Fear and sympathy in small town divided over asylum camp

A year after anti-immigration riots, a site for asylum seekers faces hostility while some locals try to help new arrivals

- Lisa O'Carroll

In the small town of Newtown Mount Kennedy, a holding centre for people who have just arrived in Ireland seeking asylum lies in the wooded grounds of Trudder House, a former convent. The building itself is disused and off-limits. Instead, men arriving from countries such as Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria are housed in 12-16 makeshift tents, separated from the town by a 3-metretall fence daubed with graffiti reading: "Newtown says no."

Craig Bishop, a retired GP who is part of Newtown Together, a group of volunteers trying to support the camp's residents, said the barricade created an immediate sense of "them and us". "They come all this way for protection only to be behind a fence to be protected from who? From the locals," he said.

Even before it was established in May, the camp in NTMK, as the town is known for short, had been a focus of controversy. When word got out in March that the site would be used as a centre for some of the 16,000 applicants for international protection who have arrived in Ireland this year, tensions mounted, with 24-hour protests taking place outside the property.

In April, attempts by the police to disperse the crowds resulted in violent clashes, and five people were charged. Local people protested that the demonstrations were turned nasty by outside antagonists fuelled by an anti-immigration narrative.