Mum's the word as thugs read riot act

MANY words have been spilled over the night of shame that was Dublin's November 2023 riots.

- Neil LESLIE

From Dail debates to Garda reviews, Liveline phone-ins to the two cents of the US Bureau of Counterterrorism, which classified the events under “White-Identity Terrorism/Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism” in its annual report that year.

A group of playwrights even turned it into art for a special Culture Night event.

But few have captured the essence of the mayhem that unfolded as well as the mother of one of the rioters.

In court this week we saw a sheepish 20-year-old Evan Moore.

While still just a teenager, Evan left his home in Grangemore Road, Donaghmede, to join the great looting insurrection of 2023.

In the midst of the fury he caused €5 million in damage to a city Luas tram.

He got three years in jail for his troubles.

He can't say he wasn't warned. Like many a fearful parent, his mother texted him that night to get home. She told him in the most succinct terms what this riot was all about,

Never mind the views of US counter-terrorism intelligence or what was described as “malignant narcissists” driving the violence online.

What we had here was a simple case of “scumbags wrecking their own city” in the words of Evan's mother.

The city fathers should commission a monument to Tram No.5037 (we know its name courtesy of the annual report of Transdev) and chisel those five words on it in stone.