Assault at Newbrigde train station

Ten of Swords

Suspected homophobic assault at Newbridge train station yesterday evening, a man in his 20s hospitalized with stab wounds.

Sad news, that must have been during or just after rush hour, there must have been people around. Article doesn't mention any arrests

https://www.thejournal.ie/newbridge-assault-hate-crime-4988910-Feb2020/

Heebie

According to a post by one of the victims, the Gardaí know who the perpetrators are.
We'll see if that pans out.

Tomrota

Disgusting. There’ve been such a high amount of assaults and attacks on that train line (and public transport in general) this year.

These guys probably won’t be caught. If they are, they won’t get much time. That’s for sure. Nobody cares about repercussions anymore it seems. Just look at the red line.

Ten of Swords

I read the facebook post one of them put out, it was really horrible. He got beaten and kicked while his partner was stabbed four times

branie2

Awful!

nthclare

Reminds me of the time in the 90s a gay guy I was out with had a knife pulled on him in Cork, just off Patrick St.
Remember that side street where there was a pass machine near McDonald's.

Anyhow my friend grabbed the hand of the Norrie and hit his hand off a brick wall, then did a Vinny Jones on the thug.

I swing both ways myself, probably vere more on the alpha butch side.
My friend had a skinhead look with two ears pierced.
That's how he stood out and was called a bender and a poof.
Awful thing to call a gay guy who's as hard as nails and wearing laced up Doc Martin boots

Self defence was required and the guards arrested the thug and into the paddy waggon with him.
It was a legendary memory

gmisk

Really sad to see anything like this happening.
Hopefully they get the scum that did it.
I think it still happens a fair bit alas, even in Ireland which is fairly tolerant, a lot of homophobic attacks are not reported as such, speaking from personal experience alas.

tdf7187

English journalist Owen Jones was assaulted recently in London, though it's not clear if it was homophobic or because of his left wing views. It wasn't random, the fella arrested was discovered to have a stash of Chelsea Headhunters memorabilia in his flat.

Mr.Frame

It was a horrendous attack on the couple and the bastards who carried out the attack MUST be jailed, no excuses,jail.

People ask why do we still have Pride parades, sure you have equality ect,. Yet here we have 2 people attacked for being gay, no other reason, they were attacked because of their sexuality.

It seems to me that there is a serious increase in recent years of regular attacks on gay people,Everyone needs to keep safe.

Whoever gets into power after the next election, must, introduce hate crime laws as a matter of urgency.

Mattdhg

Stuff like this is getting more and more frequent, its really disheartening. Im always very anxious to hold my boyfriend's hand in public just incase something like this happens - its hard to imagine watching the one you love get beaten up. Heart goes out to the poor couple involved.

All those imbeciles saying hate crime/speech laws would "give the gays more rights than me" will never understand what it's like.

Heebie

Mattdhg wrote:

All those imbeciles saying hate crime/speech laws would "give the gays more rights than me" will never understand what it's like.

This is exactly why we still need pride festivals and gay spaces... and meaningful hate crimes legislation!

splinter65

Latest on this attack below.

https://www.facebook.com/221599401189017/posts/3485780991437492/?d=n

Xertz

It’s awful to see something like that happen and I would like to send my support and absolute solidarity to the victim of this attack.

This kind of thing hurts the people attacked and it also hurts the broader LGBT+ community and also sends a chilling message to a lot of people who should be able to feel safe. I would worry about those of us who don’t have good community networks or who are on the edge of them.

It’s is also why I think it’s a shame to see the fizzling out of gay spaces. We still need places to meet that aren’t just trendy bars. I think for example in Cork the loss of Loafers, which was a chilled out local pub that was a very core part of the community has been huge and is very underestimated.

Personally, I don’t actually feel like I have much of a community anymore. I’m gone past the days when I want to go clubbing and I don’t really have anywhere to go to just hang out.

Ireland is generally fairly safe but this kind of sheer thuggery happens too much. There’s a lot of work needs to be done on education around respect for minority groups and diversity and challenging what is a definitely a bubble of far right hate that’s being nurtured mostly online.

Just on a simple and practical level we also need significantly more policing or security in areas like public transportation. There’s definitely a serious lack of it and over dependence on CCTV to be a deterrent.

We’re far, far too soft on unprovoked violent crime and are classifying things as petty crime that are really serious.

It’s very disappointing to see this kind of thing is still a live issue in Ireland though. You’d really expect a lot better in 2020, particularly after all the positivity of the last decade.

Annasopra

Its because of the growth of the far right. Racism and Homophobia are all tangled together with other hate speech and promoted by people like Gemma O'Doherty, Justin Barrett, John Waters. Trump/Brexit and Facebook/Youtube/Twitter have emboldened bigoted hatemongers.

Xertz

Yeah and it's in large part bleed-over from the US and UK online. It'd be rather naive to assume that Ireland's entirely immune from that kind of thing, even if it only scrapes the fringes of politics here, it can still bubble through and embolden the exact same demographic who'd be football hooligans if they were English or wandering around with MAGA hats if they were in the US.

It needs to be challenged a lot harder though as if it's not it just grows and that's been the case in plenty of other anglophone countries.