AT AROUND 8.30pm last night, in the minutes before the violence erupted in Saggart, a woman stepped back into the crowd of masked young men and pleaded with them to be peaceful.

The woman, with a Dublin accent and wearing a white jacket, made comments that violence would undermine the point of the protest outside the Citywest complex.  

The youths, masked and wearing hooded tops, ignored her and it was then that the missiles got worse. 

Rocks and bottles were hurled sporadically, then from behind the main group of protestors large, explosive fireworks were moved in and launched at the public order skirmish line.

It was then that the activity shifted from supposed protest to frenzied, largescale, violence directed at the gardaí.

How the violence escalated 

The Journal arrived at the site last night shortly after 7.30pm. We walked into the main area of the protest with the garda helicopter visible above. 

Protesters were gathering for a second night of anti-immigration protests. The previous night’s demonstration had resulted in injuries to a garda, multiple arrests and a Garda van being set on fire.

The protest was initially sparked by the alleged sexual assault of a young girl in the area in recent days. A 26-year-old man, who cannot be named because of the nature of the case, appeared in court earlier this week. 

The former Citywest Hotel was purchased by the state for use as an Ipas centre earlier this year. There are around 1,200 Ukrainians in the centre currently, and approximately 460 international protection applicants.

Last night’s wanton violence was different from Tuesday – the organisation appeared less. There were no lasers targeting the helicopter from what we could see and no massed ranks of far right agitators. 

As we arrived there was a very noticeable large movement of people down City West Avenue to Fortunestown lane and towards the junction of Garter Lane, immediately opposite the Saggart Luas stop. 

The atmosphere among those arriving to the scene was jovial – like they were heading to a concert or an event. Some even brought their children.

From the main roads in towards Saggart the presence of gardaí was vast, with uniform members in marked patrol cars and vans. Nearby plainclothes gardaí were also present. Sporadic arrests of masked young men were being made in the vicinity. 

We moved to the t-junction of Garter Lane and Fortunestown Lane. It is always hard to judge crowd sizes but we estimated there was a crowd of about 500 people. 

There was a very potent smell of cannabis in the air, but no sign of any harder drugs and no visible alcohol being consumed.

Soft cap uniform gardaí blocking the roadway to the entrance to Citywest in Saggart. Niall O'Connor / The Journal Niall O'Connor / The Journal / The Journal

There were around 20 to 30 protestors with tricolours. Some of them had the flag wrapped around their necks, some on a pole, some had it in their hands. 

The main body of the group, however, were those young men and teenage boys who were wearing varying degrees of masks, from neck warmers to skull motif scarfs, to balaclavas. 

The gardaí were there too – in soft caps. After some stones and bottles were flung towards them and injuries became more likely the Public Order Unit arrived. 

It was at this point that the crowd forgot about any pretence of peaceful protest and the rioting began.

Volley of fireworks fired at Gardaí in Saggart.
Lots of young masked kids here.
Chants of “get them out”.
A woman stepped forward and told the groups of children to be peaceful. The fireworks came then.
Public Order Unit still blocking the road to the hotel. @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/s0LrZOWVNR

— Niall O’Connor (@NiallJournal_ie) October 22, 2025

The rest of the night saw gardaí gradually and meticulously moving forward and moving the crowd back, taking it junction by junction – textbook public order policing.

We were in the centre of the crowd last night for much of the early stages of the protest and then the subsequent riot. We observed at close quarters the groups of masked young people and those around them.

There was no sign of anything approaching real organisation.

The youths were not receiving messages to act in a particular manner, they were not monitoring social media. 

They were, however, coming up with ideas in an organic off-the-cuff manner within their own groups. We watched them decide to rip off hoarding from a building site to be used as missiles. They collected rocks and then some youths arrived with bottles in bags to be used. These appeared to be from a bottle bank or recycling bins nearby.  

Ground level 

Noticeably, as they handed out the wine bottles, the gardaí moved towards them.

It was almost like the gardaí had observers at ground level and knew there was an escalation in the nature of the weaponry.

Gardaí now people back down the road away from the road leading to Saggart.
Masked young men mostly flinging bottles and other missiles.
Gardaí moving gradually down the road by Saggart Luas stop. pic.twitter.com/GiApd4Xu3Q

— Niall O’Connor (@NiallJournal_ie) October 22, 2025

We observed two men wearing expensive hooded jackets, dressed differently to the rioters.

They were almost certainly attempting to conceal their faces to some degree – but as we watched them repeatedly during the two or three hours of violence they did not direct the groups. 

The woman who stepped forward to reason with them earlier had no control over the youths. She was with a small group of other women and was involved in chants of “get them out”.

The make-up of the crowd was overwhelmingly young as the night progressed and most of those taking part in the violence were not carrying anti-migrant banners or tricolours. 

The youths who were there were jovial and enjoying what they were doing. An oft-times used phrase in regard to the experience in Northern Ireland of mass street violence is “recreational rioting”.

While there has been criticism of that phraseology, it best describes the atmosphere of those attacking the garda lines last night. 

From all that we could see last night’s rioting was being done by disparate groups of teenage boys and young men from nearby communities who were doing it because they were enjoying themselves with violence and getting the chance to fight with gardaí.

The result was four Garda members hospitalised in the violence and a community at the centre of violence and criminal damage.