Migrants recall being met with anti-migrant protests from people 'who do not speak for Fermoy'

“The night we came to Fermoy, it was so traumatic, it was so depressing, to see such a crowd of people, it was a cold night, a dark night, and it was very frightening that there was so many people there, shouting at us, and saying we were not welcome,” Rebecca* says.

Rebecca is in her early 30s and from Angola. She fled to Ireland last year with her daughter. She recalls the night last November when they arrived in the North Cork town and were met by an 80-strong anti-migrant protest outside the former convent which is now their home.

“I was one of the first people arriving in Fermoy that night and it was very scary,” she says. “You have to remember, we had no idea where we were, and we had no way of knowing that these people are not the real people from Fermoy, and they don’t speak for the real people from Fermoy.”

On the night of November 30 last year, 80 people picketed a newly opened accommodation centre on the south side of the town, demanding the immediate deportation of 63 international protection (IP) applicants, 25 of them children, who had just arrived at the former Presentation convent.

Those initial IP applicants included 19 families and eight single women, all fleeing war and persecution in countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria. A spokesperson for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth said there are currently 119 people living in St Joseph’s, including 54 children: “The department is not in a position to comment on nationalities or countries of origin, as Under Section 26 of the International Protection Act 2015, [IP applicants] have a statutory right to anonymity.”

'Refugees are welcome'

The majority of the people picketing St Joseph’s that first night were not locals, Chris O’Connell from the volunteer group Fermoy For All points out, but rather veterans of anti-refugee protests all around the country. Three days after the first protest in Fermoy, 300 local people attended a demonstration on the other side of town, across the river, outside the Church of Ireland, holding aloft banners reading “Refugees are Welcome”.

Graham Clifford, founder of the Sanctuary Runners, told the crowd it was important to remember that refugees are people like anyone else, and they are welcome in Fermoy.

“Kindness flows through this town like the river that runs through it,” Mr Clifford said.

Daniel, from Nigeria, and in his 30s, agrees. “Now we have been living here for this time, we know what the real people from Fermoy are like, and it is especially good that we have been volunteering in the Tidy Towns, and getting to know the local people, people like Fernando and Paul, to us they are the real people of Fermoy, very accommodating, very accepting, and very welcoming.”

His two children "are integrating, they see this place as their home now”.

In recent times, anti-migrant protests in Fermoy have dwindled to occasional, single-number gatherings.

Alice is from Somalia, and is in her late 20s. “In the beginning, it was scary because of people that protest, and there was this day I was walking on the street and a protesting man pointed at me and my friend and said ‘What are you eff doing here?’ and that was scary,” she said. “But at the moment it’s okay. Most people in Fermoy are very good people.”

*The names of some of the people seeking international protection and quoted here have been changed.