year-old summed up his feelings on politics. He feels guilty about having stopped voting around five years ago.
Problems have existed in the likes of the health service well before the new arrivals came to Ireland, he said, before becoming emotional as he recalled witnessing the struggle for a bed and treatment when bringing his father through the health system.
“I remember being in fifth or sixth class in school, sitting down for dinner in the evenings and seeing on the Six One news that there was a shortage of beds in hospitals,” he said. “Why are we still talking about that now – what are we doing?”
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