LAST UPDATE | 19 Jul 2023
GARDAÍ ARE INVESTIGATING following an attack on the family home of a councillor in which a rock was thrown through a window with a note telling him to “stop supporting” refugees.
The Irish Times yesterday reported that the rock was thrown through the front window of Independent councillor for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Hugh Lewis’ family home in Ballybrack at around 11.30pm on Monday.
It reported that a note was wrapped around the rock, which read: “Hugh, stop supporting f**king refugees or you’ll have to move out. This is your last warning.”
Lewis no longer lives at the property. His 78-year-old father Patrick Lewis lives there alone.
“It was like a bomb hitting the window. I had the curtain tucked down behind the radiator and some of the bedclothes on the radiator,” Patrick Lewis told the Irish Times.
“I was blessed I had the curtains tucked in. They took the brunt of it and the rock got tangled in the curtains,” he said.
“I got the note. It was on a dirty piece of cardboard. It was glazed on the back so the guards took it. I’d say they might get prints off it.”
Speaking to RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne today, Hugh Lewis said this was the first time he has “gotten a violent threat”.
“The tone and the narrative has changed substantially over the past period, particularly in the past number of weeks,” he said.
Lewis said his dad “wasn’t able to eat” the day after the attack “because he was kind of in shock”.
“It’s not a nice experience for anybody, particularly a 78-year-old man living on his own,” he said.
“It was quite a traumatic experience that he should never have gone through to say the least.”
A rock with the message "stop supporting refugees" was thrown through the window of Independent Cllr Hugh Lewis' family home.
— RTÉ Radio 1 (@RTERadio1) July 19, 2023
His father (78) who lives alone there is shaken by the attack. Mr Lewis said the majority of the locals do not agree with recent protests @TodaywithClaire pic.twitter.com/Ah2bNz0OpS
Lewis said on social media yesterday that his “family home was shamefully attacked”.
“Now is not the time for knee jerk reactions. It’s a time for calmness and solidarity.”
Gardaí confirmed in a statement to The Journal that they are “investigating an incident of criminal damage that occurred at a residence in Ballybrack, Co Dublin at approximately 11.30pm on Monday”.
In a statement, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett condemned as “shocking and vile” the recent attack on Lewis’ father’s home.
“I am certain the actions of a small group do not represent the views of the vast majority of people in the Ballybrack or wider Dún Laoghaire area, but I would ask anyone who has been taken in by the prejudice, fearmongering and mis-information to think again and reject this politics of fear, hate and intimidation,” Boyd Barrett said.
“Hatred, division and intimidation will lead us to a bad place, and I hope our entire community will reject this dangerous poison and step away from these mis-directed and ugly protests.”
Separately, gardaí yesterday attended an incident in Ballybrack village which began at around 2pm.
“A number of people gathered in the area, causing disruption to traffic later in the evening. Local diversions were put in place for a period of time,” gardaí said in a statement.
Gardaí also confirmed they are investigating an incident of criminal damage which happened at a property in the village.
No arrests in relation to this incident have been made.
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