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Linda Ervine is a Unionist and Irish language rights activist from East Belfast, and is the president of the recently-formed East Belfast GAA.
I talked to her about last year’s Ashcroft polling indicating that support for a United Ireland is increasing towards a tipping point in Northern Ireland.
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I was sitting down to do an editorial piece for this podcast, and I had been particularly struck by the apparent arson attack on a house in Carnmore in Galway which, it was believed locally, was about to be allocated to a Traveller family.
There were many comments of support for the family and condemning the attack on social media, but there was a significant strain, usually from anonymous accounts, that were clearly hostile to the family that had been slated to move in, and a subset of them were explicitly advocating and praising violence against Travellers and their property. These comments came predominantly from the type of account that has a fake profile picture and a username ending in a long random number.
But not everyone making comments that seemed hostile to Travellers was so careful to be anonymous. Galway city Cllr Noel Larkin was quoted in the Irish Independent as demanding that locals should be consulted before Travellers be allowed to move into the area.
It’s not the first time that Larkin has been in controversy for his views. He said people filmed while taking part in a fracas in Galway – white, apparently Irish people – were quote, ‘behaving like Zulus’.
He said that immigrants to Ireland are guilty of ‘blatant misuse’ of the social welfare system and claimed, Enda Kenny-style that a non-national told him ‘work is hard, social welfare is easy’. He also wrote a letter saying that Traveller housing should not be ‘forced on communities’, and that settled people were due an apology from Travellers for calling them racists. Galway Bay FM have had a case taken against them to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland for remarks that he made in an interview they broadcast.
As I said, I was sitting down to do this editorial and I wanted to check the quotes from Noel Larkin, so I rang him up and rather than do my whole spiel, I think it’s better to just let you hear the call.
