“NEVER AGAIN” went the chant as more than 1,500 people walked through Dublin city centre on Saturday in memory of Toyosi Shitta-bey, the teenager who was stabbed close to his home in Tyrrelstown the week before.
Among those who gathered at the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square before marching to Dáil Éireann were hundreds of school friends, neighbours and family members of the 15-year-old, whose family had moved to Ireland from Nigeria more than a decade ago.
Handwritten placards bobbed in the crowd. “Enough is enough,” read one. “Say no to racism,” said another. “Let’s unite and be one,” declared yet another.
Toyosi’s cousin, Abisoye Shitta-bey, who had stressed that the rally would be a peaceful commemoration of a vibrant life cut short when the talented young footballer was killed as he returned home from the National Aquatic Centre on Good Friday, recited a poem she had composed for the occasion.
“God wanted a football player for his team in heaven. He looked down and say Toyosi Shitta-bey,” she said as the crowd hushed. “So God took him by the hand . . . You are safe where you are . . . in God’s care.”
Standing nearby was Toyosi’s mother Bola, dressed in black headwrap and robe, her face drawn with grief behind gold-rimmed sunglasses. Some of her other sons were also present.
“I know he would not like us to grieve for too long,” continued Abisoye. “He would like us to remember the many good memories . . . We hope Toyosi’s death will be the last of its kind.”
Several speakers addressed the rally, including representatives of the African community, Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins and Jack O’Connor of Siptu.
“Never again should something like this happen in this country,” said Eric Yao of the Africa Centre. “We want to make sure that Toyosi’s death was not in vain.”
Interspersed with the tributes to Toyosi were barbs directed at the Government for cutting funding to migrant support groups and organisations working to counter racism. There was much talk about the prevalence of what Joe Higgins called “low-level racism” in Irish society.
“Racism was here before any immigrants arrived,” a Chinese woman told the gathering. “Ask any member of the Travelling community.”
Jack O’Connor spoke of the need for unity and solidarity in the wake of Toyosi’s death. “No one should attempt, on the basis of this tragic event, to promote division or disharmony on the basis of where someone lives or comes from,” he said.
“Everyone who lives in Ireland today owes their ancestry to people who came here from somewhere else.”
As the rally snaked its way to Kildare Street, accompanied by several members of the Garda, many participants grew emotional as the chants of “We want justice” grew louder.
Later, outside the Dáil, Minister of State Ciarán Cuffe, speaking on behalf of Minister for Integration Mary White, told the crowd: “There is no black Ireland or white Ireland, there is one Ireland. There is no old Ireland and new Ireland, there is one Ireland.” He said Ms White would work with the Minister for Justice to “make sure those who committed this crime face the penalties that they deserve under the laws of this land”.
Mr Cuffe also pledged that “if the laws need to be changed [Ms White] will not be found wanting”.
Mr Cuffe then turned, as did a number of other speakers, to the words of Martin Luther King, calling for “dignity and for discipline” and the need to “hew a stone of hope out of this mountain of despair”.