Riots in Portmarnock

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

They try and invent tension imo. Take NY for eg, Can you imagine if a Mick from Hell's Kitchen started wideboying in Little Italy? Or worse still a black guy from Harlem tried to start trouble with the micks and greaseballs?

Any racial issue will work its self out over time, acceptance comes in time, who would have ever thought that America would have a black President.

Racism...

Problem123456 wrote: »

I take it you have never been to eastern europe and Spain or pretty much and other country.
Ireland is one of the safest counties in the world.
Also we do have 'elite police groups'.

You won't see this in eastern europe, the ex-communist regime behviour and attitude is still there. Meaning, if there's a problem, they act roughly. That's why this kind of acts can be very rarely seen there. Pub fights yes, but not this one. Ireland is safe compared to US, but more dangerous than most of the central and eastern europian countries (except Ukrain, some part of Romania, Russia and the Balkan countries).

Scumbags pick on anyone who is different from them. There wasn't a lot of racial diversity when I was a teen so the scumbags used to pick on me and my friends. I ended up in a lot of fights (I'm not easily intimidated and am well able to defend myself) and on more than one occasion I had to flee from vastly superior numbers.

Scumbags still act like that today, but I am (usually) not considered different enough to be the target of their senseless hostility. The racial element of this is simply where the bar was set on that day. If the aggressive individuals had been on a beach full of people of the same race, they would have found another pretext to kick off. That is what they were there for.

When I say scumbags I am not referring to people from any particular area, race, socioeconomic background, or whatever. I am talking about people who behave in a particular way.

Blaming drink is another red herring and frankly it lets these thugs off without the blame they deserve. "I couldn't help it I was drunk", is the refrain of the scumbag as he tries to pretend he isn't at fault for the things he did. Those people decided to get tanked up and go looking for trouble. Plenty of people drank alcohol that day, I'm sure the beer gardens were full to bursting and plenty of back yards were filled with people enjoying alcohol and BBQed meat but the vast majority of us managed to resists the temptation to pick a fight with a random stranger.

I really hate that this crap happens. We have some lovely beaches in Dublin and to have this happen on one of the few days of the year we can fully enjoy them is a crying shame.

On a positive note, I was on Dollymount Strand last Monday and it was great. We had our 2 year old with us for a play in the sand and a paddle. There was a good racial mix. There were other kids, people flying kites, playing football, volley ball, etc. There was a group of people in their late teens a little bit down the beach from us and they were drinking beer. They were not aggressive, or particularly loud.

Don't let the actions of a bunch of violent scum taint your view of people of any particular race, people who like a drink, people of a particular age group, people from a particular area, or whatever.

Some people are just assholes.

are there any bye-laws about drink on the beaches?