Crime & Law

Gardaí make further arrest over Dublin city riots in November

Arrest of man marks 38th detention over unrest with further arrests expected in coming weeks as criminal investigation into events of November 23rd continues

The Luas which was set alight during rioting in Dublin last November. Photograph: Tom Honan

Conor Lally
Thu May 2 2024 - 15:11

Gardaí have made their 38th arrest in connection with the Dublin riots last November, after a man was detained in the city on Thursday. On the day of the riots, which were sparked by far-right agitators, 34 suspects were arrested. Three others were subsequently detained with a fourth arrest coming on Thursday.

The latest suspect to be quizzed by gardaí is in his 30s. He was arrested by gardaí based in Store Street station, in the north inner city. The Garda said he had been arrested as part of the ongoing investigation into “the serious public disorder events of November 23rd, 2023, in Dublin city centre”.

“He is currently detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984, at a Garda station in the Dublin region,” added the brief Garda statement confirming the man’s arrest. The Garda added it was continuing to appeal to anyone with information to come forward.

A major criminal investigation is continuing and gardaí were expected to arrest more suspects in the coming weeks and months, with CCTV images expected to form the basis of much of the evidence.

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Gardaí believe they have identified at least a dozen more suspects responsible for some of the most serious crimes during the Dublin riots, including the destruction of a Luas tram, buses and Garda cars in arson attacks.

Images of where the disturbance began, during daylight hours and involving a small group of people, have been closely studied, as well as footage of the more serious incidents that later took place on the day and night, up to around midnight.

The trouble began at a cordon around a crime scene where children and their care worker had been targeted in a stabbing outside a school on Parnell Square East in the city centre at lunchtime on November 23rd. When rumours began circulating that the suspect for the stabbing was a foreign national, far-right agitators gathered at the scene, attempting to break through it.

That incident provoked clashes between those present and Public Order Unit gardaí, with the violence then spreading. Hundreds of other people, many believed by gardaí to be opportunists with no political ideology, then joined the violence.

Shops were looted while a Luas tram, buses and Garda vehicles were destroyed in arson attacks in one of the worst nights of violence the city had witnessed in the modern era.

Conor Lally

Conor Lally

Conor Lally is Security and Crime Editor of The Irish Times

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