Swatti Verma was coming out of a gym in Dublin earlier this month when she came across a middle-aged woman who seemed to be looking for directions. Verma’s instinct was to stop to help, but she was met by a barrage of verbal abuse.
“You’re coming to Ireland paying landlords. Biggest mistake you’ve ever made,” the woman shouted at Verma (34). “Why can’t you go back to your own country? India is not a European country.”
This type of incident is all-too-routine in the Irish capital, many immigrants in the city say. What made this different was the abuse was video-recorded; a clip later went viral online.
Verma, a musician and data analyst, recalls how the woman started “yelling at me” and “she started questioning me about if I have a work permit to work in the country, if I have an Irish passport, or where do I live.”
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Someone in a car passing by intervened and shouted at the woman.
It wasn’t the first such episode for Verma. She describes being harassed several times in Dublin and believes she has been targeted for the colour of her skin and because of her accent.
One of the most traumatic episodes was in July last year while she was busking in Henry Street, Dublin, and was harassed by two youngsters.
“They started trying to throw my equipment away while I was packing them and trying to tear my busking licence … saying, ‘Why are you here? Go back, you bitch’.
“It was frightening. One of them literally took off his pants and flashed at me. I was in shock.”
She described other minor but distressing events, including people shouting slurs and one person who attempted to poke something in her eye. “Small things happen a lot. But they add up,” she says.
Data from An Garda Síochána shows the total number of hate crimes and hate-related non-crime incidents increased last year to 676 from 651 in 2023, a 25-case increase and a 4 per cent year-over-year increase.
The Government last year decided to drop planned new legal provisions combating hate speech, and instead passed a watered-down Bill through the Oireachtas on crimes with a proven link to hatred directed at a protected group.
Earlier this month, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan told the Dáil he had no intention to reintroduce the hate-speech elements of what is now the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024.
Laís Mendes (45), a Brazilian hairdresser who has been targeted by racist abuse on a number of occasions in Dublin, said she found it “absurd” that the hate speech elements of the law had been dropped.
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“It is very painful to know that we are not well protected by the law of Ireland. When we are walking on the street and someone offends us with low-level words, slurs, with words of hatred, a speech of anger. So this means that I will continue to walk with fear,” she said.
Mendes was at the centre of a video that went viral during summer in which she and another Brazilian woman were racially abused by an Irish woman in Dublin.
In the incident, which took place in July, the Irish woman described the pair as “Africans” and said “you belong in Africa”, saying: “You need to leave our country.”
The other Brazilian woman was Vanessa Jackson (44), a singer who has been studying English in Dublin for six months.
The incident occurred in front of Mendes’ salon in Dublin.
“Racism has no place with me. It exists all over the world. It’s not just here in Ireland. Everywhere there is racism. The way people look at us, the jokes, will always exist,” Jackson says.
“But we have to impose ourselves and fight for our place. That’s why I decided to post it. That’s why it went viral.”
Mendes says the support she received from friends and Irish people after the incident has helped her emotionally.
“I was cared [for]. I received flowers. I received many messages of affection and support from Irish people. A priest sent me a message. Irish people, who are from the salon area, went to the salon because they saw the video. They brought me flowers. They embraced me. They said that this lady doesn’t represent Ireland,” Mendes says.
The incident, however, was not isolated. Mendes says over the past eight years she has experienced several racist and xenophobic episodes. Once, she was verbally abused on a bus.
“A man called me a monkey, told me to get off the bus, said that I was smelly. I was with my children that day. So I was paralysed, right, so that the children wouldn’t get into that moment, that conversation, that speech. In fact, I didn’t argue, to protect my children. He kept talking, screaming,” she says.
“I cried a lot. I always cry, because my biggest fear is that I have two children, and how will it be for my children? Either here, or in any other place in this world, in any other country. How will my children be treated? In the same way that I’m being, that my generation is being, offended, excluded? That worries me a lot, a lot.”
For Jairo Guzmán (31), a Chilean man who was assaulted in Dublin last year, more should be done to decrease the violence and punish the criminals.
“I don’t feel secure. I don’t feel safe,” he said. “The Government says it is tackling hate, but those who commit these acts aren’t sanctioned,” he says.
“I think that what the Government of Ireland is doing is not enough for what is happening. Maybe they don’t accept European laws, but they have to respond to what is happening, and they are not doing it in the best way.”
On November 6, 2024, Guzmán, who works as an after-school supervisor, was subjected to a violent, unprovoked attack while crossing Guild Street close to Dublin’s North Wall.
Three young males rushed up to him without saying anything, shoved him and hit him repeatedly in the face. Guzmán thinks the attack was motivated by race, even though the perpetrators took nothing.
“They attacked me because of the colour of my skin; I wasn’t speaking in any language. It was discrimination.”
He needed stitches and hospital care for severe facial injuries and had to pay for the replacement of his damaged prescription glasses.
For Dr Pilar Luz Rodrigues, a postdoctoral researcher and immigration sociologist, there are signals that some of the victims’ physical characteristics, including skin tone and other ethnic traits, give rise to suspicions that physical and random attacks might be motivated by racism and xenophobia.
“There was a lot of racism, a lot of problems of immigrants suffering these attacks, people saying things like ‘Go back to your country, you are an immigrant’. The aggressors end up attacking all these groups that are more vulnerable. Men, women, blacks, immigrants,” she says.
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“Sometimes it’s not racially motivated, but at the same time we see the growth of this rhetoric of sending immigrants home, blaming immigrants for everything that’s happening in Ireland, for not having housing, etc. So, it’s another group, not necessarily young people.”
Verma says she has “mixed emotions” about the Government’s response.
“On one hand, I’m relieved that the justice minister has publicly acknowledged what’s happening. And he said that these attacks are completely unacceptable. But it’s good to hear that new hate offence laws, which were from 2024, I believe, can increase punishment for crimes motivated by hate.”
She does not, however, believe that the current steps are adequate.
“I’m glad hate offence laws from 2024 offer stronger punishments. But it still doesn’t feel like enough. What’s missing is consistent implementation, education, and visible accountability. People say it’s freedom of speech. But freedom should come with respect.”
Despite her experiences, Verma is quick to say her overall experience of Ireland has been positive.
“I know it’s a small minority doing this. Most Irish people I’ve met are warm, kind, and welcoming,” she says.
“But that doesn’t erase the fear. You walk faster if it’s dark. You avoid certain streets. You’re always alert. That kind of fear stays with you. Safety isn’t about protection alone – it’s about being able to live freely in the city you call home.”
