There was a protest on the evening of Sunday the 18th of August 2024 outside the Corralea Court Hotel in Tuam. It was an anti-immigration protest and yet another sign of racist interests trying to infect our wonderful county.
Background:
The hotel has been housing Ukrainian refugees for over a year. The hotel is now being proposed to house refugee families who come through the International Protection process. The Ukrainians who had been living there have been relocated.
– Ukrainian refugees have been relocated around the country the past few months as changes were made to the length of time they can stay in refugee accommodation. This is disgusting and I stand firmly against any community being relocated. It destroys any roots they’ve made and especially effects the children who are torn away from their schools and friends.
– No extra number of refugees will be living in the hotel. Like in Dundrum in Tipperary, the government are essentially swapping out one set of refugees for another in the accommodation that they have jurisdiction over.
– The protest this evening was not in solidarity with the Ukrainian refugees who’ve been relocated. It was an episode in whipping up fear about the new Brown and Black refugees who may live in the hotel in the future. I say that because there was never any calls for consultation or fake concerns about local resources when the exact same number of white refugees lived there the past year.
CATU have been organising solidarity protests with Ukrainian refugees who have been relocated. There were no such sentiments on display outside the Corralea Court Hotel on Sunday evening.
Who organised the anti-immigration protest?
It appears to have been organised by a local man who has previously run for election in the area. As well as receiving less than 1.8% of the vote on the two occasions he ran in the locals, his social media feed is filled with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, as well as an intentional focus on crimes committed in Ireland where the perpetrator happens to be non-White.
Who supported the protest and how many showed up?
A woman with an English accent who tours the country protesting against refugees seems to have made a host of TikTok videos about the plans for the hotel. A local branch of the extreme racist National Party also promoted the protest. Another individual with an Islamophobic Twitter bio appears to have tried to rally the numbers online in advance of the protest. For a town with a population of almost 10,000, it looks like around 40 people showed up for the initial gathering while half of that stayed around for photos.
Have there been previous protests about refugees in Tuam?
The most recent community activity in the area with regards to refugees was just 2 months ago, with a monthly anti-racist walk promoting diversity, organised by local activists which the local branch of Sinn Féin promoted online.
The only anti-refugee activity is from February of last year which was promoted by individuals with no ties to Galway, let alone Tuam. This activity was ridiculed by locals.
Response:
If you type “Tuam” into Twitter or Facebook, you’ll unfortunately find that the worst dregs of society are now talking about the town.
Lies are flying around about who’s going to be housed in the hotel with one person successfully contradicting themselves within the space of 36 hours.
A write-up on the protest appeared online almost immediately. The author is someone who has held anti-immigrant views for almost 20 years, and who compares the burying of 796 dead babies without a grave with people who didn’t get the Covid vaccine.
Local Election results:
In June, Tuam elected 3 Fine Gael Councillors, 2 Fianna Fail Councillors, 1 Independent Ireland Councillor who used to be in Labour, and 1 independent Councillor with a left-of-centre viewpoint.
The two elected officials that have been commenting on the situation in Tuam are Councillor Pete Roche (FG) and Sean Canney TD (Ind). Mr Roche has been entertaining some of the lies being spread by outside influences while Mr Canney could provide no response to the issue of commercial vacancy in Tuam – an issue which is at the crux of any concern for a lack of commercial or community facilities. I will return to this issue shortly.
A deeper look at the local election results in Tuam shows that two first-time candidates running for the Greens and Labour from an African background, got almost twice the amount of votes received as two candidates running for explicitly far-right, anti-immigration parties (NP + IP).
“The only hotel in Tuam” and 26% commercial vacancy
This post isn’t for the extreme racists, they couldn’t care less if Tuam burnt to the ground. This post is for those locals who bleed maroon like me who attended the protest. I have a few questions I’d like to put to them:
– If your concerns are around the lack of housing in the area, why haven’t there been any protests, or public meetings, or calls for consultation about the 203 vacant and derelict houses in Tuam?
– If your concerns are about the lack of commercial or community facilities in the area, why haven’t there been any protests about the 26% commercial vacancy rate in Tuam, the highest in the county? Why not focus your anger on the 4 individuals who are making a profit off these empty buildings? Local politicians mentioning a few coffee shops opening does not answer why there are hundreds of empty commercial units across the town.
Quick to shout about hotels disappearing and the services they used to offer, but total radio silence on the fact that units have been lying empty for years which could easily have been used to open new hotels, restaurants or cafes.
Commercial vacancy in Tuam has gotten steadily worse over the past decade. It stood at 17.4% in 2020, it rose to 22.8% in 2022, and now stands at 26% in 2024.
– If you’ve been taken in by racist dog-whistling about threats to women and children, can you honestly defend such fears knowing that the main culprit with regard to the abuse of children in Tuam is the legacy of the Catholic Church through the Mother & Baby Homes? Do we need to mention the 796 babies that were never afforded the dignity of a marked grave? Do we have to bring up the 18 priests who abused children for almost 40 years?
Conclusion:
Either we call this hate out for what it is or we continue to stay silent while they pollute our towns and villages with their racist lies. These people don’t care about any community in Galway. They only speak up when there’s an opportunity to blame foreigners.
There are over 40 community groups active in Tuam focused on sport, social inclusion and the environment. Should the promoters of hate attempt to build resistance locally, it will be incumbent on those of us who are active in the anti-racism movement in Galway to work with locals who are focused on developing a more welcoming Tuam.
Joe Loughnane 
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